[DJ's left nut]

Of course he did.

Because Pitchers break -- all of 'em.

So after he gets his 50 innings pitched in 2026 he'll end up with maybe 150 IPs over 4 seasons as a professional and he'll enter his age 26 season in AA having never thrown over 55 innings in a professional season. So they'll slow play him in AA hoping to have him throw 125 innings on the year with maybe 50 of those in AAA at age 27.

Looking forward to the spring training puff pieces about our 28 year old rookie with fewer than 300 professional innings coming into spring training with a shot at the 4 slot and being 'In the best shape of his life'.

Write another one off, fellas. He done.

A month into the season and our best pitching prospect can't find the zone and our 2 and 3 prospects have broken down and can probably be written off altogether now. At best you get a swingman sort out of Hjerpe for a few years. Maybe Hence can work himself back to prospect status but you can't consider it unless/until he actually does.

We keep slow-playing these pitchers and they keep breaking down anyway. Something is seriously wrong in our pitching development pipeline (and it sure doesn't seem much better for the hitters).

I still think this goes all the way back to Reyes when they let the guy shoulder-load to velocity hunt. Guys absolutely shredding guys at 20 years old in AA throwing 95. Then he shows up the next season throwing 101 without his breaking ball, the Cardinals pat themselves on the back for turning him into a triple digit reliever (because his new arm slot cost him his curveball) and proceed to watch him explode on the launching pad.

At 95 mph with 3 plus pitches and actual command, he was a top 2 starter in the making. At 101 mph with a fastball he couldn't command, a curveball that couldn't get depth anymore from the way he was throwing it (so he had to scrap it in favor of a slider he didn't know what to do with) and a change that lost its drop for the same reasons, he was novelty act that predictably exploded in their faces.

Then act all shocked when it happened. I said at the time it was going to. When all those fawning pieces came out talking about him finding 5 mph of velocity in an off-season I said "Welp, that kid is ****ed because there's no way he did that without shoulder loading and it's going to break him..."

And they just whistled past the graveyard and watched it happen.