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 sixth in my series of scouting notebooks, covering some prospect performances from the last few days.
Ian Anderson’s first two major-league starts have shown why Atlanta made him the third overall pick in the 2016 draft. He’s given a boost to an Atlanta rotation that was starting to show some cracks, although there’s also still some reasonable questions about his upside and whether his breaking ball is going to be a good enough third pitch for him to end up at the top of a rotation.
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Anderson, the No. 27 prospect in baseball coming into 2020, has been 93-96 mph in both of his starts with a very hard changeup at 86-89 mph that seems to consistently fool batters, from his arm speed and the way he releases the ball — he doesn’t visibly turn the pitch over as many pitchers do on their changeups. He throws the changeup about a third of the time, using it to left- and right-handed batters, tripling up on the pitch and even using it to come inside to righties. The pitch seems to play up because of how he uses it all around the zone and he looks very confident that he can put it where he wants to.
That’s huge for Anderson because his fastball isn’t that special; hitters aren’t missing it, and it doesn’t have much movement or spin. He’s working with his four-seamer about 40 percent of the time, using the changeup almost as often and then using his curveball as a third pitch, with good results on the breaking ball so far despite pretty short break and just ordinary spin. My concern is that the more hitters see him and start to pick up the curveball out of his hand, the less they’ll swing and miss at it. He can still be an above-average starter with his changeup and what looks like will be plus command as he matures. Whether Atlanta gets its sweet dream of a future ace in Anderson may instead come down to what happens with his third pitch.
The Astros called up their No. 3 prospect, right-hander Luis García, and then didn’t use him for a week, eventually calling on him when oft-injured Lance McCullers Jr. couldn’t get loose and had to exit a start after failing to retire any of the five batters he faced. García was 92-96 mph with good fade on an 83-84 mph changeup and decent spin on a slurvy curveball at 76-82 mph. He used the breaking ball more than his changeup, but the pitch flattened out at times and it was out of the zone more often than in it. García went 4 1/3 innings, so this amounted to an unplanned start after five days on the roster without pitching in a game; his first scheduled start will be this Wednesday against the A’s, and that may tell us a bit more of how ready he is now.
Yankees right-hander Deivi García, their No. 2 prospect coming into the season and No. 67 overall, has made two starts since his recall, going six strong innings against the Mets in his debut and coming within a strike of five innings in his second. He’s primarily gone fastball-curve-change and is barely using his slider, missing a ton of bats with the curve and getting weak contact with the fastball. He was 90-94 mph in both outings, and hitters don’t seem to pick the ball up out of his hand given how they tend to swing at that pitch, which doesn’t have plus life or spin to it. He used the fastball for some called third strikes, taking advantage of hitters who were looking offspeed. He used the curve and, in his first start, the slider to try to get swings and misses. I was most impressed to see him throw so many strikes; I saw him multiple times in 2019 and he would rack up high pitch counts even when throwing well because he tried to work out of the zone any time he got ahead. He’s 5-foot-9, 160 pounds, so he’s always going to face questions about his durability as a starter, but as long as he’s healthy he looks like at least a good 5- to 6-inning starter who’ll keep the ball out of play enough to be effective.
Clarke Schmidt (No. 51 overall) came on in relief of Deivi García in the latter’s second start, which made for Schmidt’s debut. Schmidt was greeted roughly by Orioles hitters, giving up two singles and a double to the first three guys he faced. The Yankees’ No. 1 prospect before the season, Schmidt looked nervous, with far worse fastball command than he had when I saw him last year. His fastball was still 93-97 mph, although he threw more sliders than fastballs. The slider was below-average when he first came in but was closer to plus by the time his outing ended as he seemed to stop trying to throw everything through a wall, with big spin and tilt to the pitch. It sounds like Schmidt will work out of the bullpen the rest of this season, but he should be in their rotation to start next year and I wouldn’t hesitate to use him for a spot start later this month.
Right-hander Dean Kremer, Baltimore’s No. 9 prospect coming into the year, made his major-league debut against the Yankees on Sunday afternoon. Kremer came over from the Dodgers in the Manny Machado trade in 2018, and the former 14th-round pick became the first Israeli citizen to appear in the major leagues (he was born in the United States to Israeli parents). He pitched very effectively throughout the minors until last year when he reached Triple A, where the different baseball didn’t seem to agree with him. He had no issues at all on Sunday, throwing three pitches for strikes and working more online to the plate than he was when I saw him last year. Kremer was 92-95 mph against the Yanks, getting 11 called strikes on his fastball (four of which were third strikes), and threw a sharp slider/cutter at 85-89 mph that he used in lieu of a changeup against lefties, along with a traditional 12/6-ish curveball at 74-79 mph. My main concern about Kremer as a starter was that he cut himself off in his delivery, which can be a harbinger of arm problems and makes it hard to pitch to your glove side, combined with his lack of a changeup to get lefties out. He was more online to the plate on Sunday, and seemed comfortable pitching to both sides, although I think he’ll need either to use that cutter more to lefties, where he did locate middle-in, or develop a change or splitter to avoid a platoon problem. This was a very promising debut, however, and he looks like a more likely starter than he did a year ago.
Ke’Bryan Hayes, the Pirates’ top prospect and No. 46 overall, had a successful and high-impact first week in the majors, with a game-tying homer and a hard-hit double in his first game and a .389/.421/.722 line (7-for-18) in his first five contests. He’s already shown why he was one of the top defensive prospects in the minors at any position — perhaps second only to Cristian Pache, also now in the majors — and he’s shown a strong two-strike approach and willingness to both work deep counts and try to ambush fastballs early if he gets one in the zone. The three extra-base hits he’s had so far aren’t a good indicator of his current setup and swing; he’s likely to hit for average, but I’d be very surprised if he kept up this power without some significant adjustments. He sets up very open and never fully closes when he strides, which leaves him vulnerable to stuff on the outside part of the plate, and his swing is still flat enough that he’s not likely to produce significant home run power. He’s strong enough to be a 20+ homer guy in a full season, and I think he has a good approach, but these are two areas where he can improve this month or over the winter to try to improve his offensive output for 2021.
(Photo of Hayes: Charles LeClaire / USA Today)
