Why Isn't Brandon Pfaadt in Arizona?
During spring training Brandon Pfaadt was engaged in a supposed competition with Ryne Nelson, Drey Jameson, and Tommy Henry for the fifth spot in the rotation. The 24-year-old Pfaadt was coming off a spectacular 2022 season, moving through some the toughest pitching environments minor league baseball has to offer in Double-A Amarillo and Triple-A Reno. In fact he led all the minor leagues in strikeouts and clearly outperformed every pitcher in the organization. He was rewarded for that season by being named the Diamondbacks minor league pitcher of the year.
Pfaadt performed very well in spring training, seemingly out pitching his competitors at every turn. Therefore it came as a surprise on March 19th when he was reassigned to minor league camp. It turned out that the "pecking order" and incumbency of having pitched in the major leagues the previous year ultimately counted more in Nelson and Jameson's favor then any actual spring "competition"
So where do things stand now and why is Pfaadt not yet in the major leagues? Here are three data points to consider.
Is Pfaadt ready to pitch in the major leagues?
The answer to this is a fairly straight forward and emphatic yes, coming from no lesser an authority than the GM himself Mike Hazen. He was asked exactly this question during a press conference yesterday discussing Madison Bumgarner's DFA. His answer, without hesitation, nearly cutting off the end of the question to get it out there was simply "Yes".
Just prior to that Hazen also said that Pfaadt probably has the best stuff among the four pitchers. Considering his performance last year and in spring training, the team's recognition of that performance, and the GM's own words, we can say with absolute certainty that the organization view him as being ready right now. So we can eliminate that part of the equation.
Are rotation logistics and timing keeping Pfaadt from MLB?
When Zach Davies injured his oblique muscle on April 8th, hitting the injured list for what is likely to turn into more than one month absence, Pfaadt had made a start on the very same day for the Reno Aces. He went 4.2 innings, giving up one earned run on two hits, one walk and five strikeouts. He threw 89 pitches and was completely stretched out.
Instead the team opted to remove Drey Jameson from the bullpen and put him in the rotation despite not being stretched out. Bumgarner was supposed to start on April 12th, but they pushed him back to April 14th in Miami and had Jameson pitch on April 12th. He was limited to 54 pitches. Pfaadt made his next start on the same day as Bumgarner's start in Miami. So they certainly could have kept Bumgarner on regular rest and had Pfaadt debuted in Miami on the 14th. This was a missed opportunity to bring him up and certainly logistics were not the reason at that time.
When asked yesterday about the decision to bring up Henry and not Pfaadt to join the rotation in place of Bumgarner now, Hazen emphasized that logistics and days rest were the biggest reason.
"We hadn't made this decision going into yesterday, and Brandon is starting today in Reno. [April 20th]. If we had pushed Brandon into the rotation somewhere it wasn't going to be today and pushing [Ryne Nelson] and Gallen and everybody back and jumping into them. And if we had slotted him somewhere into the future, we're going on nine or 10 days rest. I don't think that's necessarily the best idea for a debut."
This time around, that's a reasonable point. Not wanting to disrupt your ace Zac Gallen, who is pitching tonight, is probably a good idea, and the same can be said for Kelly who is pitching Saturday night. If they pitched Pfaadt on Sunday and pushed Jameson out, that would be eight days rest for Pfaadt.
Is service time manipulation in play here?
This is a far more sensitive question to ask and a difficult one to answer. But under the circumstances it's also a fair one. First let me provide the caveat that I am NOT making an accusation and in fact have previously stated I did not think service time manipulation was a factor.
Caveats aside, since the question keeps coming up from numerous people in response to the articles we publish, the question needs to be addressed. Super Two is explained by MLB as follows:
Players typically must accrue three years of Major League service time -- with one year of service time equaling 172 days on the 26-man roster or the Major League injured list -- to become eligible for salary arbitration. Super Two is a designation that allows a select group of players to become eligible for arbitration before reaching three years of service time. To qualify for the Super Two designation, players must rank in the top 22 percent, in terms of service time, among those who have amassed between two and three years in the Majors. The specific cutoff date varies on a year-to-year basis.
When a player has three full years of service time they become arbitration eligible and their their salary begins to escalate well above the league minimum they receive for their first three years. A player typically has three arbitration years before reaching free agency. However in some cases players that are called up early enough will achieve what is known as "Super Two" status and be arbitration eligible for four seasons instead of three. Not only does their salary increase that first year, but building off a higher platform increases at a faster rate in subsequent years. The difference can be many millions, especially if the player becomes a star early in the process. The cutoff for last year was two years and 128 days of service time usually expressed as 2.128. The year prior the cutoff was 2.116. The range over the last 10 years has been between 2.115 and 2.140
What this translates to in simplified calendar terms is simply this: If Pfaadt is being held back due to service time manipulation, the earliest date we'll see him in the majors is around May 20th-25th, and the latest we'll see him is around June 5-10. The firm cutoff date is not known until November, however teams calculate this with precision to anticipate where that cut line will be.
If Pfaadt is called up any time before May 20th then it's highly likely that he'll be a Super Two, and any concerns he is a victim of service time manipulation would be put to bed. But if we get into the first week of June and he's still not in the major leagues, the nature of those questions will become more pointed. Here are Hazen's final words on this topic from yesterday:
We're going to need all these guys, from now and the rest of the season. So you're going to see all those guys pitch, and more, is my bet. And we know they're both throwing the ball really well. We have two good options down there. Both of those guys are going to be pitching up here. Who went first and how it went first, and all these decisions we have been talking about, I understand have centered around Brandon. Brandon is going to pitch up here, and he's going to be a very good player for us. And it's going to come. It's not going to come right this second.
