If there’s something Mike Elias & Co. love more than anything, it’s a pitching makeover: unearthing a struggling pitcher whose peripherals show some kind of hidden value, figuring out what mechanical tweaks and refined pitch mix could accomplish that, and then watching their candidates deliver.
Into that “Hey, this guy’s better than I thought!” basket, you can put John Means in 2021, along with Cole Sulser, Chris Ellis and Dillon Tate. In 2022, you had breakout stars Cionel Pérez, Félix Bautista, Austin Voth and Dean Kremer. This year, La Roca has joined La Montaña at the back of the bullpen, Tyler Wells is newly a strikeout machine, a resurgent Kyle Gibson is (somewhat) stabilizing the rotation and, in case you forgot him (it’s easy to forget him) there’s Danny Coulombe.