Amazin’s Rx
THERE is no hype, and there is less heat. Where most of the Mets’ vaunted pitching staff brought a résumé or a slingshot arm to the big leagues, Tyler Pill’s ticket so far may be just a statistical anomaly: Thirty and one-third innings pitched, no earned runs to begin his minor league season.
Pill prides himself on a brain to outsmart hitters, but he might need it just as much to persuade both his organization and onlookers that a pitcher without gas can drive himself to the big leagues — a growing proposition as the Mets seem to limp more with every game.
The fourth-round pick in 2011 is turning 27 this month and not so much getting hitters out as he is letting hitters make outs. In 36 innings, split between Double-A and Triple-A, Pill struck out 15, pitching to quick, mostly groundball contact, but yielded zero earned runs (and seven unearned) before he allowed an earned run Friday night. He relies on his defense, as much by design as by requirement: A pitcher with an average fastball velocity of 87, according to a scout, doesn’t have a choice.
“When you don’t throw that hard, you really have to pay attention to the hitters and learn the game a little more,” Pill said over the phone this week from Triple-A Las Vegas. “You have to read the hitters, in-game adjustments, basically work off that. I’m just trying to read them.”
It’s a slight adjustment for the career minor leaguer, who started this season at Double-A Binghamton before getting promoted after two starts. But he thinks he has discovered something in quick at-bats that allow him to hide his full arsenal — fastball, changeup, curveball and slider — until later in games.
“This year I’m just trying to get outs instead of trying to make the best pitch,” said Pill, a righty, who holds a 40-29 record and 4.04 ERA in seven minor league seasons. “Trying to get outs immediately.”
The results have been impressive. The arm hasn’t convinced. The Mets carry an army of horses, in which high-90s is the norm and strikeouts abound (helpful for a staff with a shoddy defense behind it).
Pill, from Covina, Calif., and a two-way college star at Cal State Fullerton, is the antithesis. This is his fourth stint in Triple-A, and he has reached the major league doorstep each of the past three seasons. But he had been lit up with each promotion, unable to get by with guile in the hitterfriendly Pacific Coast League.
“He’s an overachiever,” said the scout, who has seen Pill pitch this season and compared him with former Oakland Athletics righty Justin Duchscherer. “A pitch-ability guy. Guys like him can go up for a couple of starts before people figure him out. He throws strikes.”
Consider the Mets curious. Their ace-filled staff is in tatters, and a season after Robert Gsellman and Seth Lugo were successful reinforcements, their system is bare. If not Pill, 29-year-old journeyman Adam Wilk is in the wings, but the lefty is struggling at Triple-A (2-3, 5.91 ERA).
“[Pill has] certainly stepped up in performance and given himself every opportunity that he can to continue to advance his game to the next level,” said Mets Director of Minor League Operations Ian Levin, who balked at the notion this run of dominance came out of nowhere.
“Well, he was a fourth-round pick in 2011, so he’s always had talent. ... For him, it’s just a matter of finding the mix that makes him effective. He’s done a really nice job so far.”
Levin and Pedro Lopez, Pill’s manager with the Las Vegas 51s, agreed he possesses a skillset the Mets don’t have. With Bartolo Colon’s departure, craftiness left the Mets’ rotation — a fact that could help Pill as he awaits a call.
“Anytime you’re different and it’s effective, it’s a potential advantage,” Levin said.
It’s a potential advantage the Mets aren’t rushing. Pill has watched live arm after live arm leapfrog him en route to the majors. The radar gun hasn’t turned heads, which, after a pause, Pill admitted he finds frustrating.
“I see the point,” Pill said of valuing pitchers whose velocity breaks speed guns. “I see why people are so interested in it, why people like it so much. The margin for error, there’s a lot more room for error for your pitches.
“But I think the guys who don’t throw hard, they’re still around.”