Anyone else feel like Rick Porcello was horrendously mishandled? I remember I kinda speculated on this last year. It looked like him an Cahill were in the same boat, barely surviving at the big league level. They both only threw their fastballs and ditched their lauded curves for crappy sliders, so yea, neither had any k's. The difference was Porcello could find the strike zone, Cahill could not.
Then there's this season. Cahill was sent to AAA to start He has pretty much scrapped the shitty slider and refound his curveball. He's startin to strike guys out, walk a few less, and his groundballs are going up. Porcello, on the other hand, has nearly turned into Cahill of last year. What makes me so optimistic about Cahill is that he has a record of outstanding success in the low minors. Crazy k%, gb%, not bad bb%. So while it was pretty fucking irresponsible of the A's to let Cahill get murdered all season last year, they at least sent him back to the minors and rethink his approach, get back to what made him a beast.
Porcello, however, never really had any excuse to be in a big league rotation other than glowing scouting reports. He never struck anybody out in the minors. I remember everyone said it was because the tigers weren't letting him throw his curveball. If that is the case, why the fuck was Porcello jumped to the majors without ever getting any experience with his breaking ball against pro hitters? I'm not saying I saw this season coming, Porcello was surprisingly passable last season, but his development path just makes so little sense that it isn't all that surprising that he has collapsed this year. I feel a little bad for him, but mostly I'm just glad it's him that collapsed and not Cahill. I complain a ton about the bad breaks the A's receive, but Cahill is really looking like a lucky one for once.
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