Two Looks at Tyler Wilson

Tyler Wilson was promoted to Norfolk in July. Photo courtesy of Christopher McCain / Norfolk Tides.

The Norfolk Tides were one of the worst teams in the AAA International League for the first three months of the 2014 season. And not only did they have a bad record, they were virtually devoid of interesting players. Caleb Joseph was worth looking at as a late-blooming right-handed bat-on-the-bench until he was promoted to the Orioles when Matt Wieters got injured; I was curious to see how Henry Urrutia would perform in his second U.S. season until he was diagnosed with a sports hernia. But other than those two, the only players who weren't retreads or career minor-leaguers were starting pitchers Mike Wright and Suk-Min Yoon, both of whom I quickly lost interest in seeing because they were - I think I can safely say this - generally ineffective.

So I was eager to see right-handed starting pitcher Tyler Wilson when he was promoted from Bowie. While Wilson wasn't a highly-regarded prospect - he didn't make Baseball America's list of the top thirty Orioles prospects - he at least was a prospect. And, I had marked him as someone to watch after I had seen him pitch effectively in a 2013 Bowie start.

I missed Wilson's AAA debut on July 3 but was fortunate enough to work his next two starts, on July 8 vs. Durham and July 13 vs. Gwinnett. In both games he pitched fairly effectively and was credited with a win:

	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO	GS
July 8	7	10	4	4	0	3	44
July 13	7	5	1	0	2	6	69

Watching him, he was pretty much the pitcher I was expected - a pitcher with good control and less than great stuff. A more detailed look at his pitch results confirms my impression - he lacked swing-and-miss stuff:

	July 8	July 13
Ball	26	34
Called Strike	16	20
Swinging Strike	5	8
Foul	16	18
In-Play	25	19
Other	0	1 (HB)

Fortunately, Wilson was able to compensate for his lack of a dominant pitch by generally staying ahead of hitters. The table below shows the number of pitches he threw at each possible count:

	July 8	July 13
0-0	28	28
1-0	9	11
0-1	12	13
2-0	1	3
1-1	11	8
0-2	8	13
3-0	1	1
2-1	2	4
1-2	5	9
3-1	1	0
2-2	8	8
3-2	3	2

Wilson has been successful at avoiding the 2-0, 3-0, and 3-1 counts at which hitters can look for pitches on which to tee off. And when you combine this information with the low number of swing-and-miss strikes, it's clear that batters aren't swinging wildly at pitches out of the strike zone. That means that Wilson is consistently in or near the strike zone, generating called strikes and foul balls.

Tyler Wilson seems to be in the third tier of Orioles' pitching prospects. He doesn't have the top-of-the-rotation potential of a Dylan Bundy, Kevin Gausman, or Hunter Harvey. He doesn't have the combination of projection and performance of a Tim Berry or Zach Davies. His current ability is similar to Davies' but, being older, he has a higher floor but lower ceiling. While it's hard to know exactly what the Orioles' future starting rotation will look like, Wilson probably won't get a shot as a starter unless the wheels fall off; and, he doesn't have much trade appeal. In background and performance to this point, he reminds me of Jason Berken, who produced one good season as a middle reliever among years as a rotation anchor for AAA teams.

Final note: I didn't get to see Wilson's start on July 21, in which he was outstanding - he allowed two hits and struck out eight in seven innings. If I had seen that start, I might have a more positive opinion - but I didn't.