Harvesting Opinion: Los Angeles Angels – Trevor Reckling

Harvesting Opinion is a regular feature on Seedlings to Stars. Each week, six of FanSided’s team blogs send S2S a question relating to their team’s minor league system, and we answer them in this space–each question gets one article devoted to answering it. In this way, we make sure we regularly get to discuss hot-button issues relating to the systems of every team, as these go on a five-week cycle. 

In this edition we tackle the Angels, but instead of fielding a question from our own Halo Hangout, I ventured beyond the walls of our network. Today’s question comes from James Rygg who runs the excellent site True Grich and who was kind enough to partake in this series by submitting a question. It’s pretty simple fact that if you’re an Angels fan and you don’t read his site on a regular basis, then you’re not really an Angels fan. Now that we’ve cleared that up … on to the question (and our answers)!

At one time Trevor Reckling was considered on the fast track to the big leagues.  His first stint at AAA iin 2010 didn’t go so well. (14 starts and an 8.53 ERA).  He’s back in AA playing for Arkansas and in 17 starts is 4-7 with a 3.73 ERA.  Will he ever make his way to the big leagues?   He’s only 22, but he seems a long ways from getting back to being an elite prospect.  How would you project him and are his issues with mechanics, command or is it all in his head?  Have other pitchers taken a similar route (up to AAA and back down to AA) before hitting the  major leagues?

Nathaniel says:

Trevor Reckling is an interesting pitcher. I love guys with three well-developed pitches, and he certainly falls into that category, throwing a good low-90’s fastball to go with a big breaking ball and good changeup with fade. There aren’t a whole lot of big league lefthanders that have that sort of stuff.

Of course, the results haven’t been up to par with that sort of stuff. Over his career, he’s walked four batters per nine innings and struck out 7.3 per nine, which doesn’t work well. That’s a career 1.80 K/BB, and he has that exact mark this season in Double-A, with 3.2 walks and 5.7 strikeouts per nine.

One caveat that’s important to note with respect to his career numbers is how quickly Reckling was pushed through the minors. After a huge debut in Rookie ball in 2007, he was immediately moved to Low-A for all of 2008, and he got just three starts in High-A the next season before being pushed to Double-A before he turned 20. The guy is still just 22 years and three months old after all his struggles since–playing against hitters often several years older than him (including a ton of MLB vets in his aborted AAA stint) certainly puts some of those poor upper-minors numbers into context.

At this point, though, we’re talking about a guy in his third year at the level, and at his age, he’s still a bit young for Double-A, but not so much that you can use it as an excuse for his middling performance, which brings me to the other factors brought up in the question. I’ve never read any reports on Reckling that mention poor mechanics, and while I’m not the greatest pitching savant, his delivery looks smooth and fluid to me. Given that all his offspeed pitches have a ton of movement, it’s possible that there’s a Barry Zito-type thing going on where he just doesn’t know how to consistently keep the curve and change from diving out of the strike zone.

Speaking of Zito, reports also say that Reckling’s velocity has fallen from the 91-94 range to 88-92 recently, which means that he doesn’t have as much velocity to just pitch off his fastball when he can’t get the curve or change over the plate. He’ll need to either regain his velocity or do a much better job of locating his fastball to emerge as a quality big league starter.

I can’t speak too much to what’s in his head, but between being rushed in the first place, having spotty command, the loss of velocity, and poor pitch patterning, it’s not too much of a stretch to see why a pitcher with this much going for him could hit this sort of bump in the road.

Can he recover? Absolutely, he can. Just look at all the washouts who’ve come back to do big things of late – Colby Lewis, Ryan Vogelsong, Brandon McCarthy, even the Angels’ Jerome Williams.

Two somewhat similar pitchers that offer hope for Reckling are Cliff Lee and Ricky Romero. Lee’s obviously one of the best pitchers in the game today, but he had an up-and-down career all the way through age 29 because his command came and went. All of a sudden, he started simply pounding the zone at age 30, and he also gained 2 mph, and now he’s a perennial Cy Young candidate.

Romero is perhaps a better comp for Reckling in this case because his stalling occurred in the minors. As a 23-year-old repeating Double-A in 2008, Romero struck out just 5.77 batters per nine while walking 4.07, and reports said that his stuff had declined since college and that he wouldn’t make it as a starter. Sound familiar? Well, Romero was promoted to Triple-A late in the year and started trusting his arsenal better, and he made seven decent starts. The next spring, he made the Toronto rotation, and now–just three years removed from being a middling Eastern League pitcher–there are articles being written about how Romero is the “next big AL ace,” and he has a 2.73 ERA this season.

That’s not to say Reckling will figure it out, but much, much stranger things have happened. He’s still a guy to watch who could turn into just about anything, but Angels fans should be extremely cautious with their hopes given his struggles since 2009.

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Wally says:

Well first we should deal with the injury elephant in the room. Reckling hasn’t pitched since July 11th due to a sprained left elbow. He was placed on the 7-day DL July 22nd and visited team orthopedist Dr. Lewis Yocum on the 27th.

There are some concerns with his mechanics in play and both John Sickels and Baseball America remarked on those in their preseason prospect profiles. Sickels’ take was the most poignant of the two:

"He was a ground ball pitcher in previous seasons, but last year mechanical issues led him to elevate the ball in the the strike zone more often, resulting in a pronounced fly ball tendency and more home runs allowed."

The Angels are kind of stuck in the middle as efforts to smooth out what BA described as a “herky-jerky” delivery could adversely impact the deception on his fastball. Beyond that, changing the way a pitcher has grown accustomed to throwing can make him more likely to suffer significant injury. It’s only speculative on my part but is seems reasonable that Reckling’s elbow problems could stem from the collective efforts to refine those mechanics.

Then again just watching a video of his motion from last year makes my arm hurt so this recent injury may have been inevitable regardless.

Nathaniel’s observations of Reckling this season suggest that he had made strides to correct some of the problems in his delivery and there were some positives. Prior to getting hurt he had shown a marked improvement in his walk rate this season. After posting a 4.5 BB/9 in 2009 and a 5.1 BB/9 in 2010 he was down to a far more respectable 3.2 through 17 starts this year. However, it would appear that the loss of deception has adversely impacted his ability to strike batters out. Reckling’s 5.9 SO/9 this season is a career low and given that this is 3rd bout of extended action in the Texas League, that’s a more than just a little concerning.

Part of what made him effective in 2007, 2008 and 2009 was his delivery and the deception that it provided. In 2010 one of his strengths became a weakness and his struggles were laid largely at the feet of his mechanics. Unfortunately, in trying to “correct” things he got hurt, but more concerning than the injury is the fact that attempts to alter his delivery may remove a piece of what made him so special to begin with.

With all these factors in play and with his track record to date I have no idea what to make of Trevor Reckling’s future. It would be foolish to write off a 22-year old lefty with 3 average to above average offerings. The Angels may have pushed him too aggressively but I don’t believe that had an adverse impact on his development. His problems were going to be fully exposed as he faced more advanced competition and that is exactly what happened.

At this point in his career with a sub-standard SO/BB rate – even during his best seasons – he’s going to have to reinvent himself as a pitcher. Fortunately for fans of the Angels, Reckling is 22, has 380 innings of experience in AA/AAA, and he throws a baseball left-handed. In a nutshell he has a lot working in his favor as he attempts to do just that, but first he has to get back on the mound.

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For more on the Angels (in addition to True Grich) be sure to check out Halo Hangout.

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