Riley Pint Closes Out First Pro Season

SEE ALSO: Pioneer League Top 20 Prospects

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz.—After the Rockies took him with the fourth overall pick in this past June’s draft, Riley Pint spent the summer finding out that professional hitters are a lot different than the ones he spent four years dominating in high school in Overland Park, Kan.

Even in the Rookie-level Pioneer League, where Pint pitched with Grand Junction, hitters are more skilled, more discerning and more talented than the average prep player. Perhaps that was why, despite an enviable body at 6-foot-4 and 192 pounds and a tantalizing three-pitch mix, the numbers Pint put up didn’t jump off the page.

In 11 starts at Grand Junction, Pint, 18, went 1-5, 5.35 and gave up 43 hits in 37 innings. He struck out 36 in that time (8.7 per nine innings), but walked 23 as well (5.6 per nine).

“(My first season) was good. It was a learning experience and I’m glad it was spent in the Pioneer League just getting used to everything about pro ball,” Pint said. “The hitters are really good, a lot different than high school. You just have to roll with the punches and figure out what the umpires’ zones are like and all that stuff.”

Even so, it was easy to tell on Saturday morning, when Pint’s Rockies matched up with Giants prospects in an instructional league game,that Pint’s stuff easily places him among the game’s elite prospects.

He ranked No. 2 on this year’s BA 500 before the draft, then checked in as the Pioneer League’s No. 1 prospect this fall.

In two innings on Saturday against the Giants, it was easy to see both Pint’s tremendous upside and the development that still needs to take place. In his first inning, he sat between 96-99 mph with his fastball and touched 100 once. The pitch also showed sinking action at times as well. He coupled it with a hard curveball in the low- to mid-80s.

He struck out two in the first inning, getting Bryan Reynolds looking at a breaking ball and Gio Brusa swinging on an elevated fastball.

His command wandered in the second inning, and the inning had to be stopped after just out because Pint had reached his pitch limit for the afternoon. His fastball sat more in the 95-96 mph range in the second inning, and he worked in plenty of changeups.

The pitch, which he had during high school but rarely used, sat in the high-80s but touched 90 mph at times. Considering its sparing use when Pint was an amateur, the changeup was understandably firm and well behind his other two pitches.

“I’ve had (the changeup) since I was a little kid,” he said, “but I never really threw it that much.”

He also said he was focusing on Saturday working more toward the inner half of the plate, which may have contributed to his shakiness in the second inning.

“I was just missing in. We were trying to go in and trying to work on a few things in the second inning,” We didn’t really get where we needed to go, but I still felt good about it. I was just trying to get in on hitters and work on my changeup more than I usually do.”

Overall, though, Pint was pleased with his outing, which had the scout section behind home plate at the Giants’ minor league buzzing on nearly every pitch.

“I thought the fastball was pretty good today, especially in the first inning, because I was locating down in the zone,” he said. “I was pretty happy with that today.”

Next season, Pint is like to spend next year in parks that aren’t conducive to success for pitchers. If he’s assigned to low Class A Asheville, he’ll spend his home games at McCormick Field, which in 2015 yielded the second-most home runs per game in the minor leagues. The only park above it on the list? High Desert’s Heritage Field, which saw its team contracted and moved to the Carolina League after last season.

When he makes it out of Asheville, he’ll move to Lancaster (Colorado’s new high Class A affiliate for 2017), which ranks as one of the bigger launching pads in the homer-happy California League.

That’s next year, though. For now, Pint is happy to put 2016 in the books—Saturday was the Rockies’ instructional league finale—and get to his first offseason. The year had its ups and its downs, but Pint considers it a success.

“It was a great,” he said. “I couldn’t ask for a better first season.”

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