The closet is currently being ransacked. As their original options dwindle due to injuries or poor performance, teams are looking at their minor league options and giving kids opportunities. It’s a fun time of year, full of opportunity, but also the reality that every new young starter isn’t going to become a star.
Choosing those who will prosper is not easy. If you look at successful starting pitchers today, they come in all kinds of shapes and sizes. There are many different ways to be successful.
But previous research on young beginners who have recently found success suggests that good building blocks include:
• A strong pitch (fastball or slider) that the pitcher can control
• A hard pitch with at least average material
• A secondary school with material clearly above average
Other aspects could be luxuries. It’s good to have multiple fastballs and multiple pitches to have dominance. It’s probably important to have a secondary pitch that works against righties and lefties so you’re not a sinker/slider beast that just can’t get lefties out. This is where the nuances come in.
But if we look at all the young pitchers with fewer than five starts under their belt, we get a list to start with.
There isn’t a single pitcher who easily surpasses the three bars we’ve set above, so there’s a chance this roster won’t produce a top-tier starter. That’s not to say this group is useless: there are some levels of talent even within. Every good list needs to be sorted further (and here’s a custom list you can play with if you want).
Two with worrying warts
Jack Leiter, Texas Rangers
The stuff is there for Leiter, as he has a plus fastball and two good breaking balls to go with it. The flaw is obvious, as she has had poor scouting grades for command, high walk rates in the minors, and now a poor Location+ grade that continues to underline the problem. However, with Location+ we can get an idea of the extent of the problem. There have only been 209 launches, but a 95 Location+ is very bad. Here’s how starting pitchers who have posted a Location+ of 95 with more than 200 pitches over the past three seasons have fared:
• They have achieved a collective effectiveness of 4.94
• They have averaged ten outings per person
• 30 percent are now relievers.
• 30 percent are currently in a starting rotation.
Basically, the hope is that he’s a Blake Snell or a Ryan Pepiot: pitchers who have ironed out some teething problems and still don’t have top-notch command, but who generally overcome their problems. It’s not impossible, but the numbers say it’s a one in three chance at best.
Hurston Waldrep, Atlanta Braves
Here’s a Waldrep comparison based solely on pitch movements and release points that is both sobering and edifying:
This, from Alex Chamberlain’s pitch leaderboard, shows that Waldrep’s fastball is a spitting image of Keaton Winn’s in every way, except that Winn has an extra five inches of field movement. They are released from very similar heights with little extension towards the plate and just fine vertical movement. The extension undoes some of what’s good about his fastball’s average velocity, and recent research suggests that 96+ mph is required for a heater to reap big gas rewards.
Winn is far from an established pitcher, so this isn’t necessarily definitive, but it probably throws some cold water on Waldrep’s upside, as there’s nothing notable (in a good way) about his fastball, e even Winn’s slider and splitter seem slightly superior. because it is harder, with more fall.
Two that could be complete
Christian Scott, New York Mets
While no pitcher perfectly satisfies all three requirements, Christian Scott probably comes closest.
• He placed his fastball and slider at above-average rates.
• His slider would rank in the top 15 among starters on Stuff+ if he qualified.
• His Stuff+ four-seam fastball (89) wasn’t as bad as it seemed compared to the average starting pitcher’s four-seam (92).
He could have more run on the four-seam fastball, but it’s a decent two-plane fastball with average velocity, so it’s not as much of a problem as some of the fastballs thrown by the starters on our list today. The last time he was in the majors, all four of his pitches had a miss rate of 20 percent or more. If he can push the speed or gait in the next few years, there could be another level, but if there is one player on our list today who seems to have everything he needs for continued success, it’s Scott.
Mitch Spence, Oakland Athletics
Is a cutter a fastball or a slider? Yes. They are both. But in Spence’s case, his cutter is his most pitched pitch, it’s just 2 mph softer than his sinker, and he uses it in counts that suggest he considers it his primary fastball. That’s good, because compared to other starting pitchers’ cutters, he’s exactly average material, which means he can also be considered to meet all the requirements we laid out, just in a slightly unconventional way. He handles his sinker better, but only uses it sparingly against righties. However, he placed his slider well, so at least he has two (sometimes three) options when pressed for a strike.
With low strikeout rates and only decent ground ball rates, it seems like your opinion of Spence may depend on this pitch, particularly against lefties.
Spence struck out Vinnie Pasquantino twice on the same pitch in that game, so it’s worked out a bit. But it’s also a throw with the lateral movement of a libero that has so far allowed a .404 slugging percentage against lefties, so it can be an awkward throw against lefties. Because his curveball and his changeup aren’t big deals (at this point), this is currently the biggest question about a decently tall starter on the A’s.
Two who could do it
Cade Povich, Orioles
The four-seam fastball almost put Povich on the worry warts list because it’s not good. He has less travel than most four-seamers and hits 92 mph, two ticks below league average. Stuff+ hates the pitch (73) and that lines up with FanGraphs’ scouting grades (current value of 45), but has managed to place it almost exclusively at the top of the zone and (so far) outside the happy zones (slugging of .190). against).
If you’ve read this far, the warning for Povich won’t surprise you: His cutter looks decent and he highlighted it more strongly in his second start. That pitch has more vertical and horizontal break than the average cutter, whizzes along at a decent 88 mph, and while it’s been hit hard so far, it has a better foundation for future success. The best news for Povich is a decent combination of three secondary pitches: an above-average sweeper, a great slow curveball, and a changeup that doesn’t have much to speak of in terms of movement or velocity, but hasn’t allowed much contact. so far (.200 slugging).
Povich earned a current command rating of 45 and a future command rating of 60 from FanGraphs, and there’s a chasm between those numbers. If he is successful, he will be like a sort-and-mix guy and bowl enough four-seamers and cutters to keep the batsman guessing. This is not the profile of a pitcher who will dominate hitters with any of his pitches. It’s also worth noting that the league is getting better and better at hitting liberos, which might not be a great thing for this starter, since that pitch rates the best of all of his offerings.
-Eno Sarris (@enosarris) June 11, 2024
Jonathan Cannon, White Sox
As a point guard, Jonathan Cannon doesn’t have a tough point guard to fall back on, despite the name. Instead, he has a good combination of sinkers and high-moving sweepers that should make him murder right-handers. Her sinker and his sweeper break 14 inches in opposite directions, and his sinker has almost four inches more drop than her sweeper, so it’s a good place to start.
But what will he do against lefties? The model numbers say the change could be viable (107 Stuff+), but he has allowed .850 slugging on the field and doesn’t seem to have a great command of it. Their four-seamer has three inches less travel than the average four-seamer, and models hate it. Perhaps, like Spence above, the cutter rescues Cannon. At 89.4 mph, it’s tough. It looks like Cannon can handle it against lefties and as a dual nature pitch, he could use it as a fastball as well as an outside pitch.
Maybe he’s still looking for a great secondary pitch against lefties, at least until he increases his changeup command or shows off a curveball. Still, you can’t ignore that nice sweeper/sinker combo at the top of this arsenal.
The best of the rest
All three, Keider Montero, Landon Knack and Spencer Schwellenbach, have good fastball/slider combinations as a base, but the latter two have better fastballs and are therefore better bets. Among the three, the Schwellenbach curve and the Montero curve could be tied for the third best offering, so if there were an unofficial ranking of these three question marks, it would start with Schwellenbach at the top. … Nick Nastrini’s dominance came just as his minor league grades and scouting reports announced: He could still end up in the pen after a few frustrating seasons in the rotation. …Robert Gasser probably would have finished in the “all-around” category, but he is not ready to return this season from injury, and being a sinker/sweeper type as a lefty is even more difficult than as a righty due to platoon splits, which That’s probably why he ended up using the changeup more often (and getting soft contact instead of strikeouts).
(Photo by Christian Scott: Jim McIsaac//Keynote USA/Getty Images)
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