Torres began the 2013 season by dominating as a starting pitcher at Triple-A, going 2-2 with a 2.39 ERA, an 11.7 K/9, a 3.3 BB/9, and a 0.3 HR/9 in 7 starts and 37.2 innings pitched. Torres turned 25 years old in December and isn’t nearly the prospect he used to be, but he still has the potential to be a good major league starting pitcher. Despite appearing in Thursday’s game, Torres may start for the Rays on Monday in place of the injured David Price. Even if he does, though, he would likely be a placeholder until Chris Archer or Jake Odorizzi is ready. Torres was a top prospect for years in the Rays organization, but after his struggles last season, his time may have passed. To Torres, though, that doesn’t matter much–he’s a different pitcher now and he’s more than willing to accept that.

In the minor leagues, Alex Torres has made 151 career appearances, 128 starts. The last four years, 79 of Torres’ 91 appearances came in a starting role, all except 12 from an ill-fated relief stint last season that went so badly that he was brought back into the rotation. In the minor leagues, Torres has been a starting pitcher and he has been uncomfortable coming out of the bullpen. The major leagues, though, has been a different story. Torres has appeared in five games, all in relief, and pitched quite well, managing a 3.24 ERA in 8.1 innings pitched. Whereas Torres struggled to adjust to the bullpen in the minors, he has thrived there in his brief big league time. Why? Maybe because the mind-set is so different. In the minors, relieving felt like a demotion to Torres after he faltered in the rotation. In the majors however, it’s a new challenge and a fulfillment of Torres’ lifelong dream to pitch in the major leagues.

Alex Torres was always a pitcher with incredible stuff but no idea where it was going. In the minor leagues, Torres struck out an impressive 9.8 batters per 9 innings, but he failed to even register a 2-to-1 strikeout to walk ratio as he walked 5.2 batters per 9. Maybe Torres still has some wildness within him, but he has made a breakthrough from the end of last season to Winter Ball to spring training to the start of this year, and describing him that way would no longer be accurate. He enters games throwing strikes and blowing hitters away like everyone knew he always could if he ever found some control. He throws each pitch like it may be his last knowing how close he was to letting all his talent slip away, and understands what will happen if he loses his focus again. In his relief outing on Thursday, Torres’ first pitch up and out of the zone was just 90 MPH. But after that pitch, he realized that he had a job to do and that nothing mattered beyond the batter he was facing. He got his velocity up to 94 MPH to put Ellsbury away and his pitches looked downright nasty as he did so.

At the end of the day, Alex Torres could probably become a pretty good major league starting pitcher and maybe more. Moving to relief, though, will suit him even better. Hitters from both sides of the plate will have themselves an awfully hard time contending with his mid-90′s fastball with late life, his sharp slider, and even his changeup, and tying it together with newfound command and the perfect relief mentality will just make him even more dominant. Torres doesn’t let the ball go and see what happens and he doesn’t nibble at the corners scared of what the hitter will do. Torres may be nervous on the mound, but he knows that he has the talent to beat any hitter on the planet and that the only one that can stop him from doing that is himself. And after the way Torres has made a breakthrough locating his pitches, him beating himself is not something that will happen too often anymore and dominance should be a much more common occurrence. Maybe Torres moves back into a starting role and maybe he heads back to the minor leagues if someone else is called upon to start. But in the long-term, the Rays have found themselves a keeper for the bullpen in Alex Torres.

Quate moved up to Double-A Montgomery for 2011 and didn’t have such good luck to begin the year. Through the end of May, Quate had just a 4.28 ERA despite an outstanding 22-6 strikeout to walk ratio and only 2 home runs allowed in 20 appearances and 27.1 innings pitched. But something went wrong in his next appearance as Quate, known for his control, walked 4 batters in 2 innings on his way to allowing 3 runs. From that game until July 29th, Quate’s ERA was amazing a 2.12, but his strikeout to walk ratio had slipped to just 11-10 in 18 appearances and 22.1 IP. His overall ERA was a solid 3.44 and on the year Quate found himself with a 6.0 K/9, a 2.9 BB/9, and a 0.7 HR/9 in 38 appearances and 49.2 innings pitched, so things didn’t look that bad and maybe he had just gone through a rough stretch. But then Quate completely imploded to end the year, allowing 11 runs in just 9 innings of work with a 6-4 strikeout to walk ratio. Quate had been so good previously that something just had to be wrong. Sure enough, Quate underwent offseason elbow surgery that the Rays hoped would help him get back into form for 2012.

On May 23rd, Quate finally made his season debut for Montgomery agains the Jackson Generals. The Biscuits had hoped to ease him back into the flow, but circumstances dictated otherwise. After Mariners top prospect Danny Hultzen and Rays prospect Joseph Cruz dueled to begin the game, the contest went into extra innings with the score tied 1-1. In the 11th inning, Quate entered the game hoping desperately to keep the game tied and give Montgomery a chance to win. Quate immediately realized that he had nothing, with his fastball sitting in the high-80′s and his slider not having nearly its usual sharp break, but he battled. In 2 innings of work, Quate allowed 3 hits and 2 walk but was able to escape jams in both innings. He was rewarded with the win in the game when the Biscuits won in a walk-off. But following the game, Quate quickly went back on the disabled list, this time for a shoulder issue. He would miss the rest of the season.

This year, Quate is healthy and pitching for the Biscuits for the third year in a row. But the results have remained entirely out of whack. Quate has had his moments, striking out 2 in a perfect inning on May 2nd, the first such inning he had put up since May 16, 2011. However, he has struggled through two horrific outings, allowing 5 runs in a third of an inning on April 28th and 6 runs in two thirds of an inning on May 7th, to put his ERA at 18.90 overall. He has struck out 6 and walked 6 as well in 6.2 innings, allowing 2 home runs as well. He is just hoping for babysteps, hoping to rebuild his confidence, but it’s taking quite a while. After seeing how good Quate could be when healthy, the Rays will continue to wait hoping that Quate will eventually put it all together again.

When healthy and going strong, Quate features a fastball in the low-90′s with good late life that he throws for strikes and does a good job commanding down in the zone to force weak contact. His best pitch, though, has always been a sharp low-80′s slider from the same arm slot with tight late brake that, for a while, forced hitters to just flail endlessly. Quate has never really taken to a changeup, which had led to some struggles versus lefties, and he was probably never going to be closing out games in the major leagues. However, Quate’s fastball-slider combination was death on right-handed batters when he was on and the Rays hope that will be the case in the major leagues someday. Quate is just 25 years old now and still has potential. Now, the question will be whether he can ever stay healthy and get himself together enough to put his upside within reach once again.

Last year, there plenty of excuses made for Myers’ 140 strikeouts. The uptick in strikeouts came with a huge increase in power as he slammed 37 home runs in 591 plate appearances after hitting just 27 in 1053 plate appearances the previous three years. We heard that Myers struck out more because he was making a conscious effort to be more aggressive at the plate and hit for more power, and that he would be fine moving forward. But what about this year? So far in 2013, Myers’ Triple-A numbers are downright mediocre. He has just a .264/.359/.411 line with 5 doubles, 4 homers, and 23 RBI in 34 games and a 153 plate appearances. Scariest of all, though, is that he has struck out 45 times, 29.4% of his plate appearances, while walking just 19 times. His strikeout to walk ratio of 2.37-to-1 is nearly identical to his 2.30-to-1 mark from last year–this problem isn’t going away–and now he’s not hitting for any power. Is it time for serious concern? According to one evaluator, yes. Here’s what a scout told Jason Churchill of ESPN Insider:

One scout told me late last month that Myers’ propensity to swing and miss is his only weakness, but it may be enough to keep him from star status, or even a call-up this summer.

Is Wil Myers a bust at this point? Absolutely not. But doesn’t every day Myers struggles seem to make increasingly likely that he will fail to meet expectations? Will Wil Myers ever become that star outfielder the Rays thought they were getting or will he turn into a role player in the major leagues if anything at all?

Calm down. We’re not at that point yet. Myers has gotten off to a rough start to the year, and don’t read too much into an early-season slump. Most interestingly, though, has been his plate discipline over the early goings this year. In his first ten games of the season, Myers’ strikeout to walk ratio was an outstanding 11-9. In his first 18 games, it was still solid at 22-13. But in his last 16 games since then, he’s down to just 23-6. What’s happening? It seems pretty clear that Myers loses his plate discipline when he gets into a slump and that is what’s happening. We can have a chicken-and-the-egg discussion about whether Myers’ poor plate discipline caused his slump or vice versa, but we’ve seen before how his plate discipline looked just fine earlier in the season before his recent slump. When Myers gets back on track, he will walk more and his strikeout rate will get a lot lower. Let’s wait for Myers to break out and see what happens to his plate discipline then before we rush to judgement.

There’s other point that has to be touched on: just because Myers swings and misses too much, will that prevent him from being a star? Only one well-regarded MLB outfielder had a strikeout to walk ratio in a season like Myers did last year: Reds outfielder Jay Bruce. In 2007 between High-A, Double-A, and Triple-A, Bruce struck out 147 times while drawing 35 walks. The comparison actually goes a little farther as Bruce and Myers have very similar body types, both being 6’3″ and Bruce weighing 215 while Myers weighs 205. Both have great power, a little speed, and play solid defense. In his MLB career, Bruce has been somewhat enigmatic but has still hit for great power, hitting 20 or more home runs in each of his five years in the major leagues and 30 or more in the last two. He has a .256/.329/.478 line (112 OPS+) overall, but a .262/.340/.493 line (120 OPS+) from 2010 to 2012. And so far in 2013, Bruce’s numbers look a little bit like Myers’ as he has managed a .258/.306/.403 line with 12 doubles, 3 homers, and 23 RBI, striking out an NL-leading 52 times while walking 11 times. Overall, Jay Bruce is not a star, instead being a very good player who has his limitations, not hitting for much average or geting on base at a great clip, and basically being defined as a streaky home run hitter. Bruce’s level of performance seems like the 50th percentile for Myers, the point where he wouldn’t be a bust but would not be a bust but wouldn’t be a star either. At the end of the day, though, if Wil Myers turns into Jay Bruce, the Rays will not be infuriated–they will still end up with a pretty good players on their hands.

Bruce isn’t the only star outfielder in baseball in baseball who strikes out a little too much without good plate discipline. You have Josh Hamilton, Curtis Granderson, Matt Kemp, Alex Gordon, Carlos Gonzalez, and even Adam Jones, and then there’s a class of players just below them like Torii Hunter, Hunter Pence, and Andre Ethier. Even if strikeouts will be a flaw for Myers moving forward, as long as it doesn’t affect his power and he still hits for a good average, he could very well become a star nevertheless. The player who might be the interesting comp for Myers, though, could be Jason Bay.

Bay was another top prospect who was traded, heading from the Padres to the Pirates for Brian Giles, and Bay turned into the NL Rookie of the Year in 2004. That year, Bay managed a .282/.358/.550 line (132 OPS+) with 24 doubles, 26 homers, and 82 RBI, but his big flaw was that he struck out 129 times versus only 41 walks. In subsequent years, though, Bay’s plate discipline improved significantly as he walked 80 times four of the next five seasons, and Bay had himself an outstanding run as a major league player, managing a .280/.375/.519 line with an average of 31 doubles, 30 homers, 99 RBI, and 10 stolen bases per season from 2004 to 2009. If Myers became as good of a player as Bay used to be, the Rays would have no complaints at all. Bay’s example may be even important, though, because it shows how a player can begin his career without much plate discipline but develop it as he becomes more accustomed to the big league game. Maybe Myers could do the same.

Will Wil Myers become a star for the Rays in the coming years? There’s no way we can answer that question right now, but it’s certainly in the realm of possibility that he can. The easiest way for him to do that would be to cut down on the strikeouts significantly, but even if he improves only slightly he can still be an excellent player. Myers has more work to do in the minor leagues over the next few months as the Rays make sure that he’s entirely ready before bringing him to the major leagues. And strikeouts or not, there is every reason to believe that he will be worth the wait.