Worked for Doc Halladay.

Yeah, and look what happened to him!

(Too soon?)

I've never heard of that league but they can probably hit Manoah right now

Does Florida have a Simple League?

Is that like a prison league?

Florida Complex is a new diagnosis that will be included in the next DSM and future scouting manuals.

The Florida Complex League, operated by Minor League Baseball, is a Rookie-level circuit that has operated in Florida since 1964. Most games are played at Major League Spring Training complexes and are open to the public with free admission. Click here for league details and a team directory.

Address:
Florida Complex League
1271 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020

Manager, Complex Leagues: Andy Shultz
Email: Andy.Shultz@mlb.com

Didn't Greinke also get sent way down or am I just confusing him with Halladay? Rich Hill made it all the way down to indy ball although, being Rich Hill, that didn't keep him from pitching in the majors that season.

Must be Halladay. When Greinke was working his way back to baseball after stepping away in 2006, he went to AA.

on further review, looks like Halliday went to High A when he went down, not all the way to the complex league.

The Jays sent him to Dunedin, where they have their spring training facility, so Manoah will have access to the coaching and resources they feel will benefit him. That’s why this league was chosen. Whatever changes they feel are required, seems like the team would rather not send him to AAA and let him try to work it out with a start every fifth or sixth day.

You say Manoah, I say Manaea. They've both been awful this year.

The assignment to the FCL is just paperwork. The Jays minor league HQ is in Dunedin and they invested a lot of money into a very modern pitching lab there. He has been assigned there to be examined, filmed and re-engineered.

I doubt you will see him start a game in the FCL, or for the low A Dunedin Jays, for at least a couple of weeks.

It did work for Roy Halladay, way back when, but I'm thinking this is more likely to turn out as Ricky Romero, part 2. I also keep thinking he's hurt, after seeing the data from the Fangraphs article a couple of weeks again.

You see these stories about DeGrom, Sale, Cortes, and Strasburg. You read this story about Manoah. And you can't help but think that if your team is fortunate enough to find one or more starting pitchers who are both above-average and extremely durable, hold on to them tight.

Mark Buehrle is not a Hall of Famer, in my opinion, but one out of nine HOF voters think he is, and I suspect his support may continue to grow as the ballot empties out. He basically made 490 consecutive starts, pitched at least 199 innings for 15 straight years, with a career ERA+ of 117...basically, if Don Sutton pitched in the era of increased bullpen use and 5-man rotations, he'd have been Buehrle.

All of this is to say, the longer I am a baseball fan, the more I value durability and consistency in pitchers as distinct "skills".

I've seen a few FCL games, and it's basically the smallest step above a simulated game. In one contest I sat next to the official scorer; he and I were the only persons in attendance who weren't wearing a uniform or holding a radar gun. Another game was simply cancelled. Other games had a bit more attendance, but probably fewer than 100 people as there are no concessions and not even a public address guy. My recollection is they even skipped the national anthem.

5. It is a prison league and will be relocated to the grounds just outside of Disney World along with other prison infrastructure

they even skipped the national anthem.

Don't tell DeSantis!

Durability -- thing is, pitchers are durable until they aren't. Or, alternatively, with very rare exception, every pitcher will miss half a season every few years. DeGrom missed 10 starts between his debut in May 2014 and July 2021. If the Mets hadn't extended him early, he'd have been FA at the end of the 2020 season. Should they have "held onto him tight" in that scenario?

basically, if Don Sutton pitched in the era of increased bullpen use and 5-man rotations, he'd have been Buehrle.

Well, no. I get the analogy and am fine with that and agree with the general point that, esp for SPs, there's a lot of value in being able to take the mound. But Sutton did what he did for 22 seasons while Buehrle only did it for 15. Sutton did overlap between 4 and 5-man rotations but Sutton today gets about 650-700 career starts while Buehrle didn't even make it to 500 starts. If Buehrle had managed another 5-6 seasons, pitching into his early 40s, then he'd have a Sutton case. Buehrle is Andy Pettitte or Tim Hudson (almost exactly):

AP 3316 IP, 521 starts, 117 ERA+, 61 WAR
TH 3127 IP, 479 starts, 120 ERA+, 57 WAR
MB 3283 IP, 493 starts, 117 ERA+, 60 WAR

Of course it's 256 wins vs 222 vs 214 thanks to teammates.

Anyway, SPs today aren't (yet) making fewer starts per year, they are pitching fewer innings per start. (A few teams have, at least at times, shifted to a 6-day rotation so we might be in the early stages of fewer starts per year.) Today's Buehrle still falls short of 500 starts because he called it a day at 35 while today's Sutton soldiers on for another 150-200 starts.

Also, for HoF purposes, I think this sort of thing barely matters if at all. Buehrle had 3300 innings over 15 seasons (basically). David Wells threw 3400 innings over parts of 21 seasons, starting out in the pen, becoming a swingman then a full-time SP for about 15 seasons, missing half of 2001 and 2006 but still making it to 489 starts. Colon was a very durable SP, then made just 47 starts over 5 years, then became a durable SP again, spreading his 550 starts over 21 seasons. So sure, for those 5 years when he barely pitched, he didnj't help (maybe even "hurt") his teams ... but then pitching 5-6 years longer than Buehrle meant he was helping "his team" at ages when Buehrle wasn't even pitching. Who knows if he will last long enough but Kershaw is about 4 Kershaw seasons away from matching Buehrle's number of starts -- quality aside, does it really matter in the comparison of two players** whether Kershaw's 500 starts are spread out over 20 seasons rather than 15?

** Again, sure, Kershaw's team has to find somebody to take 7 starts a year and that replacement probably isn't very good which hurts his team. Points to Buehrle. But in comparing the careers of Kershaw and Buehrle (or Buehrle to an "average" HoFer) there would also be those 5 seasons when Buehrle wasn't pitching and the other guy was, a time when Buehrle "had no team" to hurt by his absence. The difference between 3200 innings or 500 starts or 8000 PAs over 15 years vs 18 years is of little or no consequence in comparing careers.

Yeah, and look what happened to him!

He got TB?

So it's not going well! 11 R in 2 1/3 IP today!

His second start came in AA, and he fared a little better (3H, 3BB, 10Ks in 5 IP). And he's now scheduled to start vs. Detroit on Friday.