You don’t need me to tell you this, but I like saying it, so I’ll tell you anyway.
Noah Cameron has been very good for the Kansas City Royals.
He’s on all kinds of leaderboards as the only or one of a handful of pitchers who have accomplished such-and-such feat since 1901. And that’s all very good. But he also has a 1.05 ERA. He hasn’t pitched enough innings to be qualified, but since he was recalled on May 17 to fill in for the injured Seth Lugo, he has the 18th-best ERA in MLB. Guys like Paul Skenes, Zack Wheeler, and Kris Bubic have done better than Cameron’s 1.80 ERA in that span, but not many and not by much.
Interestingly, Noah Cameron has been doing this without elite stuff. Both tjStats and FanGraphs agree that he only has two above-average pitches, stuff-wise. Interestingly, they disagree on which two pitches. The changeup shows out well for both models, but FanGraphs prefers his curveball and tjStats prefers his cutter. They also agree that his fastball is mediocre at best. Still, despite being a 25-year-old rookie – at the high end for being truly considered a prospect – he mixes and matches his five pitches as well as any wily veteran to get excellent results.
Cameron’s pitching summary image here isn’t as flawless as Bubic’s, nor is his Baseball Savant summary. He doesn’t possess the elite extension of Bubic, as noted earlier his fastball could get him in trouble if he used it more, and he isn’t striking enough guys out or getting as many whiffs as you would like. But there’s still an awful lot of orange in the bottom-right corner of that graph. And if you narrow it down to just the last three starts – after getting no strikeouts and tiptoeing around a bunch of walks in his debut – the strikeouts, chase, and whiffs are all headed in the right direction.
The obvious candidate to be removed from the rotation is – what? No! Of course it isn’t Cole Ragans! Stop that! It’s Michael Lorenzen. As a fifth starter, Lorenzen has been quite good this year with a 4.22 ERA. But prior to his last three starts, it had been a 3.57 ERA. After never giving up more than seven hits in his first eight outings, Lorenzen has not given up fewer than seven hits in his last three.
Some of that isn’t his fault; you could argue he was asked to pitch longer in Monday’s game than he might have been due to the scheduled bullpen game on Tuesday. He was also required to go a little deeper than usual in his game against Houston because of a depleted bullpen, which resulted in several more hits and runs than he would have allowed had he been pulled after the seventh inning. However, he probably should have been pulled after the fifth or sixth innings. Even prior to the eighth inning struggles, he had been giving up hard contact all night. It was only in the eighth inning that he was finally punished for it.
Again, this is no criticism of Lorenzen. I wouldn’t ordinarily be calling for his job after how well he’s pitched this season, but Cameron has been considerably better. Cameron isn’t perfect, and he’s probably due to regress at least some from the sparkling ERA he currently wields. But by just about every peripheral, Cameron is at least Lorenzen’s equal and in many cases, he’s also his superior.
On top of all of that, Cameron also brings something to the pitching staff wholly different from any of the other pitchers. He throws from the left-handed side like Bubic and Ragans, but mixes and matches his pitches like Lugo and Lorenzen. Lorenzen’s greatest weakness as a Royals starter right now actually might be that he’s a poor man’s mash-up of Lugo and Michael Wacha. He primarily throws a changeup like Wacha, but not as good, and otherwise throws the whole kitchen sink at a batter like Lugo, but without Lugo’s flair for regularly picking the exact right pitch to throw.
Again, these read like criticisms, but really, Lorenzen has been good. Just not as good as Cameron. It’s a bummer for Lorenzen, but it’s also something he should be used to as a journeyman pitcher. And he’s getting a few million this year and has looked good enough to get at least a few more next year, so it’s hard to feel too bad for him.
Team broadcaster Ryan Lefebvre has said multiple times in the last week that there are no plans to move Noah Cameron to the bullpen to keep him with the big league club. That’s good, because it would be a terrible decision. Cameron’s value is so great, and his pitch mix is such that asking him to go fewer innings in shorter outings would be foolish. Michael Lorenzen, on the other hand, could move to the bullpen, cut out a couple of his worst pitches, and potentially find additional success.
