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October 29, 2009

Player Profile

Ryan Madson

by Marc Normandin

The Phillies’ bullpen, which was so important to their championship run in 2008, has been a source of woe for much of 2009. It was expected that, as a unit, the pen would regress, given their tremendous collective performance in 2008. Even with that in mind, things got a bit out of hand this year. They dropped from 15.251 WXRL and the second spot in the majors to 18^th and just 6.804; rather than a bullpen full of options that seemed to do everything right, Charlie Manuel was reduced to picking from a few pitchers that still seemed to be able to rack up outs with regularity. Ryan Madson was one of those pitchers, as he led the team in appearances and WXRL while pitching in more high leverage situations than Brad Lidge, who was the team's closer for much of the year. The Phillies need Madson to be in top form for this series with the Yankees, where the differences in the pen could spell disaster—after all, you can't throw Cliff Lee out there every game.

Ryan Michael Madson was drafted by the Philadelphia Phillies in the ninth round of the 1998 amateur entry draft and was promptly lopped into Rookie ball to start his professional career at the age of 17. (As an aside, wouldn’t it be great if, due to his middle name, he came to the mound in relief with Stealers Wheel's "Stuck in the Middle" as his entrance music?) Madson was a starter back then, and he retained that role throughout his stay in the minors. He would move through the system relatively quickly, jumping from Rookie-level to Short-season A-ball in the New York-Penn League, then to Low-A in the Sally League by 2000, when he was 19 years old. The 2000 season turned out to be his best one yet, with a career high in starts, innings, and strikeouts. He also had two fewer walks than the year before, despite throwing nearly 50 additional innings.

This campaign brought Madson some serious attention—Baseball America ranked him as the fourth-best prospect in the Phillies’ organization heading into the 2001 season. At the time, he had a fastball that sat 91-93, but it had room to grow from a velocity standpoint. He also had a 12-to-6 curveball that needed to spin tighter in order to be more effective, and a changeup that, while improving, wasn't quite there yet. He did have a few things on his side though, namely, his imposing size (Madson was already listed at his current height of 6'6" back then) and his mechanics: his delivery worked well for him, and he was able to repeat it without any trouble.

Madson's first taste of High-A wasn't as successful as Low-A, though there were still some things to like. For one, he kept the ball in the park, which was important given he still needed to refine his control in order to keep walks down. Secondly, a lot of the issues stemmed from a high hit rate, which can happen a lot in the minors given the poorer defenses in play there. A bum shoulder that kept him from pitching well until July didn't help things, but he still managed to make progress on his changeup and refine the curveball he had been working on during Instructional League. The Phillies were confident he could continue to progress, as they stuck in him Double-A for the 2002 campaign; not bad for a 21-year-old pitcher picked in the ninth round.

In many ways, Madson was a much better pitcher after the promotion: he cut down on his walks (2.8 per nine), threw 171 innings over 26 starts, once again kept the ball in the park thanks to his ground-ball tendencies, and dropped the rate at which he allowed hits substantially, from 10.5 per nine to 7.9. The one complaint is that his strikeout rate dipped again, this time down to 6.9 Ks per nine. Granted, the ground balls kept strikeouts from being a necessity, but his stock as a starter was higher when he could blow it by guys with regularity.