The Silly Reason Dietrich Enns Might Never Get A Fair Shot

Despite his dominant performance this season, New York Yankees minor league starter Dietrich Enns isn’t taken seriously as a rotation option for 2017.

Dietrich Enns was one of the notable snubs among the New York Yankees September call ups. It seemed like a strange choice given that the 25-year-old lefty will once again be eligible for the Rule 5 draft this winter. Hopefully it wasn’t an indication that the team is willing to risk losing him for nothing to another club.

There are often a multitude of reasons why certain minor leaguers get overlooked. One is age. It’s more likely a team will focus on a player who is entering his age 21 season, as opposed to someone over 25, especially if the older player has taken a long time to find success in the upper levels of the minor leagues.

There are other reasons such as attitude and mental make-up. So much goes into a team’s evaluation of their minor league players before they even get a chance in spring training to win a major league job. And these evaluations often determine if someone is an actual prospect, or just someone holding a spot.

Dietrich Enns, a minor league pitcher with the Yankees Triple-A Scranton Railriders, will be turning 26 next May. However, his age is not the reason the organization will probably keep him in Triple-A for another year. No, it’s something much sillier than that.  Something that makes little sense when it comes to questioning whether or not he can get major league hitters out.

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He doesn’t have a blazing, 95 mph plus fastball.  That’s right. The same pitcher who went 7-2 with a 1.93 era in Double-A Trenton, and again, 7-2 with a 1.53 era in Scranton, isn’t a flamethrower. Enns, who has found success as both a starter and reliever at every minor league level, has been getting outs with a fastball in the upper 80’s. On a good day, it sometimes might hit 92.

Enns also has good command of both his slider and his change-up. He uses the change-up as an out pitch. The guy must know what he’s doing.  In 291 minor league innings, Enns has 310 strike outs. But he’s been doing that with less than a glamorous repertoire. He gets outs using what fans refer to as “junk.”

If Enns were to get the call to the show and succeed, he wouldn’t be the first.  Just ask Jaime Moyer. The retired Moyer didn’t throw heat. But he sure knew how to keep hitters off balance.  He knew how to get outs.  Moyer relied on command and was able to translate that into a career that lasted until his late 40’s.

Which is why I believe Enns deserves a fair shot to crack the Yankees starting rotation.  Major league teams and their fans however, love the fastball.  Scouts are often impressed enough to rave about a pitcher who throws 100 mph, regardless of whether he has mastered any other pitch.

It’s as if the entire baseball world has forgotten that a fastball is only good if the batter misses it. And big league hitters not only know how to hit one, they thrive on it.

Look, I know where the fascination with throwing heat comes from.  I grew up in an era where pitchers like Dwight Gooden and Roger Clemens ruled. They put fannies in the seats.  What would you rather see if you paid a ticket: a young Doc Gooden striking out 14 with a blazing fastball, or Charlie Leibrant throwing with the velocity of a falling leaf?

Of course it’s Gooden.  But that’s not the only way a pitcher can win.  You would hope the decision makers in baseball could see that.

Most likely, for the reasons stated above, Enns will most likely be back in Triple-A next year. He will probably only get a shot if there is an injury, or if some other highly touted pitcher gets bombed.

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Luis Severino is a prime example of what goes wrong when your fastball is the only pitch you have working.  Severino went from being a sure thing after an impressive rookie stint in 2015, to someone who may only make the roster in relief.  It’s one of the reasons that it is silly to overlook Dietrich Enns.