Pitching Prospects

Okay, it sucked that we traded Jose Campos. I’m disappointed and I know some of you feel the same way. But, then I started playing around with minor league leader boards on Fangraphs and  Statcorner I had a startling revelation of all the minor leaguers that the Mariners have that can easily jump up the prospect rankings over the next few years.

I follow the Mariners minor league system closely and I have a lot of conversations with people much smarter than I to enhance that knowledge during the year. So, I was alittle disappointed in myself. But I think it’s important to take a look at some of those young pitchers that could take the tourch that Jose Campos onced carried.

George Mieses – “El Toro”, as he is nick named is one of my personal favorite young pitchers. He is only 20 years old and doesn’t turn 21 until May. While he stumbled a bit last year in Clinton, posting an ugly 5.34 tRA, it’s not to say that he doesn’t have potential. He’s very much a Michael Pineda proto type throwing a similar heavy fastball 94-95 mph. He gets consistent ground balls and induces weak contact with his developing curve and nearly non-exsistant change-up.

The problem that I see (and what that I hear from others) is that Mieses strongly leans on his fastball. While he has a very good fastball he’s living and dying on it not to mention he often over throws it. He’s leans less on his secondary stuff and he needs to work on that stuff. Listening to Rich Doman (who has been his pitching coach the last two years) he gets a little caught up and emotional -as young guys do-

I’m a lazy guy and if I didn’t have to write every day Mieses is exactly the type of guy I’d love to do more research on. Specifically diving into the questions of what does he throw with when he’s ahead in count or with two strikes and how often does he even get to two strike counts? Those are just as important questions and even just as much as how often he misses bats.

Mieses has serious upside and if they work on his secondary pitches and teach him to become more of a pitcher and less of a thrower he could very well have upper front of the rotation stuff. Though, I’m currently leaning towards him being a solid back-of-the bullpen arm.

Jordan Shipers – A lot of people look over Shipers due to his short stature, older age (20, despite only being draft a year ago) and his lack of instruction living in area without a high school program. But his first professional season went swimingly. Showing the ability to miss bats with his advanced secondary stuff and procure above average ground ball rates.

Shipers only profiles to be a middle of the rotation pitcher. But when reading/hearing interviews with him he comes across as a serious compititor. In one interview (I don’t remember where I saw it) he talked about really not liking it when the hitter was able to make contact, let alone get hits. It’s the same type of attitude I see and hear in Nick Franklin. It’s almost to a point cockiness and yet it’s just confidenent. I like it and I like Shipers.

Victor Sanchez –  Sanchez was only 16 when they signed him out of Venezula  back in July.  Much like Shipers he’s not a big guy standing only 6′ but he has time to still grow.  That said Sanchez already touches the mid-90’s (93-94) and sits 90-92 with a nice slider and a change-up that he’s already working on. He’s got a lot of polish and finese that helps him get inexperienced hitters out. He likely won’t make his stateside debut for another year (at the minimum) but he’s someone that the organization has very high hopes for and one we might look for on Baseball America lists in the coming future.

This is just a small taste of the young pitchers who could potentially fall into Campos’ hype next year. With the additional writers that are coming to the blog you’ll see me write more and more about the youth that is in this organization as well as some thoughts on this years draft and some specific prospects that already are making noise.