Don’t want to this post to be 500 words long to get to the conclusion, “Meh, maybe, if Nate Pearson is healthy,” so, yes, he had elbow tightness, which is a concern, but he threw two innings in the playoffs — yes, two whole innings! — and his velocity was fine, so, yeah, I don’t know. My assumption with Pearson’s elbow health is multi-fold: One-fold, if it’s not good, that sucks, but he will be shut down in March during Spring Training, and we’ll be able to drop him in redraft fantasy leagues without too much anguish, because the 2nd-fold says he should be cheap enough in drafts to acquire. There’s no three-fold. I.e., It’ll be easy enough to fold on Pearson. Hey, by the way, I’m typing this up in a laundromat, is it obvious? Okay, as B. Real once said, “How do ya know where you’re headed if you don’t know where ya been,” so here’s what I’ve said previously, “Let’s start with the drool. Here’s Nate Pearson:
Nate Pearson bending the baseball ? pic.twitter.com/wxF4RKXftk
— Ryan Di Francesco (@RyanDifrancesco) March 1, 2020
Wipes sweat bead from forehead, takes a long drawn-out beat, then, “Damn.” Here’s what else he does to hitters:
This is our last baseball for a while, so enjoy this video of Nate Pearson owning a guy so hard he just chucked his bat at the ball pic.twitter.com/Bjt13NZ0to
— Blue Jays Nation (@thejaysnation) March 12, 2020
Wanna know how good a guy is? Watch how hitters attack, or in this case, try to attack him. These two examples of Nate Pearson’s butter don’t even show his 99 MPH cheddar. That cheese, if you will, is the reason why these hitters are looking so bad. Imagine sitting on a 99 MPH fastball, then this filth is dropped into the zone. You can’t hit anything there without guessing. You sit dead-red heat on his fastball, one of the best in the minors, and he drops in an 86 MPH change or a slider or a curve. Batter, batter, can’t touch butter! You can hope he doesn’t locate on one of the pitches, but last year, across three levels of the minors ending in Triple-A, he had a 119/27 K/BB. Yes, that’s beautiful. I guess you can argue that minor leaguers aren’t waiting on a pitch like major leaguers, but have you seen strikeout rates recently in the majors? Pearson’s going to chew up hitters and spit them into a barrel and send that barrel over Niagara, saying, “Get the f*** out of Canada!” And that’s me quoting me quoting a guy going over Niagara in a barrel! Talk about a barrel rate, huh? So, what can we expect from Nate Pearson for 2021 fantasy baseball?
Nate Pearson’s 18 major league innings this year were ugly. Nothing much to take away from it other than a small sample, and his stuff still was nasty. Just not controlling it as he is wont to do. Giving up dingers like a glizzy dealer, and walking hitters like he’s a giant pair of New Balance. Take off the Keds, homeboy, and do business. That’s what we hired you for! (We didn’t hire him.) Again, it’s 18 innings across five games and means nothing. Don’t make we tell you about how awful Kershaw was in his first taste of the majors, while telling you that by saying I won’t tell you that. It’s just not worth it. Okay, one last point! Pearson’s first start was solid, so that means all that blech was in four games, which is super irrelevant. Throw out his 6.00 ERA and 6.5 BB/9. It’s nonsense. Every great prospect pitcher who debuted last year could be eclipsed by Pearson in 2021. All your excitement for Sixto Sanchez, Ian Anderson or any of them could be lapped with you lapping up that Nate stuff. But, in the end, it will come down to, “Meh, maybe, if Nate Pearson is healthy.” For 2021, I’ll give Nate Pearson projections of 5-6/4.27/1.24/109 in 102 IP with a chance for much more or less.
