AL East Draft Picks With The Most Intriguing Statcast Pitch Data
Image credit: Trey Yesavage (Mike Janes/Four Seam Images)
Each week, I dip into public Statcast data to provide insight on up-and-coming minor league talent. Now that the draft is complete, I will shift gears and dig into some data on recent draftees.
It is important to note that the dataset is incomplete. Pitchers may or may not translate their pitch shapes directly from college baseball to the majors due to differences in the baseballs, as well as potential differences in data quality and measurement. If a pitcher isn’t included here, it’s because there wasn’t any Statcast data.
We’ll also be looking at things primarily through a “stuff” lens. Namely, those pitch shapes that have the potential to work in the major leagues. This is inspired by the countless examples of unheralded college pitchers who take huge leaps once they hit a major league development system.
Baltimore Orioles
Carson Dorsey, LHP, 7th Round
Dorsey pitched for Florida State, starting 11 games in his first full season and striking out 88 in 76 inning. He has some good ingredients with a 93 mph fastball featuring above-average ride, though that probably translates to below-average with the minor league baseball. Still, decent velocity and tremendous extension at seven feet combine to make a good foundation for could be a viable major league pitch with the help of pro development, especially given how little he’s pitched.
Dorsey has two breaking balls: A gyro slider that will need 3-4 mph of added velocity to be viable and a very slow curve that doesn’t look good from a data perspective. He also mixes in a changeup at around 82 mph. Ultimately, fastball is what makes Dorsey interesting. We’ll see how he takes to professional coaching, and he’ll likely still need to add 2-3 ticks of velocity to it to be a viable prospect.
Jack Crowder, RHP, 9th Round
Crowder’s numbers are from 2023, as he didn’t pitch in front of Statcast cameras this year. Last year, he showed a 93 mph four-seamer with good shape and poor extension, but a promising ability to spin the ball to the tune of 2500 average RPM. He paired that with a true gyro slider that showed good traits (low spin efficiency, high spin rate). Crowder might be a pitcher that can have a decent fastball/slider pairing, while also throwing a sinker/sweeper. He throws a firm changeup at 84, with decent fade and drop.
Christian Rodriguez, RHP, 10th Round
Standing 6-foot-6, 225 pounds, Rodriguez has a great frame, and we have a lot of Statcast data on him, as he participated in the MLB Draft League right before the draft where he struck out 16 batters in a complete game.
Let’s chart his pitch shapes from that game:
Perhaps understanding that this was a showcase for him, Christian amped up his fastball, going from a 91 mph in his June data to sitting 93 in his three July starts. If that’s his true fastball velocity, it puts him closer to being a viable pitching prospect, as the shape is pretty average.
There appears to be some challenges for the pitch classification system, but he flashed a very firm changeup at 87 with great fade and depth. It definitely looks like a promising pitch against lefties.
His slider and curveball also showed promising spin rates at 2600 and 2830 rpm, respectively. As a prospect, he’s a good ball of clay, given the frame, decent present velocity and ability to spin a breaking ball. I’m constantly amazed at just how large the talent pool of pitchers is. Here I am, writing up a pitcher drafted all the way in the 10th round who has both a huge starter’s frame and the potential to take a leap with the help of a quality major league pitch design program.
Sebastian Gongora, LHP 11th Round
Gongora is a slider-first, 6-foot-5 lefty without any standout traits and a fastball/sinker pair around 91 MPH with below average shape. He’ll need a massive jump in pretty much everything to be a viable prospect.
Carter Rustad, RHP, 15th Round
Carter’s primary pitch is classified as a sinker, but it gets 17.5 inches of IVB per flight, which is well above-average even though it only comes in at 90-91 mph. His changeup is interesting, with great depth and good fade, however he’ll need to clean up the release point, which is very different than the fastball. He’s an interesting arm, though the data points are from 2023 only.
Evan Yates, RHP, 20th Round
Evan also participated in the MLB Draft League, so we have lots of data on him, as well. He throws his fastball from a pretty low slot, allowing his 16-17 inches of IVB to play up at 91 mph. He throws a cutter/slider at 87/85 which is great given the fastball velocity. Though they’ll always be limited if he’s stuck at 91 with the fastball, they aren’t far off from a shape standpoint and could be quite good if he can learn to up the gyro spin. He also shows a curveball with decent spin that’s probably too slow to be viable and a changeup at 84 that will need to be revamped to get more drop.
Boston Red Sox
Payton Tolle, LHP, 2nd Round
Tolle is a fascinating project. He’s a 6-foot-6, 250-pound lefty who throws from an extreme side-arm slot and somehow manages almost 17 inches of IVB per 0.4 seconds on his four seam and 16 inches on his sinker, which he uses as his primary pitch. Though the data is sparse, it appears like he made a drastic change from 2023 to 2024 by lowering his release point and gaining ride, but losing about a tick of velocity. I think he’ll have potential as a lefty-killer as a floor, but could become really interesting if he can find some velo gains. He also averaged almost 8 feet of extension with his four-seamer, which is incredible.
The slider is a true gyro slider that I like a lot from a shape perspective, though it will need more velo. Given the arm slot, he looks like a prime candidate to learn the sweeper, and he’s definitely in an organization that can teach that. He also flashed a change and a curve that I’m not a big fan of.
A two-way player, Tolle focused more on pitching this year, taking only 66 plate appearances as a hitter to see his pitching performance jump. I think this is a very exciting pitching prospect for the Red Sox with a lot of traits that can make him an uncomfortable look for major league hitters.
Devin Futrell, LHP, 10th Round
Futrell has a mediocre fastball that sits 90-91 with good ride, but not much else. The bet here is on the fastball shape as a foundation, and you hope he can learn a secondary and add significant velo.
Steven Brooks, RHP, 11th Round
The data I have is from 2023, and neither of his fastballs cracked 90 mph. He doesn’t have the ability to spin the ball, either.
Brady Tygart, RHP, 12th Round
A 93 mph fastball with good ride and extension is a nice find in the 12th round. Tygart pairs that with big curve at 76 mph that has some nice spin rates at 2660 RPM and a changeup with depth and fade. This is a great project for a 12th round pick.
Shea Sprague, LHP, 13th Round
Sprague threw 61 changeups, eight sliders and two sinkers in my data set. Wish I had more to say about him, but that’s all I got.
Joey Gartrell, RHP, 15th Round
Gartrell has an unremarkable 90 mph sinker,and a gyro slider with very low spin efficiency. He has shown a changeup at 86 and a slurve at 77.
New York Yankees
Bryce Cunningham, RHP, 2nd Round
Cunningham averaged seven feet of extension, which was down from his 2023 numbers, as he raised his arm slot to create a more vertical fastball. It’s a very good bread-and-butter pitch, sitting 94-95 with plus ride. He pairs it with a true gyro slider that grades out really well and generated a lot of whiffs. It’s the classic vertical fastball/gyro slider pair that forms an excellent base. He’ll need to develop a third (and fourth) pitch to be a viable starter, but he’s got two great offerings from to build. I have a strong bias for this archetype.
Thatcher Hurd, RHP, 3rd Round
Carlos Collazo raved about Thatcher in his Yankees draft review, and I couldn’t agree more. I have Hurd’s fastball as the highest-rated among all the fastballs in the Statcast data set (Cunningham was 11th, Tolle above was 12th), with over 4 inches of ride on the fastball above what’s expected given his release angle. He combines that with excellent velocity at 95 mph and above-average extension. If you’re betting on pure fastball stuff, this is the guy.
It doesn’t end with the fastball, either. He also throws a slider with some sweep, as well as a cutter with a little more ride. These have distinct shapes, and are both high-spin offerings around 2600-2700 rpm. The curveball is also promising, with two-plane break and an average spin rate close to 2900 rpm. If you’re betting on pure breaking ball stuff, this is also the guy.
Hurd represents a bet on “stuff” over performance. He’s a fantastic ball of clay, and I’m excited to see what the Yankees development organization can do with him.
Gage Ziehl, RHP, 4th Round
Ziehl isn’t quite as outstanding as Hurd, but he also exhibits a trait the Yankees were clearly targeting: A sharp slide and cutter with 2700 rpm each. Both pitches grade out well metrically. Ziehl has a very vertical delivery, but doesn’t get much ride on the fastball. I’m intrigued to see what the Yankees do with him, as he looks to be a good candidate to switch to a sinker, but maybe they find a way to fix the fastball.
Greysen Carter, RHP, 5th Round
This is just a straight development play around arm speed and a high-rpm slider. It’s a 97 mph fastball with very poor present shape but great extension and a slider/sweeper with great raw spin. Sometimes that’s all you want to know about a guy before you feed them into your dev machine.
Griffin Herring, LHP, 6th Round
I only have 20 pitches of data on Herring, but they are intriguing. Thirteen of those pitchers were sliders that graded out really well low spin efficiency at 2600 rpm and a 92 mph fastball with slightly above-average ride. He’s not an overly exciting arm, but he also has great extension, which the Yankees were clearly targeting.
Wyatt Parliament, RHP, 7th Round
Wyatt’s data doesn’t pop, but his fastball sits at 93-94 with 2,500 to 2,600 rpm. Maybe the Yankees think they can teach him how to maximize that.
Tampa Bay Rays
Jacob Kmatz, RHP, 5th Round
You’re going to see a theme here with Rays pitchers, as they targeted a bevy of players with low spin efficiency sliders. Kmatz has an unremarkable fastball, sitting 90-91 with slightly above-average ride given the release traits. His money pitch is a 76 mph curveball with two-plane break that generated a lot of swing-and-miss, as well as the afforementioned gyro slider with low spin efficiency. He’s not far off from being a viable prospect, as he probably only needs a couple of ticks of velocity to for the stuff to play up.
Janzen Keisel, RHP, 6th Round
I have two fastballs from Keisel, and they registered 20 inches of IVB from a five-foot release height (almost sidearm). It doesn’t make any sense, but his sinkers also registered 17 inches of IVB, so it might be real? He also got 6.9 feet of extension on the four-seamer. If we believe the two-pitch sample, it’s possibly the best pure stuff pitch in the draft, even at 92.5 mph. He pairs it with, you guessed it, a true gyro slider with low spin efficiency, a riding sinker and a changeup with huge fade (almost 18 inches). It’s an exciting package of pure stuff, from a very unusual arm angle and is a very Rays-type pick.
Ryan Andrade, RHP, 7th Round
The Rays went from an extreme side-armer in Keisel to a very vertical over-the-top release guy in Andrade. It’s solid velocity at 93 mph and spin at 2500 RPM, so the Rays probably think they can teach him to get more spin efficiency on the four-seamer, which has below average shape at the moment. He has a fantastic slider, which fits the Rays draft philosophy, though he’ll need to add a couple of ticks of velocity to it as he develops. He has feel to kill the spin on his changeup, and tremendous feel to spin a curveball, averaging 2700 RPM on the pitch.
Cade Citelli, RHP, 11th Round
Citelli features a low-slot sinker at 90 mph that neither sinks nor runs too much. I’m not sure what the Rays see here, other than, again, a low-efficiency gyro slider.
Ryan Schiefer, RHP, 14th Round
Schiefer’s four-seam fastball grades out really well, getting almost 19 inches of IVB (0.4 seconds) from a 5.7-foot release height, which is about 3.5 inches more than expected. While this will likely be closer to +1.5 inches with the big league baseball, it already has great shape, despite the below average present velocity at 92.5 mph. Schiefer’s best pitch might be a splitter, though it’s listed as a changeup. He absolutely kills the spin on the pitch at 1100 rpm to go with tremendous depth. He also has a low-efficiency slider, but it didn’t grade out particularly well in the tiny sample I have. This is a great example of maximizing every pick, even in the 14th round.
Andres Galan, RHP, 17th Round
Why would the Rays grab a guy that throws 89? My guess is they like his seven-foot extension and what looks to be an efficient four-seam fastball. If they can get him on some professional velocity training and he starts throwing 94-95, maybe there’s something here.
Kaleb Corbett, RHP, 20th Round
The Rays closed out their draft with yet another pitcher with a high vertical fastball, though it probably has below-average ride given his Karinchak-esque release point. It’s not far off from being a decent pitch from a stuff perspective, as he already has average velocity. He pairs it with an 89 mph gyro cutter, which fits very much into the Ray’s draft ethos this year. Not bad for a 20th round pick.
Toronto Blue Jays
Trey Yesavage, RHP, 1st Round
I live in Toronto, so I was very happy when Yesavage dropped to pick No. 20 to get scooped up by the Jays. That was until I wrote this piece and looked at the data. The slider is very good, one of the better ones metrically in the draft, with negative vert and very low spin efficiency while sitting above the 86 mph threshold that sliders need to be effective. It’s a great pitch, no matter what.
The fastball, however, doesn’t excite me, as it has below-average ride even with the college baseball and only comes in at 94 mph. He also doesn’t show a feel for spin, sitting around 2300 RPM on all his pitches. I’ll note that the non-Statcast data is much more favorable to the fastball, so we’ll have to wait for him in minor league ballparks to get a more accurate picture of the fastball shape.
I hope I’m wrong about Trey’s fastball, but if we’re to believe the Statcast data as being more accurate, it may explain why he dropped to 20.
Jackson Wentworth, RHP, 5th Round
Jackson is the only other pitcher the Jays selected with Statcast data. He has an extreme overhand delivery, which makes his 19 inches of IVB play down somewhat. He’ll need to find a little more velo than the 92 mph he showed, but it’s close to average if he can maintain that ride.
He throws both a gyro slider and cutter, with distinct shapes, which is unusual. They’re both low-spin pitches, so will be interesting to see how the Jays work with him on those offerings. He also showed a change at 85 and a slurve at 83. This is an interesting arm with a potential five-pitch mix that could be quite good if he can bump the fastball up into the 94-95 range.
