Joey Oakie

School: Ankeny (Iowa) Centennial HS Commit/Drafted: Iowa
Age At Draft: 18.2
BA Grade: 55/Extreme
Tools: Fastball: 60. Slider: 60. Changeup: 40. Cutter: 50. Control: 45.

Oakie is a 6-foot-3, 205-pound righthander whose velocity has trended up over the last two and a half years. He now stands as one of the most electric arms in the high school class. He’s got an athletic build with a strong lower half and more room still to add strength and mass. He throws from a low three-quarters arm slot that will get fully sidearm at times. His slot helps him give his pitches a great deal of horizontal movement. Oakie sits in the 92-95 mph range fairly consistently and has been up to 97 with tremendous armside life on his fastball. The pitch is a devastating offering when running hard in the hands of righthanded hitters and should be both a bat-misser and should induce weak contact. He also has a slider that pairs power and tons of sweeping horizontal movement that should give him an easy plus secondary. His breaking pitch sits in the 83-86 mph range with spin rates near 2,800 rpm and hard and late biting action to his glove side. Oakie’s fastball/slider combo is his current focus, but he has also thrown a firm upper-80s changeup that will need more work. Oakie’s arm action can get long in the back, and his control is scattered at times, which adds a bit of reliever risk. He’s an Iowa commit.