Freeland Making Up For Lost Time
DENVER—The year began with frustration in spring training for lefthander Kyle Freeland but ended with satisfaction in the Arizona Fall League.
Shoulder fatigue relegated Freeland, the eighth overall pick in the 2014 draft, to extended spring training, where he experienced swelling and discomfort in his left elbow. On April 29, Freeland had bone chips removed from the elbow.
It was July 24 before he made his 2015 debut. After two scoreless outings at Rookie-level Grand Junction, Freeland went to high Class A Modesto and went 3-2, 4.76 in 40 innings. He headed to the AFL with two objectives: polish command of his 92-96 mph fastball and focus on his changeup.
“I wouldn’t say it’s completely back,” player development director Zach Wilson said of Freeland’s fastball command, “but each passing inning, his command continues to get back to the place it was and continues to improve, too.”
Late in the year at Modesto, when his changeup “was just not there at all,” the 6-foot-3, 170-pound Freeland altered his grip on the pitch.
“It was kind of me getting comfortable throwing it with my pinkie and ring finger instead of throwing it mostly with my ring finger and my middle finger,” Freeland said. “That helped kill a lot of velocity.”
He said the pitch sits at 84 mph, and he’d like to drop it to 80.
Freeland, 22, gave up six runs in less than an inning in his AFL debut but went 4-1, 0.73 in his final five starts. He said he used his changeup more than his highly effective slider in his last three outings.
Wilson attended Freeland’s final start when he pitched five scoreless innings and said, “I saw a solid-average major league changeup at the end of the Fall League, and it’s only going to get better from here.”
ROCKY ROADS
• The Rockies hired Sean Gamble, whose father Oscar is a former major league outfielder, to scout Georgia and northern Florida. Matt Pignataro was hired to scout the Pacific Northwest and western Canada.
• Darin Holcomb, who scouted the Pacific Northwest, will cover northern California and northern Nevada. That territory belonged to Gary Wilson, whom the Royals hired as their West Coast crosschecker.
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