This was the last year we had to retain Whitley's rights in the minors, and he's been wasting space on the 40 man roster. I'm sure Dana Brown has been looking for a good chance to get Whitely on the MLB team since he got here. But because he's made of paper mache that chance never shows itself. There's really no reason to think he won't suck. He hasn't gotten minor league hitters out in 5.5 years, and he's rarely been available to pitch at all. They're just throwing him in to see what happens before they dump him, hopefully the stars align and he magically figures it out against MLB competition.
I guess the bright side of all the pitching injuries is that tons of minor leaguers are getting opportunities they simply lacked with healthy pitching.
From 2014-2023 166 players debuted for the Astros (16.6 per season) If/When Whitley gets into a game he will be 9th this year, less than 20 games into the season.
I'm asking this sincerely: hasn't he been pretty good this year? Or, at least: he still has + stuff? (I don't pay close attention to the minors.)
He's barely pitched (as usual), and has been terrible in what little he has. His raw stuff is still plenty good, they would have dumped him years ago if it wasn't, but that hasn't stopped him from sucking. https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=whitle000for You can take a second to peruse his glittering results. I'm sure they hoped for a lot of one on one camp time, but as is always the case he got hurt. Everything has been a mess since 2018 (when he made a series of stupid choices) with the organization just hoping they can put the pieces back together.
Daddy’s back! Spoiler https://www.houstonchronicle.com/sp...s-Inside-the-Astros-Daddy-jersey-13627711.php
https://www.baseballprospectus.com/player/109107/forrest-whitley/ 2023: Once the top pitching prospect in the sport, Whitley is coming off not just a lost season but a lost half-decade. Since the end of the 2017 season, he's thrown just a total of 126 competitive innings scattered throughout the minors (plus another 51 if you want to count a pair of Arizona Fall League stints). In 2018, he got hit with a drug suspension and then had oblique and lat issues. In 2019, he battled shoulder fatigue and mechanical problems. In 2020, his forearm barked ramping up during summer camp and he never really got going. In 2021, the same thing happened in spring training, and he ended up having Tommy John surgery that March. His 2022 encore was brutal, and he missed more time with bicep and shoulder issues—but he was consistently throwing in the mid-90s, and the return year from TJS is also rough. If he can stay on the mound and throw strikes...well, it was five Taylor Swift albums ago, but you can dream on him recapturing that top pitching prospect form. Compared to... 2017: The top right-handed high school arm in Texas, Whitley remained in his home state after the Astros used the 17th overall pick of the 2016 draft to secure his rights. A cool $3.148 million signing bonus made spurning an offer from Florida State an easy decision. Whitley already owns a fastball that touches 97 mph and has the potential to develop into a front-line starter. Ironically enough, the 6-foot-7 Whitley calls Tim Lincecum his favorite pitcher. Despite their polar opposite statures, Whitley considers himself a changeup artist like Lincecum. If Whitley can develop a changeup anything like The Freak's to go with that huge fastball? Look out.
