Whitley goes to minors with new vibe
Healthy and pitching well, one-time top prospect looks like viable option if injury strikes rotation
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — At around 9:30 a.m. on Sunday, the same time Houston’s major league team gathered for its morning meeting inside the clubhouse, Forrest Whitley emerged in street clothes carrying a backpack. He bid farewell to a few teammates still finishing some early work on an agility field before walking toward the player’s parking lot.
This is a familiar routine for baseball’s former top pitching prospect. Whitley has now been invited to four major league spring trainings. Hype surrounded him each time, but never once did he have a legitimate chance to break camp with the major league team. His eventual demotions arrived with various doses of skepticism for the season ahead, due in part to dubious health and past dreadful results.
Sunday’s carried a completely different tenor. A day earlier, Whitley made perhaps his most encouraging appearance in a major league spring training game. His four-seam fastball touched 96 mph on the stadium radar gun and his sinker generated so much weak contact. Whitley smiled and seemed pleased afterward.
A demotion one day later does count as awkward timing, but it is nothing more than a function of the shrinking calendar. It does begin perhaps the most meaningful season of Whitley’s career. This year is Whitley’s last with minor league options. Keeping a spot on Houston’s 40-man roster could hinge on his performance.
Whitley never had a chance to make the team’s opening day roster. The pitchers that will must build their pitch counts and throw more innings, meaning fewer frames are available in Grapefruit League play for minor leaguers.
Optioning Whitley on Sunday will allow the Astros to build his pitch count in minor league camp. Houston also sent its two other depth starters — Shawn Dubin and J.P. France — to minor league camp on Sunday, too, for the same purpose.
Dubin, France, Whitley and Brandon Bielak are the extent of the team’s starting pitching depth on the 40-man roster. All should start the season in Class AAA Sugar Land. Bielak still profiles as the team’s top choice for a sixth starter, should the need arise, but Whitley made himself a legitimate major league option with a strong showing in spring training.
“I think (Whitley would) admit that this was the first camp he’s come in, during this level of status he’s had, and he’s been healthy,” pitching coach Josh Miller said. “I think it showed. With that brings some confidence and with confidence brings a lot of things. Hopefully that can all stick together and equal him having a good, productive season.”
Whitley made three Grapefruit League appearances: two starts and one out of the bullpen. He tossed 92 pitches during the two starts. Sixty-two were strikes, fulfilling Whitley’s one spring training goal to “fill up the zone.”
For a pitcher who walked 6.6 batters per nine innings during his last minor league season, the strike-throwing is a welcomed sign. Whitley did surrender five hits in his four Grapefruit League innings, but his sinkerheavy arsenal can be prone to contact.
On Saturday, for example, most of the singles St. Louis struck against Whitley were weak ground balls that found holes. Better execution of his slider and curveball will eliminate some of the contact and increase swings and misses. Whitley
said a hangnail on his index finger impacted his command of both pitches on Saturday.
“There were a few two-strike pitches that he left a little too general in the zone. It’s a matter of him getting feel for the spin, which is dynamite when it’s right. He’s going to have to get a little better at executing those pitches,” Miller said.
“Yesterday was an excellent outing for him. I think he could have executed his spin weapons a little bit better, but threw a bunch of strikes, fastballs in the (strike) zone, showed premium velocity and looked healthy. I thought yesterday was definitely a good outing for him to showcase himself. It was a good spring training for him.”
It still met an expected ending on Sunday morning. During their meeting to deliver the news, Miller said he and manager Dusty Baker told Whitley he “handled himself well” and “impressed us with his outings.”
“If he’s pitching good and we have a need,” Miller said, “he’ll get his opportunity.”