I think McGowan is more valuable as a starter because he has a number of different pitches he can throw for strikes. The other thing is that he has experience that none of the other Jays starters have and he’ll need to be the anchor for the rotation.

The best closers generally just have two quality pitches (if they threw more quality pitches, they’d be wanted as starters). I think there’s one or two prospects that fit better if they have the mental capacity to do the role. I say this because I think that much of the time, the closer role seems to be more mental than physical (both in the pitcher’s mind and the batter’s). It’s why BJ Ryan was so successful despite not having the greatest stuff. Even when his arm was shot, he was still getting saves (though it made us very nervous). Once he lost that aura of invincibility, he was done.

but for this year, I’d put him in the pen (not pitching on consecutive days) for half the year, before gradually stretching him out. He then could start 6-10 games at the end of the year to cover the young arms that get shut down.

This would limit his innings to 100-120, which would be a cautious approach to his recovery year.

I’m convinced that stuff wise he could do it, I’m not convinced that it’s kinder to his shoulder.

That said, it is pretty much a given that if everyone stays healthy, our long-term closer WILL be a guy who is capeable of being a good starter.

If McGowan is healthy and in the rotation, and you believe what Alex says about Morrow, then McG, Marcum, Romero, Morrow and Zep are in line to be in the rotation and not just this year.

If someone falters Litsch in the short term and Drabek in short order fills the gap….that leaves Stewart and Cecil who would both be capeable (at least) mid-rotation starters…and both who have closing experience.

(and that without getting into Mills, Richmond, et al)

So not to dismiss the potential of Farquhar and Collins….it looks to me like there will be a guy we now think of as a starter closing soon.

if they’re going to build him back up the team is going to want him to be active for the whole season as well as having an inning count.

i’m sort of looking at it this way. if he starts for the second half of the year and averages only 5 innings a start (which is definitely conservative) that works out to (5 IP * 15 starts) 75 innings. to keep him active for the whole year and keep his innings around the 100-120 area he would have to be throwing 1 or 2 inning starts for the other half of the year… and there’s no way they’re going to be sending him out as a starter in AAA with a pitch count between 30-40 for the first half of the season. if he’s doing that he might as well be a reliever with the big club.

with all the young arms the jays will be using, most nights we’ll be lucky to get 6 or 7 innings from the starters. that means they could basically tell mcgown that for the first half of the season every fourth day he was going to get a couple innings of relief work. he’d be able to stick to a routine with his workouts then in july you stretch him back out with a couple 3 or 4 inning starts and let him start 10 or 12 games to end the season.