San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Dunshee rising rapidly in system
MESA, Ariz. — Ask most people which young A’s pitcher to keep an eye on, and they’ll say Jesus Luzardo. Ask Luzardo, and he’ll tell you it’s Parker Dunshee.
“Definitely put Parker on your radar,” Luzardo said. “Nothing stands out when you talk to him or look at him — but everything he does is good. He knows how to pitch, he’s smart on the mound, he throws everything where he wants to. He’s just good.”
Like Luzardo, Dunshee, 24, was among a handful of A’s minor-leaguers who got an invitation to major-league spring training, but he’s the only one among that group who was drafted just two years ago. Here’s why: He had a 0.00 ERA at Class A Vermont in 2017, and last season he put up a 2.33 ERA combined between Class A Stockton and Double-A Midland. His minor-league ERA with Oakland: 1.98.
“Parker is a guy you want on the mound every day,” said outfielder Skye Bolt, who played with Dunshee at Double-A Midland last season. “He’s tenacious, he makes quick work of hitters and he’s got great tempo on the mound.
He’s there to attack hitters and force the issue. It helps that his stuff is really good: He gets a lot of swings and misses and he gets a lot of weak contact. Games go quickly.”
Dunshee grew up in Zionsville, Ind., and went to Wake Forest, where he was 28-10 with a 3.20 ERA and set the school record for strikeouts with 330. The A’s selected him in the seventh round. The next round, the A’s took 6foot-9 right-hander Brian Howard, 23, from TCU. Howard is best buddies with Dunshee and Luzardo. He has been at every level with Dunshee, but is not in camp. Howard’s minor-league ERA is a whole 2.58, so he didn’t quite make the cut.
Suffice to say, the A’s have high hopes for this group of starters.
“You could talk about Dunshee and Howard as almost the same person,” A’s director of player development Keith Lieppman said. “They have almost identical numbers, they’re aggressive college pitchers who are unafraid of contact, they come right at you. … They are 2017 draftees approaching Triple-A already. That’s a rapid rise through the system.”
A key for Dunshee has been his changeup, which he began incorporating more last year at the insistence of minor-league coaches Gil Patterson and Bryan Corey.
“He was forced to throw it,” Corey said. “I’m a big proponent of it. And this is about developing so you can move on to higher levels.”
“It’s a pitch I just wasn’t using enough,” Dunshee said. “They were on me all the time about it, but I was so stubborn; I didn’t want to get beat with it. But I’ve learned that it’s a pitch I can use. It’s really been the key to my improvement.”
Patterson said that it was a little bit of a hard sell.
“When you’re performing well in the minors, you can be hesitant to change,” Patterson said. “If he’d been struggling, he might have bought in earlier, but he’d come out of a good start and I’d say, ‘I’m not very happy.’ He’d say, ‘Seven innings, one run, seven strikeouts, one walk?’ And I’d say, ‘No.’ Not all successful majorleague starters have changeups — but most of them do.”
Patterson remembers having a similar conversation with Hall of Famer Roy Halladay when he coached Halladay in the Toronto organization. “He didn’t really need one,” Patterson said of Halladay. “But eventually, he needed it.”
Patterson, considered a cutter guru, also helped Dunshee with that pitch, and Dunshee said he mimicked the way Howard throws his cutter. Now that he’s in big-league camp, Dunshee is trying to learn as much as possible from the more experienced starters, such as Marco Estrada, Mike Fiers and Daniel Mengden, especially during their weekly meetings.
“I’m just kind of listening,” he said. “They have a lot of knowledge and they’ve thrown a lot of big-league pitches.”
Despite Dunshee’s reluctance to throw a changeup, he’s quickly turned into one of Patterson’s favorites.
“He’s phenomenal,” said Patterson, who pushed to get Dunshee to big-league camp. “Sure, he’s stubborn, but it’s one of those things: ‘What makes you great?’ ‘I’m stubborn.’ ‘What makes you not so great?’ ‘I’m stubborn.’
“He is a great competitor, a fierce competitor. As great as he is as a player, I wouldn’t mind having him for a son. That’s how much I think of him. Also, the not listening — perfect for a son.”