The Numbers Suck But…

Players who might not have performed but still are very intriguing prospects

Performance is what dictates a lot of a player’s draft stock. This is logical. How is a player supposed to succeed in the majors when they can’t even succeed in college? If he’s whiffing against high schoolers 30% of the time then what hope does he have against major league pitching?

Every year there are picks that make statline Scouters scratch their heads. Why would the Padres draft James Wood with a 30% strikeout rate against high schoolers? Why does anyone think Griff McGarry, Nick Nastrini, or Bryce Miller are any good? They’ve been below average against weak college hitters. Those picks have all worked out exceptionally well after just one year.

There are loads of reasons that talented players sometimes don’t produce. Hitters often have really strong traits that you can build around- plus contact and power but lack barrel accuracy or struggle to hit the ball in the air enough for 70 raw power to play. You draft them for their outlier traits and let them develop the skills portion in time.

For pitchers, there are even more reasons. Pitchers often fail because they overuse bad pitches or follow bad pitch philosophy and throw their stuff in suboptimal locations because their coaches are old school idiots. Pitchers can fail because they lack consistency with a pitch that has incredible upside or be a slight adjustment away from turning a below-average pitch into a plus one.

Pitchers failing doesn’t mean much at all, good ones succeed more often than not but even Jacob deGrom had a 4.48 ERA with just a 15.3% strikeout rate in his draft year. Their performance is volatile and subject to change at any time. As such, as you would expect this blog is mostly college pitchers. There are a handful of college hitters and even a high school player on here but college pitchers are the most common mold to fail to perform but have the ability to be great still.

I’m not talking low-hanging fruit when I say a failure to perform. Having an ERA two runs higher than your above-average FIP/xFIP is not failing to perform. Failing to perform is struggling with both ERA and FIP. Failure to perform is also relative. For some players a 110 wRC+ is failing and for others that is thriving. Anyways, here is a look at some of my favorite targets in the draft who have yet to produce in college.

Strike zone parameters are based on height for hitters. For pitchers, I assume every opposing hitter is 6'1"

SP Cade Horton, Oklahoma

Cade Horton is this draft’s poster boy for the idea that poor numbers don’t define potential. Cade Horton only finished the year with a 4.86 ERA and 4.79 FIP. That undersells how bad he was at the start of the year too.

Cade Horton in his first nine outings posted a 7.94 ERA with just a 12.8% strikeout rate. Then he turned a corner to propel Oklahoma to a loss in the World Series finals. Over his final five outings of 2022, Cade Horton recorded just a 2.61 ERA with a 40.5% strikeout rate and 5.0% walk rate in just 31 innings. So what changed? Less than you would think but those adjustments were incredibly impactful.

Cade Horton added a wipeout slider by accident. He was trying to add a cutter to his arsenal and instead stumbled into adding a very hard and very good slider. The pitch sits at ~88 MPH and can touch the low nineties with ~1" IVB on average and approximately five inches of cutting action to his glove side. It’s basically the same velocity and movement profile as Gerrit Cole’s 70-grade slider.

Except, Cade Horton’s version is even better. Cade Horton throws his slider from a 6.5' release height. As a result, Horton has vertical approach angles in the 9–10° range. There is no pitch in baseball with as steep of a VAA and as much velocity. That Gerrit Cole comp? He’s throwing his slider from a 5.6' release height so it only has a -7.8° VAA. It’s not hard to talk yourself into Cade Horton belonging in the first half of the first round based on this one pitch.

The new slider is awesome but I quite like the older variant as well even if to nowhere near the same extent. Cade Horton threw the older slider variant with a slurvy shape and it probably should have worked too. The slurve sat at 80.1 MPH with spin rates of 2562 RPMs and a really promising shape from that same 6.5' vertical release point that gives him an elite VAA.

The slurve has unique pitch movement too. Cade Horton averaged -5.3" IVB during the regular season with 11.9" of sweep. Only Sonny Gray (Slider), Chris Stratton, and Charlie Morton average more movement on both planes with breaking ball at a higher velocity in the majors this year. Granted, I think Horton’s slurve is worse than those three by a somewhat significant margin but that is still great company for him to be in.

So why did Horton so much before the new breaking ball came around if the old one was still good? There are two reasons for that. The first of which is how he utilized it. Most players with a strong slurve with great HAAs from the 2.3' release side (He stands close to the third base side so even with a vertical slot he gets great angles on his breaking balls) would pitch out of the zone to the glove side for chases.

Cade Horton did the opposite. His average slurve has a plate coordinate of just 0.36' to his arm side. Only 30.1% of his slurve even are on the glove side half of the plate. The average MLB pitcher throws their slider to the glove side 71.7% of the time. With a minimum of 100 sliders, no major leaguer is throwing their slider to the glove side as little as Horton did in the regular season. In fact, the lowest rate by an MLB pitcher is 43.4% for a right-handed pitcher.

Cade Horton to his credit has an elite feel for throwing the slurve in the strike zone. He lands the slurve in the zone 43.4% of the time and because he’s backdooring it so consistently, the pitch has a called strike rate of 25.3%. Even as is, it’s not a bad pitch it’s just not a bat misser.

Cade Horton missed no bats because he wasn’t deploying the slurve with the intention of missing bats. His goal was simply to throw strikes and get weak contact. Horton did that for the most part but it left him with zero ability to get strikeouts. Horton now has a strikeout pitch in the harder slider. Could the slurve for called strikes be actually useful now? I think he’s probably better off with the slurve being used as a whiff pitch most of the time but the ability to backdoor it for called strikes does give Horton some much needed viability against left handed hitters.

Cade Horton almost completely abandoned the old slurve after adding the new hard slider. I think that was a mistake. It’s hard to succeed as a two pitch guy in the higher levels and he’ll need a third weapon. Given the limited ability to pronate, I don’t think a changeup is really on the table and his slurve was already a good pitch. It just didn’t work before because it was far too distinct from the fastball and didn’t fill the niche he needed it to. With the hard slider, I think the slurve will be elevated and it warrants an above-average grade.

As a side note, we know that it’s possible for Horton to use both slider variants at the same time- it’s not a one or the other thing. He debuted the new slider on 5/29 against Texas in Globe Life. In that game, he threw 15 new sliders and 35 old ones. The old slider also had a 45.7% CSW% that outing, the best of the whole season playing off the new slider beautifully, further proving my theory that it’ll play up.

The fastball is a hard pitch for me to place a value on. The pitch has good spin rates sitting at 2350 RPMs and bumping 2500 pretty regularly. The pitch has good velocity also as he is sitting at 94 MPH on average and he’s touched as high as 97.6 MPH.

I actually think there is room for Horton to add move velocity too. The body has projection but I’m more thinking of the mechanics. Cade Horton’s arm is late at foot strike and his lower body fires early. I think by shortening the arm action and/or delaying rotation, he should be able to produce a lot more velocity and probably stay healthier as well.

There are also some issues with his stride length that can probably be corrected fairly easily and would add to the effective velocity at least, if not the actual as well. Horton’s arm speed is elite and he gets great scap retraction, it’s just a matter of connecting his lower body to produce more ground force. I think Horton has triple digits in the tank with some work.

Cade Horton has promising fastball traits too. He throws his fastball at a 12:30 spin axis with middling efficiency. The pitch will flash up to 23" IVB but only actually averages 17.7" IVB because the fastball is inefficient. I’ve talked with a number of people in the industry and looked at the film myself. Most people, myself included tend to believe that his fastball efficiency is a solvable problem and not that hard of a solve.

Horton has the potential for elite carry on the fastball while bumping triple digits. He lacks any semblance of horizontal life (5.2" HB) but he’s going to miss a lot of bats if a drafting team can help the fastball shape. The high release undermines the extreme vertical nature slightly but given the capacity for elite velo and vertical action, it’s still easily worthy of a plus grade with a real argument for an elite one.

The changeup isn’t even completely hopeless. Horton doesn’t really pronate and maxes at just 11 inches of arm side movement on his cambio as a result. The pitch doesn’t have much depth either. What he does do well though is kill spin with him losing almost a thousand RPMs off the fastball. I think Horton’s the ideal candidate to transition to a splitter with the ability to spin it and how his hard slider works. It’s theoretical, but I’m not ruling out the possibility that Horton adds one in the future.

To be clear, Horton doesn’t even necessarily need a splitter. Horton has above-average command without question and can throw all three of his pitches for strikes. His hard slider works fine against lefties and his fastball is straight with command to both sides of the plate so it should be nearly as good against lefties. Horton also has the slurve that he can backdoor effectively if he needs it. There are all the tools already there to make it as a starter.

Horton has the potential to be the best pitcher out of the draft. I have him as the second highest ceiling arm in the first round. The upside here is massive. He’s still very much a work in progress but that slider gives him a floor. He could play in a major league bullpen today by spamming the slider. There is ace upside if the fastball comes around and he more effectively uses the slurve. He has command and stuff. I could totally get behind taking Horton in the top ten, even if I have him ranked in the back half of the first round. The results and injury history hurt his stock but this is one of the most talented arms in the draft.

RP/SP Xavier Cardenas III, Servite High School

Only three pitchers threw a pitch with as little as six inches of drop in the Hawkeye showcase games. Two of those three are the top two prep arms in the entire draft, Dylan Lesko and Brock Porter. Can you guess the third? I’d be worried if you can’t since this is the Xavier Cardenas III blurb. He threw seven pitches with that little drop. The other two combined for nine.

So why did Xavier Cardenas III have a 4.27 ERA in High School? He walked 23.2% of batters. He also hit 5.1% of them with a pitch and threw one wild pitch per every eight batters. Only 23.9% of pitches in the Hawkeye showcase games were in the zone. I think that’s a pretty succinct explanation for any troubles in production he might have had. It’s also really easy to see why Cardenas III might still be interesting. The command is zero but he’s young and has premium stuff. He’s an upside play with a huge payoff and no floor.

The fastball as I already alluded to, is special. The pitch averaged 20.9" IVB in the showcase games which is tied with Tyler Gough and behind only Dylan Lesko for the most vertical movement on a fastball in the entire prep class at 90+ MPH. That is also more than any MLB pitcher but the high school baseball has higher seams so it’s not actually that comparable. He still has exceptional vertical movement but it’s more 95th percentile than 100th.

Cardenas III is more than just elite vertical movement on his fastball though. Cardenas sits 92–95 MPH with his fastball and has elite extension as well, averaging 7.1' of extension. He has an amazing feel for spinning it as well with his average heater sitting at 2498 RPMs on a 12:45 axis with room to actually further bolster the spin efficiency. The pitch projects as an elite offering even with a 6.27' release height.

Cardenas III also has projection- a lot of it. Cardenas is just 200 lbs with a 6'7" frame. He has room to get stronger and start throwing harder. The mechanics are mostly optimal for force generation with insane amounts of shoulder abduction and has incredible torque in his motion. As he gets stronger triple digits might become a realistic goal. Triple digits with 20+ inches of induced vertical break would warrant an 80 grade.

The secondaries are nowhere near the quality of the fastball. His curveball sits in the low seventies with feel for spinning it as you might imagine. He lacks impact power but he does have average depth with -9" IVB on average and flashes plus horizontal movement. The ability to spin it and supinate is there so you can probably project some on a slider developing eventually.

The changeup is in a similar spot. The changeup sits at about 80 MPH and kills 650 RPMs. He has very poor depth on the pitch but he shows the ability to pronate and flashes elite horizontal movement. Both pitches have no feel and their shape is bad right now but both show enough to know their development isn’t hopeless.

I don’t even think the command has to be hopeless either. Xavier Cardenas has an absurdly long arm action which leaves his arm hopelessly trailing after the rest of his body. His arm kind of windmills around and it needs to be cut up and rebuilt. Right now, at footstrike, his arm is pointing straight down and his arm is still moving down not up. It’s creating injury risk but is also likely at least a partial reason behind his command woes.

I’m not expecting any major command gains but it really is possible. With that fastball as a foundation, there is absolutely incredible upside with even passable command. Cardenas is committed to San Diego State and I think it would be wise for him to honor his commitment, he can make a lot more money in two years if either the command improves or he adds an above-average secondary. I have him as a top 300 player in spite of the lack of results because the fastball is just that special.

SP Austin Marozas, Missouri

Austin Marozas isn’t like the other players on this list who you can look at their below-average performance and say, well at least he missed bats! Or at least he didn’t walk anyone! Marozas was completely awful and there is no possible way to sugarcoat that fact. He had an 8.52 ERA and a 7.49 FIP. Marozas only struck out 15.5% of batters and walked 10.3% of them. So why on earth do I think he’s of any interest?

Marozas sucked not because he is bad, but because he’s poorly utilized. Austin Marozas uses a sinker primarily and it has above-average potential. Admittedly, it only sits at 92 MPH with a below-average extension as well. What he does offer though is an exceptional movement profile.

Austin Marozas averages just 5.6" IVB on the sinker with 17" of arm side movement. That is great movement for a sinker and should lead to great things. The problem is that Marozas throws from a 2.8' horizontal release point.

In of itself, that isn’t really a problem but Marozas makes it into a problem with how he currently attacks hitters with the sinker. Marozas throws his sinker to the arm side 60.1% of the time (Splitting the plate in half so even down the middle is technically slightly in one direction). The sinker from such a wide release would function significantly better on the glove side both on paper and in practice. Marozas has just an 18.4% CSW% on the sinker to the arm side compared to a 36.8% CSW to the glove side.

The other problem with the sinker is what I would hope is an accident. 47.5% of sinkers from Marozas are thrown in the top half of the strike zone. It should go without saying that the elevated sinker is a stupid idea. He has just a 15.9% CSW% on sinkers in the top half compared to a 32.1% CSW% in the bottom half. The sinker is less of a bad pitch, the specs are good, it’s just a matter of learning to locate the pitch in more optimal locations.

The slider has potential too. Marozas sits at 82.6 MPH on average with average vertical depth at 2.4" IVB and fairly average sweep at 6.7" HB. The draw of the current pitch is that Marozas gets good HAA to his glove side because of the 2.8' horizontal release.

The slider’s real appeal though is the obvious sweeper potential. Marozas shows great seam-shifted wake traits on both his sinker and changeup. We know that he is capable of utilizing SSW to create horizontal movement. His slider is another low-efficiency pitch even if he hasn’t put the SSW to use yet. Given the slot, a sweeper would be devastating for Marozas and I don’t think one will be all that difficult for him to develop.

Austin Marozas rounds out his arsenal with a high upside changeup. The changeup has exceptional movement with him averaging just 4" IVB and 17" of fade to the arm side. The problem is that his changeup bleeds into the sinker.

The changeup is only thrown 5.8 MPH slower than the sinker and with spin rates just 322 RPMs lower. They have almost identical movement patterns with the changeup dropping just six inches more with the same fading shape. The two bleed into each other too much and guessing one is essentially guessing both as a result.

The current changeup is ineffective but I think you could develop a wipeout changeup with a grip change. Possibly to a split-finger grip. Austin Marozas has elite ability to pronate an elite feel for utilizing SSW to let the movement profile play up. He needs a more vertically moving changeup or a lot more velocity separation, I think given the feel to pronate, a splitter would accomplish both of those tasks and he should have the grip and rip ability in theory.

Austin Marozas actually find the zone fairly regularly, he’s just not getting chases because his current pitch deployment is mentally challenged. The stuff is there to get hitters out and he already gets groundballs. There is real upside here despite the ugly results. He’s a 23 year old junior so he should sign cheap on day two or three and I have him on my top 500 because I believe in the upside of his three pitch mix.

SP/RP Zane Morehouse, Texas

Zane Morehouse was a largely ineffective swingman during his time with Texas. He posted a 6 ERA with a 4.83 FIP this year. Unlike most of the players I’ve covered, I can’t actually tell you why exactly Morehouse struggled.

Zane Morehouse had above-average in-zone whiff rates and chase rates. He also has above-average zone rates. He gets groundballs at a high rate and gets popups as well. There is only one real flaw in the metrics and that’s an astronomical 77.2% Z-Swing% against Morehouse.

I don’t understand why hitters swing so often against Morehouse when he is in the zone but the impact is widely felt as it leads to just an 11.11% Called-Strike rate by Morehouse. This led to him having just a 26.5% CSW% despite a 15.4% Swinging-Strike rate. This is why Morehouse misses too few bats despite solid stuff. I don’t know how to fix this issue, of what I’d assume is him being hittable or somehow tipping maybe? But he still gets chases and whiffs? Whatever, what I do know is that the stuff is good and Morehouse has a deep repertoire of five pitches with at least average potential.

Zane Morehouse’s four-seam fastball might have the least present day value of any of his pitches but it also has great upside. Zane Morehouse averages 93.8 MPH with his heater and has plus extension at 6.7' (Hawkeye) that lets the fastball play up above that velocity. He also averages over 2300 RPMs on the fastball with a 1:00 spin axis.

The fastball has middling spin efficiency which leads to just 14.5" IVB and 7.3" HB. Even still, the fastball logs above-average in-zone whiff rates and swinging-strike rates. This is because he’s throwing a 5.5' vertical release point and even with 14.5" IVB, his VAAs are decent up in the zone. If you improve the spin efficiency then the fastball could be above-average and even a plus given the velo and angle. Morehouse should also probably elevate the fastball more as right now only 42.6% of the heaters are in the top of the zone.

He also throws an interesting sinker. On paper, the sinker with the same velocity and spin as the four-seamer doesn't look like much. The pitch gets just 9.8" IVB and 15.2" HB. I tend to agree and have it as just an average pitch. There is one thing that makes the sinker interesting though.

Morehouse throws the sinker with an average plate height of 1.95'. That sounds completely irrelevant but he’s throwing the average four-seamer at 2.49' feet on average. Still, completely lost? The average sinker has 5.5 inches more drop with gravity than the average four-seamer. The average sinker is located 5.8 inches lower.

The average sinker is almost an exact mirror to the four-seam in horizontal location too. He throws the average four-seam to his glove side at -0.23' plateX. He throws the average sinker to his arm side at 0.24' plateX. The two pitches seem like the perfect tunnel. I’m pretty sure given the lack of results that is purely an accident and not his real intention. I don’t value it highly unless it’s deliberate and worked but it is super cool.

There is also a very sparingly used cutter in his toolset. It’s a tad slower than the fastball at 92.3 MPH but still projects as average. He gets 9.9" IVB and 1.5" of cut. The pitch has a niche in setting up the sinker but right now it serves little more than that. There’s some upside here given that he sits at 2400 RPMs and the interaction with the other stuff but it’s probably his worst pitch.

The slider was by far his best pitch on results with a 24.7% Swinging-Strike rate and a 34.1% CSW%. The pitch sits at 85 MPH and 2564 RPMs so it doesn’t take too much effort to see why it succeeds in college. The pitch is mostly gyro heavy with solid depth at 1.3" IVB and some bite as he averages 4.8" HB. The pitch plays up to his glove side and he understands that pitching to the glove side most of the time while filling the zone aggressively. I think it’s more average than the results would indicate but it is a solid pitch.

Morehouse rounds out his deep repertoire with an interesting curveball he hardly throws. The pitch has pretty average shape at -9.4" IVB and 9.2" inches of sweep. The calling card here is the same spin as the slider and he throws it at 81.3 MPH. Hard curves tend to do damage. The feel is behind on the pitch but it has upside as well.

Zane Morehouse throws strikes regularly. I don’t even think the command is too much worse than the control. He has a big bodied workhouse frame and there might be some violence in the motion but I still think he’s a starter. The batted ball is strong and he throws five pitches of some quality. He needs work and the fact that I can’t even tell what a chunk of his problems are is concerning. If I was running a team I would never draft Morehouse because of that but as an analyst, I have to respect the obvious upside that Zane Morehouse has.

SP/RP Sam Ireland, Minnesota

Sam Ireland has not been particularly good at Minnesota. His ERA is just 5.27 this year and his FIP was even worse at 5.60. That being said, Ireland at least misses 24.1% of bats but I would be lying if I said the results were anything resembling good. His CSW%, whiff rates, and chase rates all suck as well.

The appeal of Sam Ireland starts with his unicorn fastball. Said fastball is a sinker- or more accurately a two-seam fastball. Sam Ireland has just 14.6" IVB on average which is in the 6th percentile for a sinker. He also has more tail on his two-seam fastball, sitting at 19.7" HB than any major league sinker. The pitch has unicorn movement to say the least.

The sinker comes from an extremely low release height too at just 5.21' VAA and with only 40 grade carry on it, he actually has plus VAA with the sinker. This means the pitch has some viability at the top of the zone despite the sinker shape and the hybrid nature of the pitch should enhance the effectiveness.

The problem is Same Ireland also throws from 2.2' horizontal release point. He also uses the sinker primarily on his arm side. The pitch has fantastic shape but he can’t get chases with it because of how extreme the HAA is that there just isn’t any deception right now as a result. He has a 16.3% chase rate on the sinker despite elite tailing shape. The pitch would be better off being backdoored to lefties if he can manage it.

I would also advocate against pitching up too frequently against lefties as the ball will be running on their barrel when locating to the glove side and taken for a ball to the arm side. The damage should in theory be minimized when he runs in on the barrel if he pitches down. That might cost him whiffs but it’ll also add called strikes and he has other ways to beat hitters.

Oh, I totally neglected to mention the fact that Ireland throws his sinker at just 90.6 MPH. There is some strength projection due to his 6'4" and long levered frame but it’s obviously now what you want to see out of him. That being said, I still believe in the shape and release height enough to grade it as an above-average fastball.

The best secondary in his toolset is a changeup with lots of intrigue, even after it only logged an 8.1% swinging-strike rate with trackman last year. The changeup has ridiculous depth with him getting just -1.6" IVB. There are only seven changeups in the majors with as little IVB. That is in the 97th percentile of major league changeups.

The other appeal is the deception element. Sam Ireland averages 19.7" of horizontal movement on the changeup. That is an elite number first off, but also it is just 0.01 inches less tail than the sinker has.

Why is that so significant? Sam Ireland throws his changeup at 83.6 MPH, almost exactly 8 MPH slower than the sinker. Sam Ireland averages 29.4" more drop on the splitter than sinker with gravity in the equation. They have the same horizontal action from the same slot. This pitch should be completely unhittable.

So why is it so completely hittable? Part of that is that Sam Ireland lacks feel for his changeup. He struggles to locate it where it needs to be effective and he gets firm at times. The other more relevant struggle is that Ireland slows the arm speed some on his cambio. If he can learn to accelerate the arm better then this pitch has plus or better upside but for now, it only earns a 55.

The slider rounds out Ireland’s three pitch repertoire and projects as below-average. Sam Ireland sits at 81 MPH on it with average depth and just five inches of bite. The lower slot and extreme HAA as a result of the horizontal release hint at upside but it doesn’t really work. Ireland struggles to locate the slider and it’s not very deceptive off of the sinker. There is upside here but it’s a fringy option right now.

Sam Ireland throws in the zone at a slightly above-average rate. His problem is just that he gets zero chases whatsoever as as such walks a ton of batters. With more optimal fastball and changeup locations, I think the walks can come down.

There is still a significant amount of relief risk in the profile but the FB/CH combo could make him a good one. Ireland is worth a day three flier because of those two pitches. I have him ranked in my top 500 in spite of poor results because I believe in the outlier traits making him desirable clay even with the many flaws.

LF Mac Bingham, Arizona

Mac Bingham is the exact profile I think of when I think of lackluster performance but has obvious upside. Admittedly, this profile usually provides a bit more defense but it’s this same mold at the plate. Above-average raw and plus contact rates but an inability to elevate and celebrate with a questionable approach that led to just a 92 wRC+ this year.

Mac Bingham absolutely scorches the ball when he makes quality contact. Mac Bingham has max exit velocity of 113.1 MPH this year which is obviously amazing. It’s also almost certainly a misread with a -17° launch angle. I only say almost because he actually has five different batted balls this year at 110+ but a negative launch angle or hit foul. That is a very abnormal amount so it might be something worth reading into.

Regardless, Mac Bingham still has a max exit velocity of 108.5 MPH on balls hit with a launch angle above 0°. That is a decent bit above the major league average and would indicate 55+ raw power. He’s in the 91st percentile of college hitters by top 8th EV. The catch is obviously that this doesn’t translate to in-game power at all whatsoever.

Mac Bingham has just a 5th percentile outfield flyball rate at 16.3%. He’s also pulled exactly zero outfield flyballs in games with Trackman. Bingham also has just 24th percentile spin rates on his batted balls so they aren’t carrying that much. It doesn’t take a ton of effort to see why despite the raw power, Bingham is running just a 2.5% barrel rate and a .439 slugging during his time at Arizona.

The other major issue is his swing decisions. On in-zone pitches, Mac Bingham has elite contact quality. He has a 48.3% hard-hit rate and just a 37.3% Groundball rate. He hits 37.1% of batted balls in the sweet spot and 64.2% of them are hit with backspin. He also has an 88.9% contact rate in the zone. He still has issues but he’s showing the potential to be good.

The problem is what happens when Bingham does expand the zone. 68% of his out of zone battered balls are groundballs. Another 10.5% of them are popups. He whiffs 42.2% of the time out of the zone. He has just a 5.2% hard-hit rate out of the zone. Mac Bingham gets destroyed when he chases but can hit in-zone pitches at a high level.

The problem is that Mac Bingham chases 33% of the time. Given, the 73.4% Z-Swing%, it’s possible he can just choose to be less aggressive and elevate his game that way. Realistically though, he just has general pitch tracking issues but they aren’t specific to one pitch but all of them and in all locations so maybe that inspires some hope.

A lot of Bingham’s problems would be solved with better swing decisions but that’s far from a guarantee. There also might be some changes to the shape of his swing that you want to make to tap into the power more consistently. Mac Bingham has the tools to be successful but it’s not an easy road to get there. Even as a left fielder, he’s a top 500 player because of the hit/raw profile but it’s a long road for Mac to be a major league contributor.

SP/RP Billy Seidl, Duke

Billy Seidl was not great for Duke this year. The Blue Devils' swingman limped to a 6.80 ERA and a 7.12 FIP. These struggles were pretty much exclusively due to Seidl having zero command which led to a 16.3% walk rate. Fortunately, Seidl still projects for three above-average pitches so it’s not hard to see how he could be a worthwhile investment on day three despite the major command concerns.

Billy Seidl’s fastball is probably his least exciting pitch but it is still pretty solid. The heater sits at 92.6 MPH and can reach 96.4 MPH. The movement is also fairly generic as is. He only gets 17.5" IVB and 12.3" of tail to the arm side. So why is this an above-average pitch?

Two reasons. The first is that Seidl is throwing from a 5.5' release height which gives even the average movement of the fastball plus approach angles. The other appeal is the elite feel for creating spin. Billy Seidl averages 2544 RPMs with the heater. That would be in the 98th percentile of major league fastballs. There is room to improve that efficiency from a pretty standard arm slot and if Seidl improves his efficiency, he should take off with the already low release height and decent enough velocity. This pitch requires projection to grade positively but it’s the right pitch to project on.

The slider Billy Seidl throws is pure filth. He sits at 82.2 MPH and runs it in there at just under 2600 RPMs. The pitch has just 1.3" IVB paired with 11.7" of sweep to his glove side. The angle is pretty average and his slider command is not really at all present but given the sweep and depth, the pitch still easily projects as above-average in the long term.

The changeup is Seidl’s most interesting pitch. He throws it at just 84 MPH and kills 761 RPMs off of the fastball. The movement profile is exceptional too. He gets just 4.5" IVB and 17.5" of arm side fade. The results are naturally exception- err... Below-average?

The changeup has an elite shape but the deception is a work in progress. He drops the slot about 3 inches both laterally and vertically with the cambio. He also struggles to maintain his arm speed at all times. The changeup plays below the natural traits.

Add in major command and firmness issues and it’s not that difficult to understand why Seidl’s cambio isn’t performing anywhere near what the stuff quality suggests. The traits suggest elite upside but it’s hard to even call it a 50 grade pitch as is. I think he’ll improve but there’s certainly risk here.

Here is the thing that really gets me pumped about Billy Seidl. He didn’t have command issues prior to the return from Tommy John in 2021. Back in the 2019 draft he was more regarded as a control over stuff guy. His delivery still looks mostly smooth. He also didn’t have the same velocity back then so maybe he sold out for velocity, but it is also very possible that his command woes are a temporary blip that will abate with time.

Seidl is not the first TJS recovered to have their command lag behind when they first come back. Pitching is dependent on muscle memory and between TJS and the pandemic, Seidl took two years off. There might be positive regression just because he is throwing again and rediscovering his comfort on the mound.

Billy Seidl with his current command woes is almost a lock to end up in the bullpen. You can’t walk 15% of batters and stick in the rotation at the major league level. You just can’t.

If he does wind up in a relief role then he probably won’t be some high leverage arm either as he lacks a real plus pitch. Maybe one of them gets there- they all have that upside, but realistically he’s a sum of three pitches over play them away with one or two in relief guy. I’m not chasing that relief upside with this pick, I’m chasing the chance he gets to at least 45 command and you wind up with a very good #4 starter.

3B Zane Denton, Alabama

Zane Denton was great in 2021 as the Crimson Tide’s third baseman hit .308/.405/.489. I considered Denton to be a safe second or third-round talent at the start of the year. Then the wheels fell off and he finished with just a 99 wRC+ this year.

The reasons for his struggles are obvious. Zane Denton’s approach went from mostly average last year to one of the worst in the country this year. His swing rate jumped by 6.5% this year and with it, his contact rate dropped from 81.6% to 69.4%.

The thing is, Denton still has an above-average contact rate in the strike zone. I have him down as whiffing just 14.3% of the time in the zone. He just chases 38.4% of the time now. Those chases are especially prominent against slider and changeups but he’s below-average against literally everything. Fun fact: Denton had a higher chase rate against sliders than he did in-zone swing rate. It’s not clear what changed for Denton to bring about so many chases this year.

Eventually, though, pitchers wisened up to Denton’s approach issues and threw him just 38.1% of pitches in the zone this year. Only 40.4% of pitches to Denton this year were fastballs- the average college hitter sees about 60% fastballs.

This has predictably caused Denton’s contact quality to take a bit of a nosedive. His hard-hit rate is down 15.5% and that’s not due to him losing raw power. The Max EVs are still solid at 109.5 MPH both this year and last (From both sides of the plate 109+ in last two years). His top 8th EV is down by just 0.5 MPH. He still hits the ball hard it’s just not remotely consistent because so many of his batted balls are on secondaries and generally bad pitches.

Zane Denton has exceptional BABIP skills on paper but they haven’t translated in games. Denton has just a 3.3% popup rate this year and an above-average sweet-spot%. He also has just a 25.9° sdLA. The batted ball spin rates are in the 77th percentile and he hits 52.5% of his batted balls with backspin which is in the 76th percentile. The spray charts appear to be solid as well. There is clearly not enough well-struck balls but I do think he’s had some misfortune with BABIP that is skewing his numbers.

Zane Denton also hits the ball in the air so the power should play. He has a 96th percentile outfield flyball rate in trackman games. There isn’t enough hard-hit balls for that to really play right now but Denton has the capacity to hit the ball hard. If the approach improves, the power should instantly soar. Even as is, he’s producing above-average barrel rates.

Zane Denton plays a decent third base too. He’s a below-average defensive option but he should stick. He has plus arm strength and good actions. The range is somewhat limited by him being a 40 grade athlete but he is very much adequate at third regardless.

Zane Denton is an interesting draft prospect because he’s flashed all of above-average contact skills, above-average raw power, and elite wOBAcon optimization. If Zane Denton can figure out how to not chase so frequently then his stock should take off. He has all the skills at the plate except for his approach.

His approach was good in the past so I’m somewhat optimistic he can figure things out. There is really plus contact and plus game power upside with an average approach. I don’t want to rely on him improving so significantly but Denton is worth a flier late on day two because of the upside of an improved approach. He’s transferred to his hometown Tennessee now and I’m not sure how signable he actually is in that range.

SP Carter Rustad, Missouri

Carter Rustad is one of my favorite late day two targets in the draft this year. He probably wasn’t really horrible enough for this blog with just a 4.73 ERA and a 4.81 FIP but I want to talk about him so I’m pretending that slightly below-average is horrible now. To be fair, he did only strike out 19.2% of hitters which is actually pretty horrible.

Carter Rustad is a bit of an old school scouting target in some ways. A large part of why he is so desirable to me is his big and very projectable frame. Rustad is listed at 6'4" and 180lbs. There is lots of room to project Carter Rustad adding arm strength and he moves decently on the mound so that should mostly translate to adding velocity. With added velocity, Rustad might be slotting into a major league rotation.

Carter Rustad badly needs to add velocity. He sits at just 90.8 MPH on average with a slightly above-average extension. Rustad only tops out at 93.1 MPH. He’s not throwing hard right now and it shows in the fairly average results.

What the fastball can be with more velocity is incredibly exciting though. Carter Rustad has plus vertical life on his heater. He is averaging 20.1" IVB and 11.4" of arm side movement this year. The release angle isn’t the most optimal from a 6.36' release height but that’s still a plus fastball with league-average velocity.

What makes Carter Rustad’s fastball so fascinating is he actually has some feel to locate it. The pitch winds up in the zone 50.4% of the time. He is also throwing the fastball high in the zone with 66.5% of his fastballs being located in the top half. Additionally, he has an average pitch height of 2.94 feet which is among the highest in college baseball. He’s also smart enough to pitch to his glove side with a very wide horizontal release point that limits his chase ability with the heater.

So why does Rustad “only” have a 10.4% Swinging-Strike rate and a 31.7% CSW%? The lack of velocity hurts but there is plenty of low velocity pitchers who miss more bats with worse traits- even in the SEC. A part of Rustad’s struggles is that he throws the fastball from a slightly different arm slot than the rest of his arsenal. His release height is 4.1" higher with the fastball than the secondaries and he throws from a 4" more narrow horizontal release with the fastball. I think the lack of deception is probably hurting his performance with his entire arsenal.

The secondaries are all quality pitches and each of them has a CSW% of at least 30% this year. The slider is made useable by the 3.12' horizontal release point he has on the pitch. This gives a slider with fairly bland shape and sub 2000 RPMs spin rates a new leash on life. He gets just 2" IVB and 4.5" of sweep but he still has a -4.6° HAA because of his low slot. The pitch has above-average shape because of that release but won’t translate as is because he only averages 79.9 MPH. We’ve already talked about the arm strength projection and that is still very applicable here.

The curveball is my least favorite of his secondaries so naturally, it was his top swing and miss pitch this year. The curveball performs now because he can throw it in the strike zone 45.4% of the time which is more often that most college arms land their fastball in the zone. The movement profile honestly sucks with just -4.8" IVB and 8" of sweep. Rustad also only averages 74.4 MPH with the curve. This is a 40 grade pitch that won’t translate at all, even if I really like the angle.

The changeup is Rustad’s top secondary by CSW% (Beats out the curve by 0.01%) and despite the very wide horizontal release, gets chases 43.5% of the time. This is also with his changeup literally coming from a completely different arm slot as the fastball so there is not a lot of deception there. It’s just a nasty pitch. On top of that, Rustad also has the rare ability (Especially for a college arm) to throw the changeup for a strike with 52.1% of them ending up in the strike zone.

The changeup feel is advanced and it makes up for more average specs. Carter Rustad sits at 84.5 MPH with his average changeup which should make it bleed into fastball swings. The movement is good with 4.7" of induced vertical break and he has plus tailing action at 16.3" HB as well. I think the changeup is more of an average projection then the results would indicate but I will note that he’s fantastic at killing spin and has feel for supination.

Carter Rustad as you’ve probably noticed by now has very advanced command. The delivery is fluid, and repeatable. He’s a plus athlete as well. He throws all four pitches for strikes at an above-average rate for their pitch type, and all but the slider are in the zone more often than the average fastball. Rustad has had a good batted ball profile this year but was awful in 2021 in that regard so I’d exercise some caution in projecting there.

If Carter Rustad were to raise his arm slot on his secondaries or lower it on the fastball without ruining his pitch shape, he would take off and be one of the more dominant arms in the SEC. Players with his combination of command and stuff are rare. If he were to raise his velocity to the MLB average as well then he would probably be in the first round conversation.

It’s because of that fact, that as a draft-eligible sophomore, I think it makes the most sense for Rustad to reject all offers after the fifth round and return to school. If he were to sign late, he would be a complete steal. I'm not sure he’s worth going in the first five rounds right now for most teams. However, I do think he’s a fascinating developmental project for a team with good physical development.

SS Jim Jarvis, Alabama

Jim Jarvis had a career year this year at the plate as he hit a robust .267/.367/.367 for a whopping 89 wRC+. So surely he was just unlucky and is secretly an awesome hitter right? Not in the slightest, he performed up to the expectations set by his batted ball data. Defensive value gets him to be interesting maybe?

Jim Jarvis does play shortstop and is quite good there but that’s not enough to make such a bad college hitter rank inside my top 400. He’s a plus runner with a quick first step that lets his range play up. Jarvis has the above-average arm strength and the arm utility to really play shortstop. I’m 92% confident that Jarvis will remain a shortstop moving forward and even have him as an above-average one.

The draw is like always the bat though which feels weird to say about someone who has never even posted a wRC+ of even 100 before. The contact skills for the most part, as they are fantastic.

Jim Jarvis is running an 84.8% contact rate this year in games with Trackman and his in-zone whiff rate of 6.8% is in the 89th percentile of college hitters. He also has just one whiff against 93+ all year and above-average contact rates against secondary stuff. Jarvis can hit. He’s incredibly short to the ball and shows strong bat control. He should continue to make contact as he climbs the ladder.

Jarvis also makes above-average swing decisions. He chases just 25% of the time while swinging at 66.2% of in-zone pitches. There are some issues with expanding the zone for sinkers away from him but given the ability to make contact with those pitches, it’s not that big of a concern. He’s a pesky hitter who rarely strikes out and lasts long enough to draw walks even with no power. That won’t translate to the next level but he should show good plate discipline in the minors.

Jim Jarvis has decent BABIP skills. He hits 31% of his fair balls in the sweet spot and has below-average popup rates. He has above-average spin rates on batted balls and is in the top quartile of backspin%. He sprays the ball to all fields both in the air and on the ground. He shouldn’t be a world killer by any means but he is better than he’s shown.

Jim Jarvis is brought down by having zero power whatsoever. Jim Jarvis has a Max EV of just 106.1 MPH and 29.4% of his batted balls are hit below 80 MPH. He has a 46th percentile hard-hit rate and a 44th percentile Top 8th EV. He’s also running a 39th percentile groundball rate for good measure.

But what if I told you Jim Jarvis could have power? Would you be interested then? Jim Jarvis has good bat speed in batting practice and has quick hands. The problem is that Jim Jarvis tries to be Joey Votto and chokes up on the bat even when he’s ahead in the count. Jarvis is not Joey Votto so it rather predictably doesn’t work.

How much power would Jim Jarvis add if he stopped choking up? This is actually a solvable question thanks to the work of both Driveline and the programming expertise of @ydouright. Driveline did a study on different bat grips and found that the average player loses 1.8 MPH of bat speed by choking up compared to the standard grip. A different study found that for every 1 MPH of bat speed you gain, all of your EVs should increase by 1.2 MPH.

@ydouright combined those studies on my request and recalculated all of Jim Jarvis’s power metrics with an additional 2.16 MPH on all of his batted balls. Jim Jarvis goes from a 46th percentile hard-hit rate to a 62nd percentile one. His Top 8th EV is up to the 66th percentile. His Max EV is theoretically above the MLB average. His soft contact rate drops from putrid to the 84th percentile.

The change in power wouldn’t actually work quite that way but it very possible that with one change to the way he holds a bat, Jim Jarvis develops average raw power and 40+ game. This would probably cause the contact rates to slide a tad and there might be more mishits but I still think that this would be an entirely positive development.

Jim Jarvis is a great defensive shortstop who makes a lot of contact. His offensive profile is solid across the board except he’s missing just one thing. That one thing is power and there is a very clear path to him obtaining more of it. I think Jarvis is worth a pick at the tail-end of day two to find out if he can maintain those other skills while improving the power.

Thanks for reading! Tune back in tomorrow to read about my preferred draft philosophy and break down some of what the stuff you’ll read this week means.