Actually, there is not too much velocity difference here. And BTW we would not think of Eflin as any sort of prospect if he did not throw in the mid 90s. His stuff is not good enough to be a starter if he only threw in the low 90s.
You tend to love pitchers with lesser stuff and good command. Those pitchers tend to top out at back end starters. Velazquez and Pivetta can be more than that if they improve their command. I just feel back end starters are easy to acquire in trades and free agency. One needs to develop starters that can be better than that, because they are really expensive to acquire otherwise.
And BTW, you also keep making excuses for Eflin that you don't make for other pitchers. He had his surgery in August of 2016 almost 3 years ago. He is not going to be "gaining strength" in his knees. He is what he is (and having 2 surgically repaired knees long term is worse than having 2 good knees).
There is also no reason to go crazy at the suggestion of trading Eflin. He has decent current value and might deliver more in a trade than Velazquez or Pivetta. Since he is unlikely to get much better, it is sometimes a good idea to cash in on that current value to get what we need now rather than trading higher upside guys. Kind of why I was reluctant to trade Crawford for someone that was uncertain to be better than Crawford today, even if we were not 100% sure Crawford would put things together.
