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Every year, an organization protects certain young arms that they want to protect from being poached by other teams. Some, useful southpaws that could develop into a LOOGY or more. Others, serving as roster chum to be stirred and cast out to sea as needed.
These are their stories.
2021 stats
Jones: 1⁄3 IP, 9.00 WHIP, 0.0 K%, 50.0 BB%, 0.0 HR/9, 0.00 ERA (21.17 FIP), 0.0 fWAR
Paulino: 2 IP, 1.50 WHIP, 0.0 K%, 0.0 BB%, 4.50 HR/9, 9.00 ERA (9.67 FIP), 0.0 fWAR
Rosso: 8 IP, 1.63 WHIP, 20.0 K%, 8.6 BB%, 2.25 HR/9, 5.63 ERA (5.79 FIP), -0.1 fWAR
The good
Innings needed to be soaked up and these three guys did their best to do so. Sure what they soaked up was blood stained and vomit filled, but hey - someone has to do it!
The bad
Again, as it was with some of the other report cards we’ve produced so far, these aren’t meant to be indictments of the players and their abilities. They aren’t good, but they also made the major leagues as pitchers and that’s admirable.
These three are just another blemish against the inability of the front office to pivot from players that were clearly not going to work out here and to other players who could have been plucked from the freely available talent pool and given a chance to grab lightning in a bottle. It’s what we have said over and over: they as a team have to be better at identifying earlier which players aren’t going to work here and move on from them rather than let them hold a roster spot hostage.
The future
Of the three, you’d like to think that Jones would have at least a chance of making the roster, but he is no longer on the 40-man roster. A little surprising given he’s left handed with decent stuff, but he just can’t put it all together.
Paulino was let go months ago, so au revoir, my friend.
Rosso remains on the 40-man as of this writing, but he’s likely one of the first ones to be dropped if and when a better option becomes available for the team. To this I ask: why wait?
Final grade(s): F
They aren’t good now, nor will they be good in the future.