Paulino gets promoted, will start Thursday
CLEVELAND — Dallas Keuchel’s season-threatening bout with shoulder inflammation expedited the path to the majors for one of the Astros’ top pitching prospects.
David Paulino, a 6-7, 215-pound righthander with only three Class AAA starts to his credit, joined the Astros on Tuesday and will make his major league debut in a start Thursday against the Indians at Progressive Field.
Joe Musgrove, Collin McHugh and Mike Fiers were all pushed back a day and will start this weekend against the Cubs at Minute Maid Park. The Astros do not plan to keep a six-man rotation, so the likeliest scenario has Brad Peacock returning to the bullpen after Tuesday’s spot start.
The ahead-of-schedule promotion of Paulino signifies an upside play for the Astros. Realistically, he wasn’t in their plans at the big league level until 2017. But with Keuchel and Lance McCullers sidelined for the foreseeable future and Paulino already on the 40-man roster, perhaps they can capitalize on hitters’ lack of experience against the 22-year-old Dominican and catch lightning in a bottle for a couple starts.
But whether Paulino is truly ready for the major leagues remains to be seen.
“I think when we look at what he’s capable of doing — pitch-wise, repertoirewise, command-wise — he has a chance to be a really good starter at the big leagues in short order,” general manager Jeff Luhnow said.
“While it wasn’t part of our plan, with Dallas missing some time we figured this is as good an opportunity as we’re ever going to get to put him into an important game or two and see what he’s got. Because we know the stuff is there.”
Luhnow said the Astros believe Paulino has topof-the-rotation potential down the road. He complements a fastball in the mid90s with a heavy curveball and a changeup and slider that are his clear-cut third and fourth pitches. Baseball America ranked him the industry’s 47th-best prospect at midseason.
But regardless of the caliber of prospect, debuting in the middle of a wild-card race against a first-place team on the road presents a unique situation and a stiff challenge for Paulino. On the flip side, the Astros’ options are limited. Paulino was the last healthy pitcher on the 40-man roster not already with the team.
No ‘what-ifs’
“We’re not going to leave any stone unturned in our quest to make the playoffs,” Luhnow said. “We’re not going to leave someone down there and wonder, ‘What if?’ (If) we come a game or two away from getting to the playoffs and we have a couple bad starts from different pitchers and we wonder what would have happened if Paulino had been up here? We’re not going to be able to say that.”
Paulino, who arrived at the ballpark just before batting practice Tuesday and will speak to the media before Wednesday night’s game, last started at Class AAA on Sept. 1, pitching five scoreless innings at Tacoma in the best of his three outings with Fresno.
Eventful season
The pitcher’s season has been interesting, to say the least. He was suspended by the organization in June while in Class AA for an undisclosed violation of team rules. Then he missed time with a sore arm. He went almost two months between starts in Class AA. Once he returned in mid-August, he made only one start with Corpus Christi before he was promoted to Fresno.
After posting a 1.83 ERA in 64 Texas League innings, Paulino recorded a 3.86 ERA in his 14 innings in the Pacific Coast League. He struck out 20 but also issued two walks in each of his three starts for Fresno.
The Astros got Paulino three years ago as a throwin to the trade-deadline deal that sent Jose Veras to the Tigers for the recently released Danry Vasquez. Paulino had just undergone Tommy John surgery when the Astros selected him as the player to be named that September.
“We saw enough of that in the (Dominican Summer League) and prior to him getting injured that we figured it was worth taking a chance on him and knowing that (because) he was going to be out for a year, Detroit was probably more amenable to giving him up,” Luhnow said.
“(Astros director of pro scouting) Kevin Goldstein and his pro scouting staff deserve all of the credit for that. I had never heard of David Paulino. In fact, when I called (then-Tigers GM) Dave Dombrowski, he had to sort of hang up the phone and go find out about him, too.”
After missing the 2014 season, Paulino opened last year with short-season Class A Tri-City and finished it with advanced Class A Lancaster. The Astros planned for him to garner more seasoning in the Arizona Fall League that begins next month, but that will be an unlikely occurrence if he finishes the season with the Astros. Although he has logged only 90 innings this season, the workload is his career high.
“Sometimes you see young guys come up and lock in, and it makes it difficult on guys that haven’t seen him before. Other times, they struggle,” manager A.J. Hinch said. “We believe Paulino’s upside is real, and it’s an exciting time to promote him. But also with the September expanded rosters, we have a chance to protect him a little bit with the number of relievers that we’ll have in the pen.”