When the Phillies sent Cole Hamels to Texas they got back 5 players and an offsetting salaries. Alec Asher was the 5th prospect in that deal and he would make his debut that September. While it was disappointing, the thought was that Asher would be part of the starting pitching depth the Phillies had built and could see the majors again in 2016. After getting off to a strong start in the minors, injuries and a suspension forced him out of action until August. He eventually returned to the majors for five strange starts.
What Was Written Before the Season:
Role: #5 Starter/Long Relief
Risk: Low – Despite his struggles in limited major league time, Asher is essentially major league ready. He could use more polish in his offspeed, as well as an increase in command, but it is mostly down to execution.
Summary: Alec Asher is about as generic a backend starting pitcher as they come. He succeeded at the minor league level by mixing 5 pitches and throwing strikes. The result of all of this has been a propensity for the long ball and hard contact in AAA and the majors. Asher features a 4 seam fastball at 90-93 that can reach 95, a sinker at a slightly lower velocity, a below average curveball, a potential average changeup, and an above average slider with plus potential. Asher still lacks the command to place his pitches where he needs to. To keep hitters off balance, Asher will need to command his arsenal and be able to expand the zone. Despite his initial struggles in the majors, Asher does have the stuff to be a #5 starter on a major league team, with a ceiling a little above. The margin of error is low, because his secondary stuff lacks the bat missing ability to survive non-optimal command. The lack of a dominant second pitch also limits Asher’s upside in the bullpen, and there are concerns that his stuff will not play up in short stints. With the Phillies’ pitching depth, there may not be rotation spots in the majors or AAA for Asher to start this year, so he will need a strong spring to carve out a spot. Because he has the pitches and stamina to start, he may fit as a long reliever. He will most likely be an up and down arm until he is out of options.
2016 Outlook: It is hard to get a grasp on where Asher fits into the rotation picture in 2016. The Phillies are deep enough that Asher does not have a path to starting the 2016 rotation, but if he can carve out a rotation spot in AAA, he could jump to the front of the call up line. He will need to perform in his opportunities in order to keep a spot in the rotation going forward, as more of the top pitching prospects become major league ready.
What Happened in the Minors:
Stat Line (GCL): 3 G 6.0 IP 1.50 ERA 1 HR 2 BB (8.7%) 6 K (26.1%)
Stat Line (AA): 5 G 29.1 IP 3.38 ERA 1 HR 5 BB (4.1%) 21 K (17.1%)
Stat Line (AAA): 4 G 29.1 IP 1.53 ERA 4 HR 3 BB (2.8%) 19 K (17.8%)
Alec Asher started the year demoted to AA to work on adding a two seam fastball to help give hitters a different look and generate weak contact. In AA it worked perfectly. The success continued into AAA where he maintained a ground ball rate around 50%. He had some home run problems in AAA, but overall he found success and was on a path to get another chance at the majors. He then hurt his leg on a fielding play, an injury that was later diagnosed as a stress fracture. While recovering from the injury in Clearwater Asher was suspended for 80 games for performance enhancing drugs. He made 4 rehab starts in the minors (3 GCL, 1 Reading) before coming to the majors since he was ineligible for the minor league playoffs.
What Happened in the Majors:
Stat Line: 5 G 27.2 IP 2.28 ERA 1 HR 4 BB (3.6%) 13 K (11.7%)
On the surface Asher’s 2.28 ERA indicates he had increased success in his success in his second attempt at the majors, but with a 9.31 ERA the first time around it would be hard not to do better. He walked few batters and seemed to suppress home runs. In addition to any small sample size arguments other ERA indicators seem to find something fishy with Asher’s season. RA/9 (adds in unearned runs) comes in at 3.58, FIP is an optimistic 3.33, but Baseball Prospectus’ DRA comes in at a whopping 5.74. This discrepancy takes some further investigation because it is the only one of these indicators taking in quality of contact. We see that despite his new two seam fastball, Asher’s ground ball rate stayed relatively stable, by slightly dropping to 35.2%. Additionally his line drive rate went up, seemingly on the back of less infield flyballs. The biggest difference we find is that his HR/FB rate dropped from 16.3% to 2.7%. The lowest HR/FB rate among major league starters was Johnny Cueto at 8.4% and we see the top of the list populated by some of the better starters in the game. Even if we say Asher is the best in the game at preventing home runs he is looking at an 3 times increase in home runs, which seems to bring as back more towards his DRA. When it comes to baseballs that stayed in the yard, there is more unsustainability, as Asher had a .231 BABIP in the majors.
In addition to the balls in play, Asher’s strikeout rate is also a cause for concern. His 11.7% would have been below the lowest qualified starter (Martin Perez). Using Baseball Reference’s Play Index I searched for all pitchers since 2012 that had a K/9 below 5 for at least 100 innings in a season. Only 21 pitchers met the search. Two pitchers did it in 2016, Martin Perez and Mike Pelfry. The list as a whole contains a lot of junkballers (Kevin Correia, Mark Buehrle, Jeremy Guthrie) and players with high ground ball tendencies (Tim Hudson, Henderson Alvarez). However, even for the successful, success is relative as there are only 4 seasons under an ERA of 4.00 with the lowest at 3.54.
In terms of raw stuff, Asher actually saw a decrease in average velocity (per Brooksbaseball) in 2016 from 91.65 to 90.49 which matched the reports out of the minors. He did throw his two seam fastball more, while also diversifying his secondary pitch arsenal. As one would expect, most of his pitches showed very little tendency to induce swings and misses, with only his changeup showing promise in that area. His two seam fastball only was missed 5.6% of the time. Moreso his two seam fastball only generated a groundball 32.4% of the time, which was the same rate at which it was hit for a line drive.
The Future:
Asher finds himself one of many back end starting pitchers in an org full of upper minors starting pitchers. While his numbers look better than Zach Eflin and Jake Thompson, he has less upside than either of them and is already showing signs of decline. His decreased fastball velocity puts him alongside pitchers like Ben Lively, Adam Morgan, and David Buchanan. Asher’s inability to generate strikeouts, and lack of a pathway to that or weak contact looks like a fatal weakness in his ability to major league starting pitcher. Additionally that is the main thing that prevents him from having any upside in the bullpen. While a right handed pitcher without a swing and miss offering while sitting in the hi 80s to low 90s is a common sight in the Phillies bullpen, it is not a common sight across successful baseball teams. The Phillies sent Asher to the Dominican Winter League to make up for missed work, and on one hand the results are great – 4 GS 21.1 IP 12 H 1.69 ERA 1 BB. On the other hand he has 10 strikeouts in those 21.1 innings, a K/9 of 4.2 or right in line with what he did in the majors.