Phillippe Aumont: Is He the Philadelphia Phillies Closer of the Future?

In 2010, the crown jewel of the Cliff Lee trade with the Seattle Mariners was a wash. A disaster. A debacle.  

The player heralded as the next great Phillies power-pitcher went 3-11 with a 5.68 ERA, which includes an awful 1-6 with a 7.43 ERA in Double-A Reading, and walked 80 batters in 122.0 innings.

His strikeout-to-walk ratio was 1.44, including a 38 walk/38 strikeout disaster in Double-A, and he allowed nine-and-a-half hits per nine innings. He also threw 17 wild pitches and hit 12 batters.

Ouch.

After being moved into the bullpen for the 2011 season, the former 11th overall pick in the 2007 draft has started the year with an 0-4 record.

But do not be fooled: Phillippe Aumont is back, baby, and it is hard to believe that this is the same pitcher.

After spending parts of the last two baseball seasons in Double-A, Aumont has become a full-time Double-A pitcher at the age of 22, and finally appears to be getting his pitching under control.

His 2.92 ERA is the second best of his career, and the number of categories in which Aumont is on a career pace is frankly shocking—he is currently on pace for career bests in games pitched, hits per nine innings, walks per nine innings, WHIP, strikeouts per nine innings, strikeout-to-walk ratio, hit batters and wild pitches.

In fact, after struggling with both hitting batters and throwing wild pitches during his first three years in baseball, so far in 2011, he has yet to do either of those things.

While the reasons for his turnaround could be many and varied—ranging from offseason conditioning, a change in his mental make up or certain mechanical adjustments—one explanation is perfectly clear:

Phillippe Aumont may just not be meant to be a starter.

It was easy to overlook the fact that 2010 was Aumont's first full-time season as a starter, as Phillies fans collectively panicked over the player who was supposed to calm our angst over losing Cliff Lee.

But there is an inescapable truth about guys like Aumont: Some guys are just not cut out to be starting pitchers and he is almost certainly one of them.

But in that regard, he is in very good company, as nearly every great closer was at one point or another a failed starting pitcher. Guys like Mariano Rivera, Lee Smith, John Franco and Billy Wagner all started out as flawed starting pitchers before becoming closers, as did Hall of Famers Dennis Eckersley, Rollie Fingers and Rich Gossage—something I wish more people would remind that self-righteous jackass about.

If Phillippe Aumont is ready to join that class of pitchers, Phillies fans will take it. The prospect of a hard-throwing 6'7" shut-down closer being groomed at Double-A sounds frankly delightful right about now.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves.

For now, let's just be grateful for the fact that we did not have to get rid of Cliff Lee and get nothing in return.

Even if we got Cliff Lee back, it is good to know that the crown jewel of that trade is no longer a debacle and may one day find himself in the major leagues.