Jeremy vs Jeremy

Indians lefty Jeremy Sowers looks like the real deal. Sowers, the Indians’ first-round pick out of Vanderbilt, began his professional career at high-A Kinston. In 72 innings, Sowers had a 2.78 ERA and a 75/19 strikeout/walk ratio. He also induced 1.65 groundballs per flyball, an excellent amount.

Sowers earned a promotion to AA Akron, where he pitched 82 innings. With the Aeros, Sowers had a 2.08 ERA and a 70/9 K/BB ratio. He induced 1.38 groundballs per flyball---not as good as at Kinston, but still very good.

Sowers looks like he can be a solid #3 starter at the major league level, and he looks to be ready perhaps by mid-2006. But then again, wasn’t the same thing said about another Indians prospect named Jeremy a couple of years ago?

Jeremy Guthrie was the Indians’ first-round pick out of Stanford in 2002. Guthrie, like Sowers, was drafted out of college more for his polish than his ceiling (in other words, the Indians understood that they probably didn’t have an ace, but they thought they had a guy who was not far from being a #3-4 starter in the big leagues).

Guthrie, like Sowers, dominated AA Akron in his first professional season. In 62 innings with the Aeros in 2003, Guthrie had a 1.44 ERA and a 35/14 K/BB ratio. In hindsight, Guthrie’s miniscule strikeout-per-inning-pitched ratio (5.03 K/9) should have been a warning sign, but many (including myself) lauded over the excellent ERA.

Guthrie was promoted to AAA, where he pitched 96 innings. Guthrie stumbled at Buffalo, posting a 6.52 ERA and a 62/30 ratio. Despite his poor performance, many were still high on Guthrie---feeling about Guthrie the way many today feel about Sowers. However, despite sharing a first name, there are telling differences between the Jeremys.

First of all, Guthrie is older than Sowers; Guthrie completed a Mormon-mission before going to college, so Guthrie (24) was older than Sowers (22) when the Indians drafted him. Age is a huge component of minor league development, as a younger player has more time to develop and improve. Secondly, Sowers has struck out more batters per nine than Guthrie at every level. Furthermore, Sowers’ K/BB ratio is a lot better than Guthrie’s ever was (strikeouts per nine and strikeouts per walk are both excellent indicators of future ability for minor league pitchers, even more so than ERA). Finally, Sowers induces a lot more groundballs than Guthrie, meaning that Sowers is a lot less likely to give up homers or extra-base hits.

Overall, Jeremy Sowers and Jeremy Guthrie may look similar on the surface, but once we look deeper, we realize that Sowers is for real, while Guthrie never was.