170 innings is almost a full season for a young, back of the rotation starter anyway, unless he turns out to be really efficient in pitches per inning. Stewart would have to have a very special season to surpass that in the majors. I don’t dispute the possibility of that, but usually the rookie year for a pitcher is fairly up and down with a few short exits.

And I also would suggest that the happy noise about him maybe making the rotation that we have heard this spring is misguided. He still hasn’t gotten his inning total up to where it needs to be. if he broke camp in the rotation they would still have to shut him down early like they did Morrow last year.

They stretched him by 31 more IP in 2010, and would likely be looking at dding another ~30 in 2011. That takes you to the 165-170 range. Which as we all know is not really considered a full season’s work at the major league level. given that there are easily six quality options in front of him, and three more stop-gap types – I’m reasonably certain Stewart won’t start a game in the majors before September, and if then only a couple of token starts.

It’s well known in the Jays system that you are expected to throw X number of changeups/cutters/whatever pitches you need to work on every time you are out there, regardless of results.

When you see a guy like Stewart who has a higher walk rate than youd expect from a guy with a plus fastball and a plus plus slider, it’s because he’s working on that change and throwing it when he would normally throw the slider or the fastball that he can control and command much better.

Always have to take pitching stats with a slight grain of salt in the minors(just like spring training for roster pitchers).

I do agree that a space would have to open up for Stewart, but I remember sitting down to write a piece about how great the rotation looked behind Doc Halladay once because we thought both Dustin McGowan and Shaun Marcum were going to take a step forward. Things change quickly in spring, and you don’t need to look any further than St-Louis to see that.

I do think he’ll continue to start in AA or AAA (most likely AAA). Even if they wanted to put him in the Jays pen, that’s also loaded with competition, so it doesn’t fix anything. Doing so allows them to bring him up in whatever role they need filled during the 2011 season and to take it from there. If it’s long relief with spot starts, so be it. If it’s starting, that’s great to. I just don’t believe that they’ll box themselves into making a decision now by putting him in the pen from the get-go. That would limit their options.

I do wonder if he won’t end up closing not because he CAN’T be a quality starter but because we have so many we can afford the luxury. If Drabek and Zep both turned out to be above-average 9or better) starters then who do you kick aside for Stewart?

By the way, I’m pretty sure that the Reds shifted him back to the ‘pen in 2009 as a means of controlling his IP year-over-year, not because of any doubts about his ability to start.

To me it’s not the quantity of the pitches but the quality and the command and the stamina. I think Stewart has enough of those things to become a pretty good starter. Could he be a dominant closer? Maybe. But why would you take a guy who could give you 180+ innings of quality work and turn him into a short reliever?

Short relievers are important, but good starters are harder to find and are generally more expensive for a reason.

Stewart – will be a BIG part of our future. Bank on it!