Since I can’t go scout players in person as I usually would, I’ve been watching various young players so far this season to provide scouting-like notes from home, focusing on players who are either still rookies or just recently lost rookie eligibility but haven’t established themselves yet in the majors. This is the second in my series of scouting notebooks, covering some performances from the last three days of games.
Nate Pearson‘s debut for the Blue Jays did not disappoint, as the team’s No. 1 prospect and the No. 11 overall prospect in baseball overcame a few early jitters to hold the World Champion Nationals to just four baserunners across five scoreless innings on Wednesday.
Pearson throws hard, and was 93-99 mph against Washington, getting some incredibly bad swings against the pitch, with one pitch at 99 mph down and away to freeze right-handed hitter Carter Kieboom, one of the nastiest pitches you’ll see all year. Pearson showed a full four-pitch mix, with a slider that has improved by several grades since he was drafted in 2017, 83-87 mph, mostly with more vertical break, although he did spin one at 87 mph with good tilt. His curveball was 73-77 mph and more average, but made for a good change-of-pace if any hitters were looking slider, and his actual changeup flashed plus at 88-90 mph.
Nate Pearson dots 99 on the outside edge to freeze Carter Kieboom and get out a jam in the 4th.
Wait for Kieboom's reaction 🥴 pic.twitter.com/OvDSsr1NCJ
— Ralph Lifshitz (@ProspectJesus) July 29, 2020
Pearson was visibly nervous in the first, but settled down quickly, throwing more sliders for strikes than fastballs early but eventually getting his fastball in the zone more consistently. There isn’t much missing here; with the control he showed later in his outing, he just has to stretch out and stay healthy. The Jays should have a No. 1 starter, if not now, then in the near future.
Another former first-rounder, Mets lefty David Peterson, also debuted this past week, although his stuff was a bit less impressive than Pearson’s. Peterson is a command lefty who didn’t have great command in his outing, leaving a lot of fastballs and changeups in the middle third of the plate (up, down, or middle-middle). Peterson was 91-94 mph with some late movement, but not sink, surprising for a supposed sinkerballer, with a solid-average changeup at 83-86 mph that worked when he got it up or kept it below the zone, but not when he left it over the middle. He also showed a fringe-average slider at 82-84 mph and below-average curveball at 73-75 mph, neither of which showed good spin. This formula, of a quartet of average or average-ish pitches, works if the pitcher has above-average command and control, and has some deception. Peterson didn’t have that on Tuesday, and generated just five swings-and-misses on the night, so he’s got work to do to be more than a fifth/sixth starter.
Dylan Cease was one of my breakout candidates for 2020 and his first start … did not go as planned. Cease had premium stuff, sitting 96-98 mph, but he was all over with his command, and didn’t have feel for his curveball, bouncing a bunch of them and really struggling to locate that or his slider, although both had tight rotation. He gave up a homer to a lefty on a 97 mph fastball located middle-in, right in the hitter’s wheelhouse, and his best pitch was probably his changeup, although he hung one to lefty Brad Zimmer and gave up another homer. His stuff checked all the boxes, but he’s not the same guy if he can’t get his curveball roughly where he wants to put it. I’m still optimistic, but this wasn’t the guy I expected to see, either.
Kyle Lewis has gotten off to a ridiculously good start this year for the Mariners, a welcome change of luck for the 2016 first-rounder who missed most of 2017 after a gruesome knee injury and wasn’t able to play a full season of 100+ games until 2019. Lewis has a hit in every game so far, two or more hits in his last four games as I write this, although he’s also struck out at least once in every game as well. The good news is that Lewis is showing both plus bat speed and a good approach, including a solid two-strike approach, and he hasn’t seemed overmatched by breaking stuff. He’s swinging-and-missing more than you’d like, a combination of chasing secondary pitches out of the zone and lacking the coverage to make contact with them, and his .750 BABIP (not a typo) is going to come down rather quickly. I’m much more sanguine about his long-term outlook seeing where his approach is, and that he’s running well too.
Justin Verlander’s injury means right-hander Cristian Javier, Houston’s No. 5 prospect coming into 2020, became a lot more important to the Astros, and his first major-league start Wednesday had to give them some cause for optimism. Javier is a big deception guy, working with mostly average stuff but getting nine swings-and-misses across all three of his pitches. Javier was 92-94 mph in his start, working heavily off the fastball, and succeeded when he kept it out of the middle of the plate, even when he went upstairs. It has above-average but not elite spin, so Javier’s ability to miss bats with it is a function of how hard it is for batters to pick up the ball from his hand. He has a straight changeup at 87-88 mph and a slider at 77-81 mph that he’d backdoor to lefties; he was very effective at keeping the latter pitch down in the zone to avoid hard contact.
Cristian Javier's debut was 🔥
5.2 IP
2 H
1 R
1 BB
8 K pic.twitter.com/EcnCvqpUjp— MLB Pipeline (@MLBPipeline) July 30, 2020
He gave up just one run on a homer to Corey Seager on a fastball that got too much plate, and otherwise stayed out of the zone or at its edges. Javier walks a tightrope with this approach, because if he loses a half-grade of command he’s probably a long reliever, given how ordinary his stuff is. He has the deception that a pitcher like Peterson (see above) lacks, however, and showed it still works even against one of the majors’ best lineups.
The Mariners have gone youth-heavy across their lineup, which is a great move for a rebuilding club, and gives me hope that we’ll see outfield prospect Jarred Kelenic sooner rather than later. Evan White has shown elite defense at first base but has struggled with big-league fastballs, which has to be a little concerning to the Mariners since he’s going to see even more velocity going forward. They also had rough starts from two young arms they acquired in trades. Justus Sheffield‘s stuff was just meh, a far cry from where he was two years ago in the Yankees’ system; he was 91-93 mph on his two-seamer with a deceptive changeup and a short, below-average slider. Justin Dunn was a bit better, mostly 91-94 mph with a solid-average slider and too-firm changeup, ruining a promising outing with an awful 0-2 pitch selection to Shohei Ohtani, failing to bury a slider down when a fastball hard in would have been a much better choice. Ohtani got his arms extended and golfed a homer out to right.
How did Ohtani hit this one out?! pic.twitter.com/C0y1QvsEaI
— MLB (@MLB) July 30, 2020
Cleveland has seen some very promising pitching performances from their two young back-end starters in the first trip through the rotation. Aaron Civale lived off his cutter at 87-89 mph, throwing that more than he did his 90-92 mph four-seamer, showing five distinct pitches in all and throwing everything but the slider for consistent strikes. Zach Plesac dominated the White Sox with his 85-87 mph slider and 78-81 mph curveball, which both have below-average spin rates but breaks down so sharply that he got 15 swings-and-misses on the two pitches, including several in the zone (versus zero swings-and-misses on his fastball). His fastball is just 92-94 mph and doesn’t have a lot of movement, so he uses it to get ahead and tries to spot it to the corners, which he did very well through his eight shutout innings on Wednesday. He works primarily with his secondary stuff, though, throwing just 37 fastballs among his 98 pitches (38 percent), an approach that is supported by the evidence on his pitches’ effectiveness. He also made a tremendous play on a groundball right back at him off the bat of Eloy Jiménez, which came off the bat at 101 mph. Civale looks like he’s a fifth starter all the way, but if Plesac can maintain this kind of fastball command he’s got a good chance to be league-average or better.
(Photo of Pearson: Randy Litzinger / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
