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Jacob Misiorowski
While there has been some discussion about what Jacob Misiorowski should do with his offseason, perhaps that was premature given the questions about what he should do for the next month.
It’s been an extremely eventful year for the 23-year-old who entered the season as one of the top pitching prospects in all of baseball and burst onto the major league scene with a hot streak, becoming an unlikely All Star after just five MLB appearances. His season has seen some ups and downs since, however. He has a 6.16 ERA in his last seven outings, where he has walked or hit 15 batters in just over 30 innings. In August he had his first stint on the MLB injured list and in September the longest outing of his career (seven innings with one run against the Pirates) was both preceded and followed by performances where he struggled.
Misiorowski has easily the highest upside of any active Brewers pitcher and perhaps of any Brewers pitcher since Ben Sheets’ debut in 2001. That combination of upside and inconsistency, however, raise some significant questions about how the Brewers should use him in the weeks and months ahead.
As noted on Saturday night’s FOX telecast, the current most likely outcome has the Brewers winning the NL Central, finishing with one of the league’s top two records and receiving a bye to the Division Series round of the playoffs. If all of that comes to pass, the Brewers would have five days off to set their rotation for their first postseason game on Saturday, October 4 and three scheduled off days in the series, meaning they could get by with three starting pitchers even if the series goes five games (they would need a fourth starter in the NLCS, where the first five games are played in a span of six days).
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If the Brewers only need three starters for the Division Series, however, then Misiorowski is likely one of the odd men out behind Freddy Peralta, Brandon Woodruff and Quinn Priester (provided all are healthy and available). Given the Brewers’ relatively set postseason rotation and questionable bullpen health Misiorowski would seem like a candidate to pitch out of the bullpen in either high leverage or long relief opportunities. He has extremely limited experience in that role, however: He made 12 relief appearances while finishing the season with AAA Nashville last year and one in April of this season. If he’s going to be called on in that role this October, then he won’t have much experience to draw upon before throwing key innings in critical games. It could make sense to see him there a few times in the season’s final weeks in an effort to prepare him for it and evaluate its possible effectiveness.
Massive Upticks?
With that said, it’s worth noting that one of the most (or least) aggressive options for Misiorowski hasn’t seen much public discussion at all. Between Nashville and the majors Misiorowski has already thrown 123 ⅓ innings this season, almost 30 more than the professional high he set last year and over 50 more than what he threw two seasons ago. While research on the topic has been mixed, conventional wisdom around baseball is that young pitchers who see massive upticks in workload year over year seem more likely to experience adverse outcomes in future years (commonly referred to as the “Verducci Effect”).
There is one extremely high profile precedent for a team prioritizing future over present in dealing with a young star starter. In 2012 the Nationals were 85-53 and up on the field in the NL East when they shut down their young star starter, then-24-year-old and former number one overall pick Stephen Strasburg, with 24 games left in their regular season. Like Misiorowski, Strasburg was an extremely hard thrower who arrived in the majors young. The Nationals lost their first postseason series that season and were heavily criticized for their decision regarding Strasburg, but he went on to average almost 170 innings with a 3.21 ERA each season for the next seven years and won a World Series ring in 2019. Despite being effectively done in the majors at age 30 Baseball Reference has Strasburg as the ninth most valuable player in Nationals/Expos franchise history.
Given this range of precedents and possibilities, Jacob Misiorowski might be one of the Brewers’ most interesting storylines over the next few weeks. Depending on their priorities and risk tolerance it’s possible to build a case for anything from featuring him heavily to not using him at all during this pennant chase.
