The Diamondbacks announced today that they have selected the contract of righty pitching prospect Jon Duplantier. He’ll take the active roster spot of infielder Ildemaro Vargas, who was optioned back to Triple-A.
Generally regarded as the best prospect in the Arizona farm system, Duplantier will initially work out of the bullpen, according to Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic (Twitter link). It seems likely he’ll serve in a long-relief capacity for the time being and will generally remain stretched out.
Duplantier was a third-round pick out of Rice back in 2016. He has marched up the chain since that time, turning in excellent results all along the way. He pitched to a 2.69 ERA with 9.1 K/9 and 3.8 BB/9 in 67 Double-A innings last year, but some arm issues kept him from working a full season. Duplantier then threw another 21 2/3 frames in the Arizona Fall League (3.32 ERA, 32:10 K/BB ratio) to build up his workload.
Prospect hounds generally view Duplantier as a high-ceiling hurler. He has proven capable in the minors of producing grounders as well as swings and misses, with a mid-nineties heater that he combines with a good slider and still-progressing curve and change. There’s some worry about his long-term health outlook, and he has missed some action since joining the professional ranks, but the consensus is that the talent is there for the 24-year-old to be a top-flight pitcher.
What are the service time ramifications of this?
He’ll pitch in relief. Then when they want him to be a starter, they’ll send him down to get stretched out. When he comes back up, he will have served his time and the D’backs will get the extra year. Easier to do than with a position player.
And smarter to do it this way then to keep him down for 3 weeks! Looks less shady, even everyone knows it is! But a smart plan if they do it that way AZPat
Why would they do that and prematurely burn an option year?
Because if he’s good who cares about options
he’d also become a Free agent a year sooner so…
Ctrl Alt Del, it was explained above how they can maintain the extra year of control.
They’ll gain the extra year of control that way but that was assuming they were going to use him as a major league starter this year.
wow, jumping the gun id think. what’s the rush right now?
yeah!! he’ll be fun to watch.
Is he their best prospect? Varsho, Jazz and Duplantier are all guys who could be their number 1 guy
Jazz is #1 on MLB.com. Widener is in that conversation as well
Bullpen was taxed in the first series. If he can give them innings and gain some confidence against big league hitters, it’s a win-win.
Good thing they still have three catchers. 27 walks in four games by that pitching staff. Woof! Interested to see Greinke’s next start b/c his command and stuff looked very poor in his first outing. Hopefully they don’t crush Duplantier’s spirit because there aren’t going to be many chances to gain confidence in the spots he will inevitably be put in. What are the Dbacks even doing? They aren’t rebuilding and they certainly aren’t competing.
Front office thinks they can still compete. Normally I’d say they have an outside chance at a wild card spot but I don’t see them being better than any of the other contending teams at this point. The NL is deep this year. I think they’ll start unloading pieces by July if it they aren’t looking good.