There are less than a handful of starting pitchers in the organization with #s that cry out to be promoted at this time. So far most promotions have come by way of filling holes created by injury. There has been a domino effect caused by injuries to Wainwright, Wacha, CMart was out, AReyes has been missed, Helsley is down now. So Flaherty and Gant moved up and replaced by Herget, Ellis and more recently Woodford fills the Gilmartin departure. Its no longer “we lost this guy… but here’s a better one”.
Case in point, Springfield, O’Reilly replaced Greene, Shew replaced Helsley and Woodford’s spot was taken by Warner who may have lost that spot with a third of three disastrous starts last night. Generally, those filling in are not as good as those they have replaced in performance or potential. There is definitely a trend developing.