Padres Minors: Matt Wisler Refocused on 2015

By James Clark | Mar 2, 2015

When the dust settled on a crazy off-season, Matt Wisler is still a member of the San Diego Padres, and that might very well be a great thing. He really does have a lot of potential.

Rumored to be going to the Philadelphia Phillies (for Cole Hamels) all winter long, had to be tough for the 22-year-old pitcher. He reported to camp on time and ready to pitch. The former 7th round pick out of High School in Bryan Ohio, has breezed his way through A ball and AA ball. 2.48 ERA in his first three minor league seasons.

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He did however struggle last year after being promoted to Triple-A El Paso in the notorious hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League. Wisler spoke to Corey Brock of MLB.com and told him:

"“I had heard it was a pretty good hitter’s league, so I was expecting a pretty good challenge. The first four starts…. that was terrible. I probably could have done that in Double-A and had the same results. I learned a lot last year. I learned how I handle failure. Those four starts, I learned how to get past that. You learn that you have to stay calm in those situations.”"

A truly intelligent response from a young pitcher. Those are words from a man who is wise beyond his years. I know its cliché stuff, but Matt Wisler has backed it up with his performance on the field too.

In his final eight starts last season he posted a 3.40 era and threw 48 innings. Even more impressive is after those first four starts, he kept his ERA under 4.0 for his remaining 18 starts. That’s in a league where the average pitchers ERA is 4.64. Really impressive.

He is an intelligent pitcher that just doesn’t rely on his stuff to get him out of bad situations. He really learned how to pitch this past season. Nothing in his arsenal is particularly dominant, but he does have any idea of what he is doing out there every five days.

Matt Wisler needs to work on getting left-handed batters out more consistently. If and when he does make that adjustment, he will be pitching in the big leagues. He is very close to major league ready, and surely will pitch for the Padres at some point this year. He could be a fixture in the rotation for years to come.

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