Taking Stock of the Diamondbacks Young Starting Pitchers

Hope was high for the crop of five young starters the team had coming out of the 2022 season. Only one of them has taken a step forward as a reliable member of the rotation so far.

Slade Cecconi pitches against the Dodgers at Dodger Stadium May 20, 2024 / Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports

Slade Cecconi threw a curveball to Will Smith. Seeming to know what was coming, the Dodgers catcher put a good swing on the pitch and drilled it over the wall in left field. One batter prior, Freddie Freeman got a 92 MPH fastball at the bottom of the zone and crushed it over the centerfield wall for grand slam. Enrique Hernandez had led off the inning with a solo homer.

The six run inning was all the Dodgers needed to defeat the Diamondbacks 6-4 behind Yoshinobu Yamamoto. Cecconi didn't even start the game as he'd already been relegated to being the "bulk pitcher" behind opener Joe Mantiply.

That's because Cecconi has had great difficulty maintaining his stuff the second and third time around the order. This is yet another poignant reminder of the difficulty of developing starting pitching.

At the end of 2022 the D-backs appeared to be on the cusp of introducing a wave of good young starting pitching to the Major Leagues. Ryne Nelson, Drey Jameson, and Tommy Henry all had impressive debuts towards the end of the season. Brandon Pfaadt and Cecconi were equally impressive pitching in extremely difficult pitching environments in Double-A Amarillo and Triple-A Reno

Speaking at the Winter Meetings in December of 2022, Mike Hazen tempered expectations however, pointing out  that these pitchers have not gone through the grind of a full major league season. He said at the time we'll have to wait and see how they do once teams have the full book on them and we've seen the full cycle of a 162 games season.

That cautionary tone turned out to be prescient. Below is a summary of how these five have fared so far in their major league careers. They are all still young enough to improve. But these are not 22-23 year old prospects we're looking at. They are in their mid 20's and time is growing short for them to establish themselves as bonafide major league starters.

Ryne Nelson, RHP Age 26

Nelson has made 37 career starts and two relief apperances. In 191.2 innings he's 11-12 with a 5.21 ERA and a 4.81 FIP (Fielding Independent pitching). He has a high velocity fastball, but the inability to develop a plus secondary pitch that he can throw for strikes has allowed hitters to sit on the fastball and hit him hard.

In seven starts this year he's thrown just 29.1 innings and given up 48 hits and four homers leading to a 7.06 ERA. His strikeout and swinging strike, or WHIFF rates, are well below league average, ranking in the bottom 15% and 10% the last two years.

Tommy Henry, LHP Age 26

Henry has pitched in 32 games, making 31 starts. In 164.1 innings he is 9-10 with a 4.71 ERA and 4.67 FIP. Henry doesn't have the stuff to blow hitters away. Instead he relies on soft contact. He can be stubborn and not give in to hitters, and at times he's been able to record quick outs.

He's pitched into the 6th inning 15 times in his career. The problem is he walks a few too many batters for that approach to work on a consistent basis. His career 3.7 BB/9 ratio vs. just a 6.8 K/9 leads to a low 1.85 K/BB ratio. That in turn leads to too much contact with men on base.

Henry was demoted to Triple-A Reno after making six starts in place of an injured Eduardo Rodriguez. He posted a 5.40 ERA during those games. In three starts in Reno he had a 4.96 ERA and 3.9 BB/9. He may be ticketed back to MLB soon however if Cecconi ends up getting demoted.

Drey Jameson, RHP, Age 26

Jameson electrified fans with his high 90's heat in four starts at the end of 2022. However he failed to make the rotation coming out of spring training in 2023 and was moved to the bullpen. Unfortunately the team bounced him back and forth between starting and relieving, and that may have contributed to his ultimate elbow injury that required Tommy John Surgery.

Jameson is out for all of 2024, and when he returns will almost certainly be conditioned as a reliever. For his career he's appeared in just 19 games 65 innings pitched with a 2.63 ERA. He has seven starts with a 2.45 ERA and 12 relief appearances posting a 2.81 ERA.

Brandon Pfaadt, RHP, Age 25

Pfaadt is 4-12 with a career 5.16 ERA in 28 games. He got off to a horrific start in 2023 over his first six major league starts, posting a 9.82 ERA and giving up nine homers in 25 innings.

Then he came back in late July and with a few tweaks suggested by Brent Strom was a different pitcher. Over his final 13 games, 70.1 innings, he posted a respectable 4.22 ERA

Pfaadt went on to star in the Postseason, albeit being mostly protected from facing lineups the third time through. In five games, 22 innings, he posted a 3.27 ERA but had just one decision, a loss in the World Series to the Rangers. Still, the team won his first four starts and he was instrumental to making that happen on the game's biggest stage.

Pfaadt has since established himself as a solid pitcher able to go deep in game in 2024 however by throwing 54 innings in nine starts and posting a 4.17 ERA with a 3.37 FIP. That latter number indicates his quality has been better than the ERA as he has 51 strikeouts against just 10 walks. He's thrown four straight quality starts and has five QS in his last six outings.

Slade Cecconi, RHP Age 24

The youngest of the group, Cecconi turns 25 on June 24th of this year. In 13 career games, including nine starts he's thrown 59.1 innings and has a 5.31 ERA. His ERA this year ballooned to 6.12 with last night's outing.

Cecconi has had a pattern for allowing the long ball his entire professional career, and so far in MLB he's allowed 12 homers. As reported by PHNX's Jesse Friedman. when asked after last night's game if Cecconi would be making his next start, Torey Lovullo was non committal.

As mentioned above, these pitchers are all still young enough to improve, and in the case of Pfaadt, he clearly has. Whether Nelson, Henry, or Cecconi will ever establish themselves as starters or be moved to relief roles remains to be seen however. Time, and possibly patience, may be growing short.

A topic for another article is who is in the next wave. We'll be taking a closer look at pitchers like Christian Mena, Blake Walston, Yilber Diaz and Yu-Min Lin. Stay tuned for more Inside the Diamondbacks Analysis.