FanPost

Jordan Lyles: A wild thought

Here's a scenario for you--a flight of fancy, if you will: Let's say Jordan Lyles starts at AA and dominates in the first half of the year. Say our worst fears come true and one of Norris/Myers/Paulino is hit with a season-ending injury; we're still in the thick of contention.

We do have Moehler on standby, but with our best starting pitcher prospect dominating at AA, does the organization consider doing something radical and calling Jordan Lyles up, thinking that he may actually perform better than Moehler?

On the one hand, Ed Wade's front office has shown some willingness to call pitchers up directly from AA and throw them into the fire (like Wilton Lopez last year); on the other hand, Jordan Lyles is a very young and very important prospect, and you don't want to risk damaging his confidence by bringing him up before he's ready.

Jordan Lyles started 26 games at Class A Lexington last year, pitching 144 innings. He posted a 3.24 ERA and a 2.42 FIP while striking out 167 batters and walking only 38. He was ranked as our third best prospect by Baseball America in November of last year, and the ninety-first best prospect out of all MLB organizations.