I’ve written volumes on the guy. To give a very quick scouting report, Melancon throws 92-95 with a very good curveball and even better control than his 2.08 BB/9 rate indicates. I normally put little stock into character reports, but reports on Melancon are always glowing with respect for his mentality.
Melancon is probably the best or second best relief prospect in the minor leagues, depending on if you consider guys like Max Scherzer a starting or relief prospect. Regardless, he is an incredibly talented pitcher and has a few unique things going for him. His statistics from last year:
2008: 95 innings, 2.27 ERA, 89 strikeouts and 22 walks between Single-A, Double-A, and Triple-A.
Melancon’s season was remarkable for three interrelated reasons. The first is that he performed this well in his true minor league action following Tommy John surgery. Melancon went under the knife during the late fall of 2006, and spend all of 2007 rehabbing his elbow. Most pitchers would have struggled with their control and velocity for awhile before being able to perform at their highest ability level. Melancon had no such problems.
The second remarkable accomplishment is that he flew straight to Triple-A in his first season in professional baseball. He lost none of his effectiveness moving from level to level. There is a good deal of reason to believe by looking at his quick and clean ascent through the minors that Melancon can very quickly post a mid-2s ERA in the major leagues. Fast risers do so because they have a tremendous amount of natural ability for pitching. He’s a natural, and naturals shouldn’t be wasting their bullets on minor leaguers.
The final thing that stands out in Melancon’s season is the tremendous amount of innings he pitched. Melancon pitched 95 innings in 44 games, or 2.15 innings per game. For the life of me, I can’t remember a single major relief prospect to throw that much over the course of the minor league season. Will he throw 2.15 innings per game in the majors? Absolutely not. The Yankees kept Melancon on a 3 day rotation as if he were a starter, and he pitched 2-3 innings per game on that rotation. To compare, Casey Weathers, the 8th overall pick in the 2007 draft by the Rockies, threw 44 1/3 innings in 44 games last season.
I’m willing to bet that he’ll be the Yankees second-best reliever by June, and a major part of the playoff bullpen. If the Yankee roster wasn’t so crowded, Melancon would make the team out of spring training. He deserves it.
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17 Responses to How Good Is Mark Melancon?
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TIQ IQ
yeah, Im pretty pumped for him to quiet the whole Joba to the bullpen crowd.
Although they will never shut up anyway, remember Moish?
Sad but true. Joba needs to win a Cy Young award right now to shut them up.
Couldn’t agree more with you guys. The Joba HAS to be in the bullpen is the stupidest argument in professional sports history which was started by Mike Francesa, who never heard of Joba before he pitched in the big leagues, yet already knew the best way for the Yanks to use him the next day. But sadly, as long as this idiot is on the air, it’ll never stop. Here’s what I wrote about Francesa and the Jobber to the pen argument earlier today:
And the best part is the “Joba HAS to be in the bullpen” thing.
Besides the fact that every person with the least bit of baseball intelligence understands that a 2.50 ERA (I think that’s about Joba’s career ERA as a starter) over 150-200 innings, which the Yanks had hoped they would get outta Joba last year and this year, is much more valuable than even a 2.00 ERA over 70 innings (which is just about what Joba would give U in the pen), he still insists, JOBA HAS TO BE IN THE PEN, even though Joba has the potential to be a flat-out dominant ace,as evidenced by the fact that he out-dueled Josh Beckett in Boston last year 1-0.
But that’s not even the point. The point is that Francesa acts as if he knows everything about Joba. If you’d told him a day before Joba made his Yankees debut that the Yanks have a great prospect named Joba Chamberlain in the minors he’d go “Who? I don’t care.” But the second the kid throws a pitch, know-it-all Mike knows exactly what to do with him!
Despite the fact that he never ever heard of him, despite the fact that he has no idea what’s doing in the Yanks’ minor-league system, and despite the fact that the Yanks drafted, and developed Joba as a starter, and the only reason he was pitching outta the pen in the first place was because the Yanks wanted to limit his innings.
But that all doesn’t matter. Joba still HAS to be in the pen. Because know-it-all Mike says so.
Last week, I swear he said, “We all know, if the Yanks were to put the perfect team on the field, it would go like this: First of all, put Jobber in the pen, to pitch the 8th inning, and put Hughes in as the 5th starter, ok? That’s the better team, ok? We all know that, ok?” What in the world?! Whaddya mean ” we all know that?” No we don’t!!!
Listen to this. MIke Francesa says that we “all know that” taking a pitcher with a 2.64 ERA (Joba’s ERA last season) and putting him in the pen, and taking a pitcher with about a 9+ ERA (about what Phil Hughes’ was last year) and making him the 5th starter makes the Yankees the “better team.” That is downright absurd! Don’t get me wrong, i’m a huge fan of Phil Franchise, but to say that right now having him throw 200 innings and Joba throw 75 makes the Yanks the better team is crazy!!!
The reason Fatcesa says this stuff is bacause he has a rooting interest. So if he thinks his team, the Yankees, should make a particular move, he’s gonna insist so forever, Even though all factual evidence continues to prove him wrong. And the best part is that there are actually people that I know people who –sadly- swear by everything that this guy says. And the best part is when he says “We all know that, ok?” He thinks because he thinks something should be done, every damn fan in the metropolitan area thinks so too…
Someone should call up his show (I ain’t waiting on hold for an hour to speak to this cocky moron only to get shouted down and knocked off just because I said something he doesn’t like) and tell him that the 8th inning is gonna be fine for the Yanks because they’ve got this great setup prospect kid in the minors named Mark Melancon, He’ll go, “what the hell are you talkin about? Who cares about some kid in the minors. You can’t bank on that. The idea (I had to throw those two words in there, they’re his favorite) that we’re all of a sudden ganna start talking about some minor league kid on this show is crazy.”
But don’t sweat it, after Melancon will have thrown a pitch for the Yanks, hopefully this year, Fatcesa will have the complete low-down for us, and when and how exactly the Yanks should use him. Just like he knew exactly what the Yanks should do with Joba even though he wouldn’t know his name from his own a day before.
What a complete blow-hard.
Whoa. Yeah, I remember Francesa saying “Who is this Joe-buh” kid about two weeks before he was called up. After a week of seeing him pitch, he had already decided the kid’s future.
Why do you think John Sickels rated Bard over Melancon? That really puzzled me
Sickels is often high on Red Sox guys. I am not saying he does not like the Yankees, he just seems to unconsciously be very high on Boston guys.
Yup, that’s my boy right there. I alluded to him being the 2nd best reliever on the Yankees in the comments section on the post dissecting the Yankees right-handed relief corps. . .
Greg: I can’t say for sure, but its either about velocity or the fact that he’s technically still a starter. Bard will always have control issues. That’s his tragic flaw. Melancon doesn’t have a tragic flaw.
I couldn’t agree more. There is little doubt that Bard could outpitch Melancon if he could command his fastball, but if it were that simple Daniel Cabrera would be winning Cy Young awards.
Melancon spoke with the NY Times a few months back and he seemed like a super confident guy. Is it just me or do the Yankees seem like they’re going to be cranking out great relievers for the next few seasons?
I have noticed that Yankee prospects are coming in waves. The first was SP (Joba, Hughes, IPK) next came relievers (Ramirez, Robertson, Coke, Melancon) next up is position players (A-Jax, Montero, Romine, Suttle).
Love Melncon but why does everybody under value Bruney so much?
Guy is very often lights out and before he hurt himself last season was on his way to a breakout season.Now he’s in even better physical shape will probably throw 96-97 and should be monster.
Don’t be surprised if Veras has a big season also with another year off the injury.
I agree on Bruney- big year for him, it looks like he’s finally putting it together. Veras I am not so sure about- there are times where it looks like he has no idea where the ball is headed.
True on Veras but sometimes command returns year 2 off a big injury.His motion is very violent though.
I’m not Bruney’s biggest fan. His control issues still haven’t gone away. Let’s not forget that his ERA last season was 4.50.
His ERA as a Yankee is 3.02, if i calculated correctly. I like Brian better than Veras and Edwar.