Yorvit for...

[MarinersFan87]

...Marcos Carvajal.

Pretty much the nastiest RP you could ask for. For more, check out (Detect-o-vision):

BobbyDon says it's Marcos Carvajal that the M's got for Torrealba; see SportSpot for his logic. If so, that's a stunning coup for Bavasi, and here's a little bit to read with your latte. ...If not, no harm done.

We tend to suspect there's something wrong with the Carvajal deduction, only because of how good Carvajal is. In fact, the Rockies' fans take it as a matter of course that Carvajal (at 20!) was the major league club's best reliever.

Carvajal is 6'4", 175, super-slender with a whiplike pitcher's body, is from Felix Hernandez' home country, Venezuela, and in 2005 he became the youngest pitcher ever to appear for the Rockies -- only a year older than Felix at his own debut.

Carvajal pitched very well in the NL at 20, against good solid competition, though few people seem to have found this notable. LOL.

All reports agree that he throws a legit 92-96 with a hard slider and an effective changeup.
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Baseball Prospectus 2005
Dominated the Sally League with very live stuff at the age of 19. He'll start the year at high-A, but he's got a long way to go, especially as he battles the injury concerns so prevalent with precocious arms (they mean, just generally with young flamethrowers - DrD). He throws hard, which is why the Brewers picked him up in the Rule V Draft, and sold him to the Rockies. So you might well get a chance to see him doing mop-up duties at Coors Field (at 20 - DrD). And with the Rockies, that could be 350 innings of work.


Dr. D on the 2005 Translated Stats
At the age of 20, Carvajal's Rockie performance -- his MAJOR league peripherals -- were, translated:

8.3 k
3.0 bb
1.0 hr

If Carvajal did that for 200 innings as a starter, he would be one of the ten best pitchers in the league, of course. ...He did it for 53 innings in relief, with the Rockies, which is still a closer-worthy season, if you normalize it.

Wow. Twenty years old. Who is this guy?
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John Erhardt, August 2005
Free pitchers are good. Free pitchers who rank fourth on your team in VORP are even better. Marcos Carvajal came from the Dodgers (via the Brewers) in last winter's Rule V draft (yes, Erhardt put in Rule V inadvertently, so feel free to charge him with "not knowing what he's talking about" - DrD).

Scouting reports weren't terribly optimistic about him, as he'd thrown just 3 innings higher than low-A ball before this season. (Say WHAT?! At 19 he's behind the curve if he isn't in AA?!- Dr D)

He's made the jump nicely:
Stat Total Team Rank
IP 46.3 8th highest
H/9 8.74 5th best
BB/9 3.50 7th lowest
K/9 6.99 8th highest
HR/9 .97 8th lowest
VORP 6.0 4th highest
BABIP .301 6th best

It's also worth noting that he has odd reverse-Coors splits, as his home ERA is 2.86 (28.1 IP), while his road ERA is 7.00 (18 IP). (When you're dealing with such small samples of relief usage, a few extra hits allowed on the road can have giant ramifications, so this isn't as meaningful as we'd like.) (Um, yeah - DrD)

(Erhardt goes on to note that Carvajal faced hitters who were 17 OPS points below average -- that is to say, for all intents and purposes, average NL hitters - Dr D)
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Rockies Blog
The Barmes blog took it as a matter of course that Carvajal, at 20, was the Rockies' best relief pitcher.

Carvajal began his pro career as a starter, as does nearly every major league pitching prospect, but was moved into the pen by his second full year in the minors. In any case, he pitched well throughout, compiling a career 2.10 ERA and averaging just a tick above a strikeout an inning. The Rockies essentially paid the Brewers to take him in the Rule 5 draft back in December '04 (because Colorado wanted LA's Matt Merricks as well).

Carvajal made his name in the minors predominantly with a high-nineties fastball, but as BA notes he now has a complementary slurve (demonstrated yesterday to great effect against J.D. Drew).

Sickels, a notoriously tough grader, merits him a B-, and says with refinements to his command Marcos "has a good chance to emerge as a dominating power reliever." The Prospectus is less bullish, stating Carvajal has "a long way to go," and projects him for mopup duty in Colorado, obviously not taking into account the quality (or lack thereof) of his mates in the Rockies bullpen.

The obvious caveat to all of the nice things the prospect books say about Marcos Carvajal is the possibility of injury. He is, after all, only twenty, and as much as the temptation may be for Clint Hurdle to use his best bullpen weapon as much as possible, great caution must be taken, especially considering the adjustment to altitude. The Rockies aren't going to have much need for a dominant setup man this year anyway.

In my estimation the best thing to do with Carvajal is pitch him in two- or three-inning stints every few days, regularly as possible, and avoid back-to-back appearances especially at Coors.

The Rockies can't send him down to the SkySox for seasoning (as a Rule 5 pick, Marcos has to stay with the big league club or else be offered back to the Dodgers, who would almost certainly want him), so great care must be taken to avoid those psyche-damaging Coors innings that send the ERA rocketing and the confidence plunging.

Carvajal can do what Dan O'Dowd wants out of his pitchers these days: change speeds.

His fastball pushes 100 and his slurve is nearly 20 MPH slower. If he can keep throwing both pitches for strikes, he'll be a major contributor down the line. Now only if they had two or three more righties and a lefty or two like him.


BP, March 2005
... With only three innings on his resume above Low-A, Carvajal is not a known quantity, but he’s struck out a batter an inning so far in his professional career and is plenty young to have completed a successful first year in full-season ball.

He’s got three viable pitches and his fastball is in the mid-90s; in fact, he’s only in the bullpen because scouts don’t think his frame can handle a starting workload. He also throws ground balls at an above-average rate, making him a possibility when the game calls for a double play. Besides their closer, the Rockies don’t have a right-hander who can induce a ground ball, which is of paramount importance at altitude.

Getting Carvajal essentially for nothing (just the $50,000 drafting price plus the $25,000 they paid to the Brewers, who first picked him) and letting him stay on the roster during a meaningless year is a low-risk, high-upside move.

Something notable about Carvajal: his BABIP (batting average against on balls in play) was a scant .250 last year, so some regression to the mean is to be expected there. PECOTA expects an equivalent ERA just shy of 5.00, which will look lousy in Coors Field, but Carvajal, especially since he will be used in low-pressure situations, could come out of 2005 looking like one of the better pitchers on the staff. (These amigos continue to find it unremarkable that a kid register as a quality MLB pitcher at 20 - DrD)

He walks a few batters, though – 85 in 184 professional innings to date...

Would assume that there's no way the Rockies would cough up this amigo for Yorvit Torrealba. But, hey, maybe they figgered "he was just $75,000 to us." We can dream.

Enjoy,
Dr. D

[Porter]

if we got that potential for some defensive shitty catcher...I take it and run.

[MarinersFan87]

We also got another reliever (whose name I can't remember) who has some pretty good stuff. We must have some dirty pictures of someone in the Rockies FO.