What To Expect: Jake Thompson

Righthander Jake Thompson, the Phillies’ No. 3 prospect at midseason and their top pitching prospect, will make his major league debut on Saturday in San Diego.

Thompson, part of the prospect haul the Phillies received from the Rangers for Cole Hamels last July along with Jorge Alfaro and Nick Williams as well as Jerad Eickhoff, Alec Asher and Matt Harrison, was 11-5, 2.50 for Triple-A Lehigh Valley and has been especially good in his past 11 starts, posting a 1.21 ERA.

He’ll take the spot of Aaron Nola, who has a right elbow strain.

SCOUTING REPORT

A second-round pick of the Tigers in 2012 out of a high school in Texas, Thompson already has been traded twice. He was sent to the Rangers for Joakim Soria in July 2014 and to the Phillies a year later. Thompson owns two fastballs—a four-seamer in the 93-94 mph range and a two-seamer a tick lower than that—as well as a slider, curveball and a changeup. He likes to mix his fastballs at what he labels a roughly 50-50 clip, especially to keep lefthanded hitters from diving out on the plate to get to his four-seamer. His changeup is developing and the Phillies would like him to incorporate it more. He’s a big-bodied guy who needed to work on his conditioning in order to improve his stamina and he’s pitched at least six innings in 10 of his past 11 starts, topping 100 pitches in four of those starts.

After a rough start to open the season, Thompson made some mechanical changes and found the kind of success he opened his Phillies tenure with last fall with Double-A Reading.

“I moved back on the rubber to where I was last year … toward first base,” Thompson explained earlier this year. “Other than that it was just cleaning up some things with my delivery to get me more in line with what I was doing toward the end of last year. I’d kind of run into a little bad habit here or there and got kind of out of whack, so I sat down and corrected that and fixed a lot of things.”

The move toward the first-base side of the rubber reintroduces an element of comfort Thompson lacked when he was on the third-base side, which was initially prescribed to help add deception to his breaking pitches. Once there, however, he felt like he lost command of his fastball.

“It was supposed to do really, really good things for me. I gave it my all and I gave it a whole month,” he said. “In spring training it showed flashes of working—my breaking balls were really, really good in spring training and it just didn’t quite pan out. Since we made made that adjustment (to move back to the first-base side), it’s been a lot better.”

He’s also worked hard to be less upright in his delivery, something the Phillies asked him to work on this year in Triple-A.

“I wasn’t really sitting on my back leg. I was getting a tick jumpy and kind of what my pitching likes to say is ‘top-heavy,’ Thompson said. “I was just getting way out front and not giving my arm a chance to get extended.”

Thompson joined the Phillies organization with a reputation as a strikeout pitcher, but after changes he made during instructional league last fall, Thompson is pitching more to contact this season. While his strikeout rate has declined, Thompson generated 52 percent ground balls during his superb 11-game run and has induced 23 double plays in 21 starts this season. He’s walked about 2.6 batters per nine innings this season, but his strike percentage has hovered around 60 percent and the Phillies would like him to be more efficient with his pitches.

WHAT TO EXPECT

When the Phillies did not trade Jeremy Hellickson at the trade deadline, it seemed that Thompson would not see the majors until September at least. But the injury to Nola has opened a spot and if Thompson performs, the Phillies can allow Nola to take his time returning to the mound.

Thompson’s newfound ground ball tendencies will play well at Citizens Bank Ballpark, but don’t expect him to pile up the strikeouts.