Once again abiding by the paradigm which dictates that top-tier starting pitching prospects are often best served by being broken into the majors through the bullpen, the Texas Rangers have reportedly elected to move prized right-handed pitching prospect Neftali Feliz from the starting rotation to the bullpen at Triple-A Oklahoma City, with the 21-year-old flamethrower being slated to toss an inning in relief against Nolan Ryan's Round Rock Express on Thursday evening at AT&T Bricktown Ballpark:

"We'd like to see if [Feliz] is an option to help the major league club in that role," general manager Jon Daniels said. "We still feel he may start for us in the future, but we're going to go down this path first."

Because Feliz has not pitched in a relief role since his first 15-inning stint in the Rangers organization at short-season Spokane in late 2007, there is obvious motivation to begin the rotation-to-bullpen transition in the minors as opposed to the majors and allow him to become accustomed to his new role in a lower-pressure environment; after initially excelling through his first handful of relief innings logged since his own stopover at Spokane in 2007, 22-year-old left-hander Derek Holland has since struggled with his command and pitch selection and witnessed his major league ERA balloon to 5.77, and Texas presumably isn't inclined to deal with such extreme growing pains yet again by plotting an identical course for Feliz

Unless you are of the belief that Feliz will not be promoted to the majors until sometime after mid-April 2010 (a belief which this development would seem to crush), neither major league service time nor the 40-man roster spot he would be required to occupy are really issues, as his impending Rule 5 draft eligibility means that Texas would have had to purchase his contract on or before November 20th to preclude him from being selected, and assuming Feliz sticks permanently in the majors, whether he's promoted in July or September has no bearing on his free agent status down the line.

Feliz's youth relative to the rest of the Pacific Coast League contingent belies his mature demeanor, raw stuff and effectiveness; while his seasonal strikeout rate is now hovering around the 20 percent threshold (which is still really good, but not quite as good as it was during his dominating run through Low-A Clinton and Double-A Frisco in 2008), Feliz has made legitimate strides in terms of correcting his previously erratic control (as illustrated by the month-by-month splits chart below), and was recently assessed by Baseball Time in Arlington's David Brown as the top-performing starting pitcher in the Rangers' minor league system:

The prevailing fear with regard to the organization's decision to transition Feliz into a relief role now as opposed to several months down the line appears to be that this will serve as a detriment to the refinement of his secondary arsenal, comprising a low-to-mid-80s change-up with reputed "good fading action" which is bolstered by his monstrous fastball velocity, and a power curveball which RedHawks pitching coach Terry Clark recently said had "come a long way," affirming the offering's standing as a plus pitch when it's on. Is that apprehension warranted? Perhaps, but I don't envision the Rangers being all that keen on unilaterally appraising one of the best pitching prospects in franchise history as a permanent bullpen fixture before he even has an opportunity to hurl his first major league pitch.

Assuming Feliz's promotion to the majors isn't more than a few weeks away (although the Rangers refuse to lay out any sort of timetable), Texas will closely monitor his workload once he settles in (with right-hander Doug Mathis's job security potentially being endangered as a result, unless sinkerballer Jason Jennings is stretched out for a starting assignment and replaces currently scuffling southpaw Matt Harrison), and there are a couple of ground rules I could see being imposed: (a) No usage of Feliz in high-leverage, mission-critical game situations, or at least not right out of the gates, and (b) no yo-yoing of Feliz back and forth between the bullpen and the starting rotation, as that's the sort of vacillating usage pattern that would only make it that much more difficult for Feliz to settle into a groove and, consequently, adjust to life as a major leaguer in a timely manner.

Much like the aggressive late-April promotion of Derek Holland and the installation of 20-year-old Elvis Andrus at shortstop this past winter, this is something we all saw coming from the outset. What I don't think quite as many of us anticipated was that it would come quite this soon.