Yes, the versatile Matt McBride certainly had a great AFL campaign hitting .364 with a 1.152 OPS in 20 games, but he has always been one of the Indians better position player prospects. His performance in the AFL was more just the cherry on the sundae of what was a great comeback season for him.
Judy on the other hand had a breakout season in 2009, and has used his time out in the AFL to vault himself into the upper echelon of relief pitching prospects not only with the Indians, but arguably in all of baseball.
Armed with a fastball that tops out in the mid-90s and a wicked slider, the 6’4” 200-pound Judy went 4-3 with a 2.83 ERA and 14 saves in 41 combined appearances between High-A Kinston and Double-A Akron this past season. He held opposing hitters to a .201 batting average, and in 54.0 innings struck out 70 while walking just 18. He has carried his success from the 2009 regular season into the 2009 offseason as in AFL action to date he is 2-1 with a 0.56 ERA in ten appearances, allowing 10 hits, 8 walks, and recording 18 strikeouts in 16.0 innings of work.
Judy’s 2009 season was a continuation of the strong showing he had in 2008 for Low-A Lake County and Kinston where in 42 combined appearances he went 12-1 with a 3.26 ERA and in 88.1 innings allowed 72 hits, 26 walks, and had 97 strikeouts. In all, in three seasons in the Indians minor league system in 96 total games and 167.2 total innings he has some pretty impressive numbers: 2.69 ERA, 6.9 H/9, 0.4 HR/9, 3.0 BB/9, 10.1 K/9, and 1.10 WHIP.
For the 23-year old out of Fort Wayne, Indiana, those are numbers that have put Judy on the fast track to the big leagues. He opened the 2009 season in Kinston, but after just four appearances there he was moved up to Akron where he remained and settled in nicely for the rest of the season. When right-handed closer Vinnie Pestano went down with an elbow injury in July, Judy assumed the closer’s role and flourished.
"I got settled in pretty well,” said Judy in a recent interview about his quick promotion to Akron earlier in the year. “It was a quick move up at the beginning of the year throwing only four innings in Kinston and [going] straight to Akron. You hate to lose a guy like Vinnie who was so dominant the first part of the season before he got hurt. I just wanted to step in and do my part."
The Indians typically do not develop closers in the minor leagues, focusing more on a set routine where their relievers go every two or three days and for one or two innings. It is very rare for any reliever to pitch on back-to-back nights, for when it does happen it is almost always because of necessity (over-worked bullpen, starter did not last long, extra innings, etc). Because of this, it is hard to have a defined closer to pitch every save situation. One pitcher in particular may be used in the role, but the role is often shared. The Indians prefer to have their more important relief prospects get regular work in the 7th and 8th inning rather than wait to use them in the 9th inning because you never know when an opportunity will arise to use them.
After so many struggles in the bullpen at the major league level three of the last four years, the Indians appeared to make some changes this past season with how they handle the development of relievers. One of them was identifying much earlier the starting pitchers who project more as relievers and moving them into a bullpen role much quicker. Also, it appears that they are now open to the idea of exposing their high priority relievers in roles in the minors that they think they project in at the major league level. That means a reliever like Judy who in the past was pitching mostly in the 7th and 8th inning based on a set plan to ensure work may now find himself pitching almost exclusively for one inning or in the 8th and 9th innings only.
The closer’s role was new for Judy the second half of the season, but you would never know it as he was dominant going 0-0 with 9 saves and a 1.47 ERA in 16 appearances after assuming the role in early July. The Indians moved him to a backend bullpen role because they like his approach on the mound. He is aggressive going right after hitters, displays very good composure, and is a bulldog in tight situations.
For Judy, the transition to the closer’s role was nothing new and in the end your job is still to get outs.
"I kind of just see it as going out there and just getting guys out and trying to get better everyday,” said Judy. “The whole mental preparation for that was just getting ready for one inning, three guys, and that the first out is the most important."
Judy had the unusual benefit of having the same pitching coach at Double-A Akron this past season as he had at Low-A Lake County in 2008. That’s because pitching coach Ruben Niebla was his pitching coach in Lake County in 2008, and was promoted to Akron for the 2009 season where he continued his role as pitching coach. It was a unique situation for Judy where he got a chance to work with someone who knew him well and probably the most of any pitcher Niebla worked with the past two seasons.
"Without a doubt he has probably progressed the most out of [all the relievers here]," said Niebla in an interview back in September. "He got off to a little bit of a rough start at the beginning just adjusting to the level more than anything. I knew the stuff was there as I saw him in Lake County and I knew the fastball and the ability to spin the ball was there. So once he got adjusted and got his feet under him he has run away with putting together a very good year."
Niebla and Judy worked together over the course of the season and made some changes to his delivery which Judy thinks helped him take off about halfway through the season.
"[We worked] on my mechanics, most definitely,” said Judy. “For most of [2008] and the beginning of this year they wanted me to have a high leg kick and be in more of a load position in the stretch being able to deliver to the plate. That wasn't working when I got [to Akron earlier this year]. So they tightened up my delivery to make it very quick and subtle and it panned out. [My slider] definitely improved with the mechanical adjustment [to my delivery]. It is a lot tighter, sharper, and I am able to get more swing and misses with it."
Judy got engaged last offseason, and will get married next offseason on December 18th. In between now and then there is a lot more on his mind than just wedding plans. If things fall his way there is a great chance that this time next year not only will he be celebrating the beginning of his new life with his fiancé Vivian, but the beginning of a career in the Major Leagues.
"I think one guy that has been one of the more encouraging stories for us [this year] in Player Development has been Josh Judy," said Indians Farm Director Ross Atkins in a season ending interview. "With just how consistent he has been with having consistently above average stuff as a relief pitcher. He has an above average ability to put the ball on the ground and an above average fastball. So he is someone I think could potentially impact the team next year in 2010."
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2 comments:
Tony,
I'm really intrigued by this idea of changing the approach to relief pitcher development. Do you have any insight into how other organizations do it? How many use the 'priority reliever' approach and how many have defined roles? Does there seem to be any correlation to how well those pitchers perform at the ML level?
Not too familiar with how other teams use and develop their relievers in the minors, but I believe most teams follow the same standard of having certain guys throw as scheduled on each night. Going in, each team has 2-3 guys who are "scheduled to get their work in". This is mostly because they know starters won't go more than 5-6 innings because of pitch counts. The relievers themselves even for the most part know what nights they are pitching. Obviously things can get out of whack some when a starter goes longer/shorter than expected, but that's how most teams (if not all) handle it from my experience.
Now, how they handle the situations and roles they use those pitchers in may be completely different. Certain relievers get those "priority" innings meaning they are the priority guys to always get their work in the 7th/8th inning every 2-3 days. If it means someone else in the bullpen has to be skipped so the priority guy gets his work, that's what it means. I do think that teams "develop" relievers differently, though the way they use them is not all too different. The Indians never seemed inclined to exposing those priority guys to the backend or in closer roles instead focusing more on keeping them starters so they can work on all three pitches and be exposed to more game situations more often.....but as we saw last year that changed somewhat. It was a good change if you ask me, and something I hope they continue to implement and tinker with.
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