Zach Maxwell, Hurston Waldrep Headline Statcast Standouts (June 3rd)
Image credit: Hurston Waldrep (Brian Westerholt/Four Seam Images)
Every Monday morning we’ll highlight several players who stood out to us based on their underlying Statcast metrics. These are not full scouting reports, but can often serve as good early indicators of prospects who might be ready to break out, or are demonstrating MLB-ready skills.
I was away last week, so didn’t have time for a my usual writeup, and opted for a deep dive into Chase Burns instead. Today. we’ll start with a potential top-tier closer, a position player remaking himself as a knuckleballer, a top prospect fighting his way back from injuries, as well another former top-five prospect, who is working his way back to the majors after struggling to open the season. Going forward, we’ll likely make these six players long so that we can talk about different players each week.
You can access the data below via Baseball Savant.
Related prospect rankings
Statcast Standouts
Zach Maxwell, RHP, Reds
Maxwell has one of the best fastballs in baseball, period. His combination of velocity and shape overwhelms batters, especially in short spurts. He’s hitting some important development goals, and is now unleashing his 80-grade fastball in Triple-A. Let’s dive into that fastball:
The filled circles with numbers are pitches that got whiffs, with the number indicating the velocity of the pitch. Generally speaking, any fastball with at least 18 inches of IVB (induced vertical break) will be a fastball with good shape, but there are two important caveats. The first is velocity, since IVB is calculated over the entire flight of the ball, faster fastballs have less time to rise. Maxwell’s fastball averages a tremendous 20 inches of vert, which is elite regardless, but is closer to 20.7 inches of IVB if we normalize for the average fastball velocity.
The other caveat is arm angle and release point. Generally speaking, it’s easier to get high-vert fastballs from more over-the-top releases. Maxwell’s 6.7-foot release point would be one of the highest in baseball. He shares some similarities with Félix Bautista, though Maxwell is not quite as over the top as Bautista. That can vary a lot depending on where the pitcher stands on the rubber. While he’s not quite at Bautista’s 2023 level, any pitcher that can get within 1 mph and 1 inch of IVB of Bautista has a great fastball, period.
That’s the good news. The bad news is that he has absolutely no command of the pitch, especially to lefties.
Sometimes elite pure stuff can overcome command issues. Sometimes it can’t. I’m very excited to see how Maxwell’s stuff will play in the Majors, but we may have to wait a little as he works on his command in Triple-A.
Hurston Waldrep, RHP, Braves
A picture can sometimes paint an entire story. Here we see a splitter with a wide variance in horizontal movement, which generated 16 swings and misses, and was his primary pitch. He pairs that with a good slider, and a fringy fastball, with below-average ride and only average velo. His splitter is clearly his best pitch, but if batters can lay off the splitter, he may have some very bad games where his fastball just can’t get batters out.
We see that he gets his whiffs mostly by inducing chase (typical of a splitter), which is why it’s so difficult to have a splitter as your main pitch. He’ll be a very interesting arm to track as we accumulate more data on him.
David Fletcher, RHP, Braves
Yeah, a 99 mph fastball with 20 inches of vert is great. But what if you could command a 63 mph knuckleball, would that actually be better? David Fletcher (yes, the former position player) is on a journey to see if that’s actually true. Why is hitting a knuckleball so hard? Let’s try to visualize that:
Most pitch types have a small cluster around a midpoint, but Fletcher’s knuckler has a huge amount of variance. That means that any given pitch can be +/- 5 inches (or more!) in any direction, which makes it extremely difficult for batters to get the barrel on the baseball, and leads to a LOT of whiffs. Currently the pitch is generating a 18.8% swinging strike rate (per pitch) and a 40% whiff rate (per swing). Those are elite numbers and given that MLB hitters don’t train to hit the knuckleball, it wouldn’t surprise me if he continued to have success with the pitch in the majors.
The challenge for Fletcher is that he can’t really risk throwing any other pitch, as his fastball is a batting practice pitch at 79 mph, and he’s risking a home run every time he throws the pitch. It’s hard to make that kind of arsenal work at the major league level, but I’m here for it! Who doesn’t love a great underdog comeback story?
Jordan Walker, OF, Cardinals
It’s not uncommon for a very young hitter to struggle in the majors once teams start game planning for them. Walker is the latest example. An important reminder: He’s still just 22 years old, approximately three months younger than Dylan Crews.
There are a variety of metrics I like to look at when evaluating hitting prospects. It’s especially helpful to look at a player year over year, to see what’s happening under the hood. For Walker, it looks like he isn’t hitting the ball quite as hard (Max exit velo down about 2 mph, 90th percentile exit velocity about 2-3 MPH lower, average exit velocity also about 2 mph lower at Triple-A). However, that may be a product of a more contact-oriented approach, as he’s reduced his whiff rate at both Triple-A and in the majors, and raised his average launch angles by about three degrees.
The exit velocity data isn’t as exciting as it was earlier in his career, but given his age and track record, it wouldn’t surprise me if he finds his groove again and starts exceeding his 2023 exit velocity numbers soon.
Are there other changes that Walker is making? Perhaps. Walker in his 2024 MLB time was mostly swinging at pitches on the inner third:
In Triple-A, he’s targeting more pitches on the outer third, and a lot fewer pitches low:
These are subtle adjustments, but important ones. If he can select pitches that he can damage, the overall results will improve. As we mentioned above, Walker is still extremely young, and is well ahead of the curve. While the prospect shine has faded, he still has a huge ceiling and plenty of time to get there.
Shane Baz, RHP, Rays
Baz is slowly working his way back from Tommy John surgery, and he’s not quite all the way back just yet. While his velocity is good, averaging 95 mph on his fastball, he’s getting only average ride given the arm slot, which explains his underwhelming 7% swinging strike rate on the pitch. With fastballs, 1-2 inches of ride can make a huge difference, so I would caution to reserve judgment on the pitch until we see him in MLB action, as he may be easing himself back into things.
The slider looks like an easy plus pitch, reaching the 86 mph benchmark, with extremely low spin efficiency (good for gyro sliders and cutters). He mixes in a curveball and a changeup that are lagging behind so far. For Baz, it all hinges on the vertical ride with the fastball, if that comes back, he looks like a Jared Jones type of pitcher, if it doesn’t, his prospects aren’t quite as optimistic.
Ben Casparius, SP, Dodgers
Casparius is not a household name, but he is a very good pitcher on the cusp of the major leagues in an organization that has a great track record of developing pitchers. Casparius’ fastball is MLB quality, sitting at 95 (touching 99) and getting about average ride given the arm slot. His ability to hit almost 3,000 rpm on both his slider and cutter makes him intriguing. He’s currently averaging about 13 inches of sweep on the slider variant, and 10 inches on the cutter variant.
Let’s take a look at what his arsenal looked like in his dominant May 26 start:
The important takeaway is that there appears to be a big opportunity for Casparius to throw a true gyro slider, meaning one that is very close to the 0 HB, 0 IVB mark, in addition to the cutter and sweepier slider. The sinker might actually be a changeup, as it’s quite a lot slower than the four-seam fastball. Casparius isn’t going to light the world on fire, but he’s the type of pitcher who you can comfortably slot into a back-of-the-rotation role, and has the raw ingredients (velocity, spin rate, ride on the fastball) where a small improvement in fastball shape and/or velo gives him the potential for more.
