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In 2013, Trevor Rosenthal was fantastic. In 2014, he was merely good. In 2015, he was great again. In 2016, he wasn’t very good at all. This season brings a ton of question marks.
Rosenthal is no longer the closer and a variety of roles have been discussed. He’s getting a chance to stretch out as a starter, but his first attempt was thwarted before he even got started due to lat tightness. There is the possibility of a sort of dynamic, Andrew Miller-playoffs role where Rosenthal comes in and pitches more than one inning earlier on in the game to get the game to the ninth.
That very well could be Rosenthal’s best role, if he can do it, although the Andrew Miller-playoff role is impossible in the regular season due to fewer off days. If Rosenthal could pitch maybe twice a week and get 7 innings every two weeks that would get him 52 appearances and 91 innings over the course of the season.
He likely hasn’t yet closed the door on starting, but he is behind Wacha in priority and innings this spring. His projections at ZiPS are here, Steamer here, and Baseball Prospectus ($) projections on their player pages.
What do you think?
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