Analysis: Mitch Talbot

At age 26, Talbot had a 4.41 ERA in 159 innings. His fastball touches 91 with movement. Talbot has a good slider and a good changeup with downward movement.

At age 25, Jake Westbrook had a 4.31 ERA in 133 innings. His fastball was in the low 90s. Westrook features a good sinker and relies on that heavily. He also throws a slider, cutter, and change.

We should look for Talbot to develop into a Jake Westbrook type pitcher, a solid middle of the rotation guy. A guy that will give you around 200 innings and a low 4 something ERA (Westbrook has a career 4.29 ERA).

The key for Talbot is to drop the walk rate. That will allow him to pitch deeper into games and move that 159 innings up into the 200 inning range.

A realistic goal for Talbot this year is to pitch an extra 50 innings (209). Keep his walk total the around same, 68-ish. In other words, he needs to walk one less batter per 9 innings. And go from 12 quality starts to 17 quality starts. Doing that makes him a legit MLB 3rd starter.