Tony Cingrani

[Goober]

As I predicted in March, Cingrani is doing pretty good in the major leagues. His deceptive delivery is currently allowing him to fool hitters, and get by with just his fastball. How long do you guys think this period of success will last?

Current numbers: 3 GS, 14.0 K/9, 2.0 BB/9, 1.0 HR/9, 1.50 ERA, 2.00 FIP, 1.69 xFIP.


Known Cingrani haters like Nahste and Warner2BruceTD* please keep this thread troll free.

*I realize that as a Reds fan, Warner fakes support for Cingrani, but anyone with a brain knows that that is just a meme. Warner hates Cingrani, not sure why.

[EmpireWF]

So what we have here, is a guy who at every level, does not allow hits, strikes out a ton of batters, and never allows runs. The consensus is clear. If he develops his slider to a mediocre level, you are looking at a pretty decent starter. At worst, he'd likely make a very good RP, and he could probably do that right now.

So I don't get why you guys pick on Rudi. This dude is a pretty good looking young pitcher who just gets guys out at every level, and who everybody agrees is a legit top level prospect if he improves his slider.

Oh he has good minor league stats so he must be good.

#analysis

[Goober]

"warner's post'

Funny meme.

[Rudi]

Even me, being one of the bigger Cingrani supporters around, have been shocked at how well he has pitched. The thing that still baffles me is the insane swing and miss rate on his fastball. It tops out at 95/96 but most of the time is around 93...yet he has been able to generate a TON of swing and misses on it.

I think that the high strikeout rate on his FB will have to decrease, but when that happens I'm hoping he can start mixing in his other 2 pitches more often. He still rarely throws them.

edit- 10K post

[Villain]

This probably isn't fair since MLB hitters are still MLB hitters, but those first three starts weren't exactly against the most feared lineups in MLB. The Nationals have been off to a slow start outside of Harper, the Marlins have been as bad as they look on paper, and the Cubbies have been the Cubbies.

So yeah, he's off to a great start and I hope it continues, but I'm not going to be sold until I see him against some hotter teams.

[Villain]

Just glancing at the Reds schedule coming up, and coming from someone who doesn't know how the Reds rotation is stacked up, I want to see how Cingrani does in either the Milwaukee or Atlanta series which are coming up. If he can keep up his numbers against the Braves in Cincy, I will be very impressed.

He's already given up a home run in each home start against crappy teams so I want to see what happens with these guys at the plate: :upuphey:

[Warner2BruceTD]

Serious question, not going shtick or being smarmy. Has this guy ever pitched badly, ever? He dominates every level.

He's clearly a major league pitcher. His ceiling is ace, his floor is middle rotation 90 ERA+ "just a guy". I don't even think people like Law think he's a lefty bullpen arm anymore. Law & Keri have both changed gears and indicated that they think he should replace Leaks when Cueto returns.

[Warner2BruceTD]

The second start he was tossing more breaking stuff. Maybe someone can post the fangraphs charts of his starts (I'm on my phone and out of town). I only saw bits and pieces of the third start so I don't know what he threw.

[NAHSTE]

His ceiling is ace

Yeah that's just not gonna happen relying so heavily on one pitch. That is why he got slapped with the potential reliever label in the first place. Obviously, strictly looking at the fastball, 92-95 is going to play just fine from the left side, but he is barely throwing any offspeed stuff at all and when he has he's gotten poor results.

Overall he's at 80% fastball usage, 12% slider and 7% change up overall. He went to the slider a bit more in his 2nd start (18%) and threw fewer fastballs (75). In start three he doubled down on the hard stuff (86.5/10/3.5) while virtually scrapping the change altogether. The change-up has been utterly useless so far, so we're basically talking about a two-pitch pitcher. In other words, a guy with a reliever or back-end starter's profile if he's not pairing that repertoire with impeccable command.

So far he has been able to keep major league hitters off balance, but I think it's fair to question the sustainability of that approach given the slim margin for error his lack of secondary offerings presents.

[Goober]

Serious question, not going shtick or being smarmy. Has this guy ever pitched badly, ever? He dominates every level.

He's clearly a major league pitcher. His ceiling is ace, his floor is middle rotation 90 ERA+ "just a guy". I don't even think people like Law think he's a lefty bullpen arm anymore. Law & Keri have both changed gears and indicated that they think he should replace Leaks when Cueto returns.

Seriously, stop the meme. We know you hate Cingrani, tell us why.

Of course people think that the guy pitching well should replace the guy doing terrible. :puft:

[Warner2BruceTD]

Yeah that's just not gonna happen relying so heavily on one pitch. That is why he got slapped with the potential reliever label in the first place. Obviously, strictly looking at the fastball, 92-95 is going to play just fine from the left side, but he is barely throwing any offspeed stuff at all and when he has he's gotten poor results.

Overall he's at 80% fastball usage, 12% slider and 7% change up overall. He went to the slider a bit more in his 2nd start (18%) and threw fewer fastballs (75). In start three he doubled down on the hard stuff (86.5/10/3.5) while virtually scrapping the change altogether. The change-up has been utterly useless so far, so we're basically talking about a two-pitch pitcher. In other words, a guy with a reliever or back-end starter's profile if he's not pairing that repertoire with impeccable command.

So far he has been able to keep major league hitters off balance, but I think it's fair to question the sustainability of that approach given the slim margin for error his lack of secondary offerings presents.

Why did you leave the "floor" out of my quote? I'm not really disagreeing with you.

I think the thing with Cingrani that has changed is that nobody thinks he's a future loogy anymore. At this point the key for him is getting the change to the level of the slider, and having two mediocre pitches to go with the fastball, as opposed to a mediocre pitch and a random thing that he throws for shits & giggles.