Two Arizona Fall League Pitchers With Intriguing Stuff, But Very Different Paths To MLB Careers
Image credit: Jason Ruffcorn (Photo by Norm Hall/MLB Photos via Getty Images)
Today, we’re going to do a deep dive into two pitchers who pitched in the Arizona Fall League. One of these pitchers you’ve definitely heard of. The other, you probably haven’t (unless you’re J.J. Cooper).
Andrew Painter is one of baseball’s best pitching prospects, and his AFL data certainly backs that up. Jason Ruffcorn, on the other hand, has never been on any top prospect lists anywhere that I can find.
But I think he’ll pitch in the major leagues next year.
Jason Ruffcorn, RHP, Mariners
Ruffcorn ranked as our No. 354 prospect in the 2021 draft. He was taken 235th overall by the Phillies, for whom he pitched for a few seasons before being traded to the Mariners before the 2024 season. At the time, he was a 24-year-old pitcher who had stalled out at High-A with back-to-back 5.00+ ERA seasons. The Mariners clearly saw something in him. They traded for him late in spring training and had him repeat High-A for a third season.
Put yourself in Ruffcorn’s cleats for a moment.
You’re approaching 25 years old, and you’ve been working at baseball your whole life, chasing the elusive dream of making the major leagues and following in your dad’s footsteps and hopefully having more major league success. At the end of the 2023 season, it’s looking bleak with the scary prospect of hanging up the cleats after being stuck at High-A for a second year. Then the Mariners trade for you, but you still have to repeat the same level again. However, the Mariners clearly targeted you.
I asked Jason how the Mariners helped him post-trade.
“The Mariners really helped me with knowing what I’m good at and really hone in on some of the things that make me unique in terms of arsenal and mechanics,” Ruffcorn said. “I’m a lower-slot guy who gets a good amount of swing-and-miss on the four-seam at the top of the zone. They also saw that my cutter is getting a lot of success to righties and lefties, so there was an emphasis on throwing it more and in any situation. They also noticed a couple of things in my mechanics that were limiting me where I was a little slow and introduced a couple of plyo drills or “feels” to help me get some of the velo back I had in college.
“(I’m) really grateful for the Mariners and the pitching staff to help me get to where I am today.”
Ruffcorn’s arsenal created one of the most beautiful pitch charts I’ve seen in a while:
Ruffcorn is Rule 5-eligible, so his AFL performance gives teams a glimpse of what he’s capable of. Despite what the pitch classification says, Ruffcorn throws five pitches, which he describes as a four-seam fastball, sinker, cutter, sweeper and splitter.
Let’s start with the splitter, as it’s a very interesting pitch. In the chart above, it’s classified as a changeup in the light teal (CH), but it’s a spin-killing pitch sitting at around 1000 RPM. He gets great depth on it, with seam-induced movement deviation helping to make the ball dive below bats. It’s mostly a chase pitch, generating whiffs as well as weak contact when hitters get the bat on it. The splitter is at least major league-average from a stuff perspective.
The data definitely backs up what Ruffcorn had to say about his cutter. Because of the movement profile—sitting at basically the 0 HB mark—it’s a great pitch to both righties and lefties. The pitch was a strike 72% of the time in the AFL and was his highest in-zone pitch. It’s another at least MLB-average pitch from a stuff perspective and might be the key to his success. Not many pitchers throw a true hard cutter around 88 mph, which amplifies the effectiveness of the pitch.
Ruffcorn’s four-seam fastball is an effective whiff pitch when he locates it up, but given the low-slot supinator profile, it’s not going to grade well in a vacuum. However, if you look at the plot above, you’ll see it often gets more ride than batters expect given the slot. It’s quite close to an average pitch stuff-wise. Given the depth of the arsenal, it will likely play up. A lot of pitchers with this archetype have the type of fastball that will get demolished, meaning they need to hide it and mix it in strategically. I think this pitch is good enough that it can be mixed in quite a bit. According to Ruffcorn, the Mariners encouraged him to more confident in the pitch, and to throw it hard and with conviction. The data definitely back this up.
That gives Ruffcorn at least three pitches that he can throw to both righties and lefties. His sweeper, misclassified above as a curveball (and sometimes a slider) grades out really well and should be an absolute weapon against righties. It sometimes touches 18 inches of sweep and, in the small AFL sample, generated six whiffs on 12 swings against righties. He mixes it in to lefties as well, but more as a chase pitch, at least in the limited sample.
Ruffcorn rounds out the arsenal with a sinker that I have as an average pitch stuff-wise, but public models don’t agree with my valuation. This is essentially a pitch that he only uses against righties. It’s a true seam-shifted wake sinker, with roughly six inches of vertical movement deviation, which helps it get tremendous depth and an average of 18 inches of arm-side run, touching 21 inches. It’s a great pitch from a shape standpoint, with the only nit-pick being the velocity.
This is a true starter’s arsenal, with weapons against both righties and lefties. Ruffcorn has only ever pitched out of the bullpen professionally, so I was curious if he thought he could start.
“Possibly,” Ruffcorn said. “I’ve been effective in short and long stints. I bounce back quick, so I think that would be a benefit of me being a reliever. But if I were to start, I know having fix solid pitches sets me up for success, as well. I’d be excited for whichever they think is my path to get to the league and have success there.”
The beautiful thing about pitching prospects is that a leap forward in one pitch might be the key to a rapid ascent to the big leagues. Sometimes, a new org targeting a player and helping him make some tweaks can be the difference between a career stalling out and a player on the cusp of making the major leagues.
Andrew Painter, RHP, Phillies
Painter is clearly the best pitching prospect to toe the rubber in the AFL, and he showed what makes him such a special pitcher. Let’s break down his fantastic arsenal:
Painter primarily worked off his fastball, which is an easy plus pitch, mostly due to his 96.5 mph average velocity, topping out at 99. It gets slightly above average ride given his release, as his high release makes the ride play down a little and limits the extension he gets on the pitch. Given how his entire arsenal is built on succeeding from this release point, this isn’t something he needs to optimize.
The first thing that pops is his incredible curveball, which sits around 81 mph and got an incredible 44% in zone whiff rate. He gets great spin on the ball, averaging roughly 2,600 RPM on the pitch, but he wasn’t consistently converting that spin into movement, slipping into gyro spin territory at times. The filled bubbles show pitches where he got whiffs, which might suggest his curveball is at its best when he gets 5-1o inches of negative IVB (depth).
Painter’s slider is going to be a platoon-neutral monster, sitting at a blistering 87-88 mph with depth, including almost inches of SSW drop. That means that the same pitch, with just spin-based movement, would rise about three more inches, which is similar to the movement deviation Jacob deGrom gets on his slider (though, deGrom mirrors the spin axis and Painter does not). The pitch was a whiff machine, in zone and out of zone and is a clear major league-quality slider.
Usually when I write up a pitcher’s bridge cutter, it’s often blurry whether the pitch is actually different than their gyro slider. In Painter’s case, it’s a completely different pitch, despite it occupying a similar space on the movement chart. He throws it about two mph harder than his slider (around 90 mph) and does a great job mirroring the fastball, matching the vertical release angle, as well as mirroring the spin axis. He only threw it in zone once out of the six-pitch sample, so it looks like he doesn’t trust it much in game yet. It’s a very interesting pitch and mixing it in should help the rest of the arsenal play up a bit. That’s four distinct pitches: three that he can command already and a fourth with very interesting pitch characteristics.
We finally arrive at our first nitpick: the changeup.
Changeups are hard to measure just from movement profiles, as they rely mostly on selling the pitch with arm speed. However, the shape here likely makes the pitch a weak offering. Painter’s pronator profile makes him less able to leverage seam-shifted wake effects, and his changeup suffers from this, not getting nearly enough depth or fade. The velocity separation might be enough to throw hitters off, but as is, I don’t think he’ll throw this version very often in the bigs.
Bottom line is this: Painter’s stuff is all the way back, and paints a very clear picture of a premium arm, with front-of-the-rotation upside.
