David Murphy: Worley changes it up for Phils

CLEARWATER, Fla. - Imagine if Warren Buffet came to you with some stock advice. Or Michael Jordan offered up some tips on the turnaround jumper. Or Hewlett and Packard told you the best way to deal with PC LOAD LETTER (whatever the bleep that means).

You'd probably react the same way Vance Worley did when Roy Halladay saw him struggling to throw his changeup and suggested that he change up his grip.

"I threw a few of them and said, 'That's a good pitch,' " the young righthander said yesterday.

Less than 5 months after Worley completed a remarkable rookie season in which he went 11-3 with a 3.01 ERA and finished third in the National League Rookie of the Year voting, the 24-year-old starter finds himself facing the same big question as other young pitchers who have exceeded expectations during their first trip through the majors.

Can he do it again?

If you feel like you have read a lot of these stories over the past five springs, it's probably because you have. From 1987 to 2007, no Phillies pitcher had managed to start at least 20 games with an ERA under 3.25 in one of his first three seasons in the majors. In the 4 years since, three different players have accomplished that feat. In 2008, 24-year-old Cole Hamels started 33 games with a 3.09 ERA while averaging 7.8 strikeouts and 2.1 walks per nine innings of work. In 2009, 26-year-old J.A. Happ started 23 games with a 2.93 ERA while averaging 6.5 K/9 and 3.0 BB/9. Then came Worley, who was twice sent to the minor leagues in 2011 before securing a permanent spot in the rotation and helping the Phillies cope with injuries to veterans Joe Blanton and Roy Oswalt.

Factor in the rookie performance of Kyle Kendrick in 2007 and you'll find that the Phillies owe their five straight division titles as much to the performance of their homegrown arms as they do to the high-profile acquisitions of veterans like Halladay, Oswalt and Cliff Lee. Less visible to the naked eye is the impact those high-profile veterans can have on a young pitcher's quest to sustain early success.

Coming up through the minor leagues, Worley never developed a consistent feel for his changeup, a pitch that the Phillies emphasize to their prospects. Last season, he relied heavily on his fastball, particularly a two-seamer that often froze lefthanded hitters with its late action. More than half of his 119 strikeouts were on called third strikes, by far the highest percentage among NL starters. Roughly 34 percent of all his strikes were called, which was also the highest ratio in the NL.

For most of the season, Worley was able to pound the zone with his fastball and cutter while occasionally mixing in a curveball and changeup. That was the tact Happ used during his stellar performance in 2009. This time around, though, hitters will have plenty of videotape and scouting reports at their disposal, not to mention firsthand experience.

"My sinker was my best pitch, the first pitch and the last pitch," Worley said yesterday after allowing two runs on five hits and one walk in two innings in a 10-3 loss to the Astros in his Grapefruit League debut. "It was just something I could go to. The cutter was kind of new last year, I threw some good cutters in there today and I think it's going to be good for me. The curveball, I think I was 1-for-2 on strikes with that today, and I didn't throw a whole lot of those last year. So I need a third pitch. If I can get the change or curve to be more effective, it's going to help me out."

Helping him in his quest will be pitching coach Rich Dubee, who helped introduce the split-fingered changeup to Kendrick and Halladay. Kendrick struggled in his second season in the majors then spent most of 2009 in the minors, where he worked on developing his secondary pitches. Hamels' performance dropped off in 2009, although that had more to do with his huge innings total in 2008 and the self-admitted naiveté with which he approached his offseason throwing program. Happ also suffered a regression, spending most of the first few months of 2010 on the disabled list before he was shipped to Houston in the trade that landed Oswalt. He finished 2010 with a 3.40 ERA, 7.2 K/9 and 4.8 BB/9 in 16 starts, but in 2011 posted a 5.35 ERA, 7.7 K/9 and 4.8 BB/9 in 28 starts.

Worley knows he will need to make adjustments to maintain his production from a year ago. The presence of veterans like Halladay can only help. That was evident on the aforementioned morning earlier this spring when the veteran righthander interrupted one of Worley's bullpen sessions to suggest that he switch his changeup from a circular grip to split-fingered grip. Like Worley, Halladay had struggled at times to take enough pressure off the ball so that it dived below the zone and underneath hitters' bats.

"I tried it, it came out good," Worley said. "I worked with the other catchers and they all said the same thing - the rotation is good, comes out like a fastball. I just need to fine-tune it."

That fine-tuning will be one of the plot lines to watch once the 2012 season gets under way. A rising tide raises all ships. And few rotations can displace water quite like the Phillies'.