Collmenter’s Spring Woes Continue
Arizona Diamondacks’ pitcher Josh Collmenter has not had a very good spring training and it doesn’t seem to be getting any better. The Diamondbacks lost another spring game to the Oakland Athletics, falling to 7-11-1 while the A’s improve to to 14-4-1 after the 6-5 victory.
On the bright side both Paul Goldschmidt and Cody Ransom went deep for the D-backs in a comeback effort that fell short in the end.
Despite recently being named one of the five Diamondback starters, Collmenter has been awful this spring, going 0-1 with a 13.50 ERA in four innings between two games, giving up six hits, six earned runs, while walking three and striking out two. Opposing batters are hitting a decent .353 and the right-hander has a eye-popping 2.25 WHIP.
This after a breakout performance last spring which led to his call-up from Triple-A Reno at the beginning of the year. Last spring Collmenter went 2-0 with a 1.80 ERA in five innings of work, giving up only three hits and one earned run in four games.
With the type of stats that Collmenter is producing it makes you wonder if he is best-suited in the starting rotation or if a change to the bullpen midseason would be beneficial to both the club and Collmenter himself.
My suggestion would be to move Collmenter to the bullpen. With the type of delivery and his limited array of pitches, he seems to only be able to fool batters once through the lineup before they are able to pick up the ball better out of his hands. This type of pitcher is best coming in for one or two innings or maybe even come in for many garbage innings after an awful start by someone in the rotation. I believe the move should happen sooner rather than later to make way for up-and-coming stars Trevor Bauer and Tyler Skaggs.
Although Bauer seems the most major league ready at the moment, even Skaggs could turn some heads in the minor leagues, which will definitely put pressure on manager Kirk Gibson to call either or both pitchers up. One thing is for certain, Collmenter is not the long term solution for the Diamondbacks at the back-end of the rotation.
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