It’s been an interesting ride so far for the 2017 Reds. In some ways, it’s been better than expected; in other ways, not so much. But one thing is clear to this Reds fan: Robert Stephenson needs a trip to Louisville immediately (if not sooner).
Why Robert Stephenson Needs Louisville
Bryan Price came into this season with an experimental strategy for the rotation and bullpen, and it’s worked out pretty good for the most part. But one place that it’s coming up short is with Robert Stephenson, even if Price doesn’t seem ready to concede as much yet.
Here are the season long numbers: 7 appearances, 13 innings, 9.69 ERA, and 2.38 WHIP. The only bright spot is that he’s hurled 19 K’s, but honestly, that’s probably the only reason his other numbers aren’t even worse.
But as a numbers geek can point out with season-long numbers for Cody Reed and Amir Garrett, one bad appearance can skew the rest of the numbers. Not so for Stephenson.
He’s been consistently bad–giving up at least one run in all but one appearance. And he’s only gotten worse: Letting teams score 8 ERs and 9 Rs in his last two appearances, which only account for 3.1 IPs.
But that’s not the worst of it. No, the worst of it is that Stephenson’s bad performances have meant that he hasn’t been getting the work he needs to develop. He’s only thrown 3.1 IPs since his April 22 game.
Meanwhile, multiple pitchers for the Louisville Bats have doubled, tripled, and even quadrupled this number. Heck, Asher Wojciechowski has thrown 13.2 IPs in that time span for Louisville.
At a certain point, Price needs to wake up and ask himself who needs that development time more: Stephenson or Wojciechowski?
What do you think? Should Stephenson be stretching out in Louisville? Am I being impatient?
Let me know in the comments below or on Twitter by responding to @BleedinCincyRed.
