Man, what a week for starting pitcher callups! Thankfully we're seeing Major League clubs unshy of bringing up their future aces instead of being little scaredy-cats and using the Super 2 as a crutch. "Stop wasting some of your better pitched innings in the Minors, ya bums!" That was me two years ago. I was also skinnier and not married yet, so not everything has gotten better...
Right on the heels of the Jose Berrios callup, the A's promoted Sean Manaea after an absolutely meteoric rise after being traded by the Royals in the Ben Zobrist deal. Manaea always had power stuff and great K-rates, but never quite harnessed the command to get himself atop prospect lists. But when you have awesome pure stuff, sometimes one minor tweak can take you from "meh" to "mania"! After a 21:4 K:BB in Triple A over 18 innings this year, it certainly came with a lot of fanfare that Manaea was getting called up, and he's surely scooped up in almost all leagues at this point. Is he worth all the hype? Here's how he looked on Friday night in his MLB debut against the Astros:
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