On Saturday afternoon, the Detroit Tigers claimed RHP Carson Fulmer for exemptions from the Chicago White Sox. A corresponding list move has not yet been announced. Presumably, the Tigers will wait until I report to the team. Fulmer, who pitched in 20 games for the White Sox in 2019, missed the final round of cuts to the White Sox roster and was designated for assignment Thursday.
In 2015, the White Sox made Fulmer the eighth overall pick in that year’s amateur draft. The Lakeland, Florida native was coming off a brilliant Vanderbilt career and the evaluators hoped he would get the majors quickly, with a chance to establish himself in the upper half of Chicago’s rotation. He kept half of that promise: his major league debut came much earlier than his teammates’. However, in the three seasons that followed the start of his major league career, he failed to demonstrate that he can be a contributing member of a winning ball club.
Slowly, over the course of the past few years, Fulmer has grown into a helping role. His 24 games in Triple-A last season were thrown entirely out of the bullpen, and 18 of his 20 games in the major leagues were also relief efforts.
The results were mixed, but it’s not hard to understand why the White Sox said goodbye to their previous first-round pick. Walking 6.59 hitters for every nine innings is not a way to hold on to a place in a team trying to compete. However, there are many more opportunities on the Tigers’ roster, considering the pitiful state of his bullpen and his injury-ridden rotation.
The key to whether Fulmer is successful in Detroit is twofold. First, the Tigers have to find a way to get more value from their four-pitch mix. His fastball has an above average spin rate, but his heater has lost some of the strength it once had. Instead of the mid-to-high 90s speed where he operated for the Commodores, he averaged 93.7 miles per hour in 2019. The fastball is still good enough when he is locating it, but he hasn’t seen the shot the White Sox expected. I would find working on shorter outings outside the bullpen.
The selling point with Fulmer is the cutting power it can provide. Both his cutter and curved ball have excellent spin speeds and at his best he has demonstrated the ability to use both effectively. Despite a high turning power curve, however, Fulmer doesn’t use the field much, throwing just eight percent curves in 2019.
MLB trade rumors He suggested that bolder use of your fastball can go a long way in configuring your curved ball more effectively. He lives in the lower half of the strike zone, and often below it, when he challenges hitters with his four spots. By changing the location of his fastball to accommodate increased use of the curved ball, he was able to see a hit to his punch and weak contact rates. Frankly, it’s a long shot, but the Tigers have gotten better grades to improve launch mixes for their project launchers, which would be a great step in rejuvenating their useful player status.
However, the second key is always the fact of the matter. Like most pitchers with power flaws, the real flaw here is the ability to control the entire package and position yourself under pressure. Fulmer was called up to the majors very quickly. Probably too soon, in fact, and underwent a series of mechanical adjustments under the tutelage of veteran White Sox pitching coach Don Cooper, without success. It is possible that some of Fulmer’s struggles can be attributed to paralysis through analysis, similar to what White Sox starter Lucas Giolito endured in his years with the Washington Nationals.
Here’s the bottom line: Fulmer didn’t cost the team anything and could be a useful cog in his launch machine. If they can help you use your repertoire more effectively, they can overcome some of the control issues present in your delivery. He may never deliver on his draft status promise, but with the right settings, it’s certainly possible that the Tigers can help him become an effective addition to his bullpen. Certainly they could use the help, and picking up flyers on pitchers with good things that haven’t put it together yet is always worth it for a roster that could easily throw some players out without missing a beat.
Here’s a look at Fulmer at work in March.
