Of all the possible outcomes regarding the five-man staff, the upshot is a pleasant surprise despite the lofty expectations of the fans for the starters acquired by general manager Matt Klentak of the Philadelphia Phillies.

A Dose of Insight:

When you blame the messenger for negative developments, you don’t realize the fault may be your incorrect perception of reality.

Looking at the successful rotation arms from the Triple-A Lehigh Valley IronPigs, the faithful see many possibilities – in fact, more than enough – to slot behind Aaron Nola. Ergo, a competitive staff. But a GM eyeballs things differently: He views quantity, not quality.

In the front office of the Texas Rangers, they wanted an ace atop their rotation. And the only unavailable prospect in such deals is a future stud from the high minors who doesn’t raise even a single doubt.

Basically, the trades from rebuilding yielded flamethrowers Vince Velasquez, Nick Pivetta and Mark Appel, while the other picked-up hurlers don’t have a mid-90s fastball. They depend completely on control: 100 percent. However, a fireballer has the luxury of a 97-mph mistake.

In Double-A, the talent level for successful players is the same as the majors with some differences. One is many opponents will never reach Triple-A or the big leagues or be standouts if they do. Normally, Double-A starters hit their target 40 percent of the time, but they must improve to 70 percent accuracy against MLB competition. And management expects only one poor outing out of five according to Mackanin. But if they don’t achieve that standard, what word will you hear from the skipper? Inconsistent.

IN OTHER WORDS: “Consistency is something you can always improve on. You can be more consistent with your mental approach, the things you do physically on the mound. Instead of doing five good pitches an inning, try to make six. You can always do more of what you are doing well and try to be as consistent as you can be.” – Greg “The Professor” Maddux

If a hurler isn’t commanding his arsenal, he gets hit. For instance, Jacob deGrom has mid-90s smoke and other plus pitches, but the Phils knocked him out of a recent game in New York because he lacked control. Basically, a high-ERA starter can twirl a gem in one contest out of five, and the opposite is true of a deGrom. In other words, the finesse pitchers for Philly who have a shot are plentiful, but only one or two of them will make the rotation at its bottom.