Enas Hayden-Indiana-Purdue Fort Wayne-Fr-RHP-FOLLOW

This is not a formal report, but I wanted to put a quick post here on a pitcher who I'm interested in for 2024, Enas Hayden.

His stats this year are horrendous, mostly due to being a freshman and a midweek pitcher going up against tough competition (Notre Dame and Michigan State) but there is an interesting foundation to build upon.

Hayden is listed as 6'3" 210, prototypical pitchers' frame and is an average athlete, with good on mound balance. I really like his set of mechanics. Plus body control, deep back leg drop, in line throughout the delivery and rotates extremely well with a shorter arm action. The deep back leg drop allows him to throw with a lower release point that lets him operate up in the zone and get a flat vertical approach angle on his pitches, while throwing from a H3/4 arm slot.

His two pitches presently is a four seam fastball and a slider. The fastball is well below average presently due to his velocity, where he sits around 86-89, but gets excellent hop on the pitch due to the aforementioned release point. This pitch will always play up from what is expected given the velocity.

The slider is also below average presently due to the lack of velocity, but it's another pitch with good shape to it; a gyro breaker with some bite to it. It has the shape of a future strikeout pitch that he can lean on.

Enas's command is lacking right now, but the smoothness of the delivery makes me project for it to be average. When you lack velocity the way he currently does, it's pretty tough to not walk people.

In total, there's not much of a track record to go off here, but the delivery, frame, and shape have me interested in his future career. IPFW has a total of two draft picks in its history, Evan Miller (2016 22nd-Padres, currently in AAA) being the most recent, so this isn't a powerhouse program, but Hayden has enough raw traits to make him the third. Despite not having a present third pitch, there are definite starter traits, and I am interested in watching how his career plays out.

Andrew Dutkanych-IN HS-RHP

This is a scouting report from the archive this past summer. I have not been able to get out to see him yet this year unfortunately, but hopefully I will be able to see him at some point during state tournament season. Looking through the rest of the high school class, I don't really see a lot of people matching up with him. I wrote on Witherspoon and like him, but still prefer Dutkanych. Lesko is above him, and then Barreira/Schultz/Porter are probably in the same tier as Dutkanych in some order. I can see Dutkanych being selected in the first round (and I think he should) but I'm guessing his price tag will be high which could turn some teams off.

Name: Andrew Dutkanych IV

School: Brebeuf Jesuit HS

Commit: Vanderbilt

Date of Report: 7/29/21

Position: RHP

HT/WT: 73/205

B/T: R/R

Arm Slot: H3/4

Arm Action: Compact

Tool	Velocity	Present	Future
Fastball	92-95	5	6
Changeup		3	5
Curveball	78-80	4	6
Slider	87-90	4	6
Command		3	5

Physical: Strong lower half, close to physical maturity. Still a live body with athleticism.

Mechanics: H3/4 arm slot, compact arm action, aggressive pulldown, some back leg drop, avg extension, slight inverted W, hard brace front leg, rotates well. Direct to the plate with minimum moving parts.

Abilities: Rise and carry on the FB leads to a ton of S&M, nearly unhittable up in zone. Power breaking stuff, both SL and CB are plus pitches, and he has feel with them. SL is gyro oriented w late break. CB has 12-6 mvmt with above average depth, again with hard bite. CH has more fade than drop.

Weaknesses: Aggressiveness to the overall delivery. Issues with command at times. Not much feel for CH, work in progress though has traits to be an average pitch.

Summary: Dutkanych has a bulldog mentality on the mound, works quickly. Deep repertoire depth w 3 plus pitches and a CH that works well off FB even though feel is not there yet. Able to blow hitters away with FB up in the zone. Love the competitiveness. Moderate reliever risk due to aggressive mechanics, but he’s athletic and the mechanics don’t get in the way of him. Control can get away from him at times due to plus mvmt on his pitches, but above average athleticism does not have me worried, so I am aggressive in double projecting the command. This should be a first round arm come July.

 

Gabriel Hughes-Gonzaga-RHP

Name: Gabriel Hughes

Position: RHP

Commit: Gonzaga University

Arm Slot: H3/4

 

Pitch	Velocity	Present	Future
Fastball	90-94 T96	45	55
Changeup	77-80	40	50
Curveball	70-73	30	45
Slider	80-85	45	60
Control		40	45

Physical Description: High waisted, nearly filled out lower half, sloped shoulders.

Mechs: H3/4 arm slot, side wind up, aggressive arm action with explosive arm speed, minimal back leg drop,

Abilities: Has really hard bite to his slider, two plane movement that crosses the entire plate at times. Primary K pitch, can bury it backfoot on lefties. CH tunnels well off of the FB, has kills spin and can generate S&M from lefties. FB shape is a bit generic presently, but it at times has a wicked tail and is hard to lift.

Weaknesses: FB shape doesn’t miss a ton of bats, CB and SL can run into each other and don’t always have a defined shape; aggro arm action gives him a bullpen feel. CB is more of a get me over pitch, not much bite to it but the shape is interesting (12-6 mvmt).

Summary: 

Hughes is a pop up arm this spring whose draft stock has benefited from the unfortunate injuries surrounding the college pitcher class this season. That said, Hughes should not be under looked as a pro prospect. Despite a pretty aggressive motion which leads to some bullpen risk, he has a starter repertoire and command, along with being a solid athlete and a bulldog on the mound. Primary offspeed right now is his slider, which is a true K pitch and flashes plus, that goes along with his CH that works well against lefties. FB is average, can run it up velo wise but the shape is fairly generic. CB isn’t much presently, but the vertical shape is different than the rest of his repertoire (east-west) so there is some utility there, with a possible drawback being that he throws it from a different arm slot that is pretty obvious (more below). In total, he has a lot of positive traits, and with sliders being so popular now, I expect him to be a top college arm this year.

Something that was noticeable while watching full speed and then even more noticeable when looking at the high speed was that he tends to release his breaking balls at a higher arm slot than his fastball. His slider is released a bit higher, but the CB is thrown nearly over the top.

Video: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8as1Yaq4kM&ab_channel=TheProspectPipeline

Malachi Witherspoon-FL HS-RHP-2022

I found Witherspoon from Twitter, and all of the clips I could find of him really impressed me. Below is a report summarizing those clips.

Name: Malachi Witherspoon

Position: RHP

Commit: Jacksonville University

Arm Slot: H3/4

 

Pitch	Velocity	Present	Future
Fastball	90-94	50	60
Changeup	80-85	45	55
Curveball	78-81	45	60
Slider
Control		40	55

Physical Description: High waisted, nearly filled out lower half, sloped shoulders.

Mechs: H3/4 arm slot, stretch only (at least in the short clips I found), med high leg kick, some drift towards plate, average back leg drop, explosive torso rotation, hard front leg brace

Abilities: Riding fastball that plays up and down the zone. His primary offspeed pitch is his hammer curveball with hard late break (11-5 mvmt) with plus depth. Changeup falls right off the table and plays well with his fastball, even with a relatively low velocity differential, also projects as plus. Has out pitches to both righties and lefties, projecting a low platoon split. Above average command, pitches within himself, doesn’t overthrow.

Weaknesses: Not a ton of physical projection left, some aggression in the delivery.

Summary: 

Witherspoon does not have much draft hype right now, but this is a guy with three plus pitches and an above average feel for the strike zone. There is some aggression in the delivery, and he’s near maturity physical wise, but Witherspoon repertoire depth and feel for pitching really stand out, and there’s middle of the rotation potential here. Real pleasure watching him, would get aggressive in trying to sign him away from a middling D1 (Jacksonville) school.

Jud Fabian Thoughts/Report

Given that Indiana baseball is pretty weak this year draft wise, I've been starting my overall top prospect list a lot earlier than I normally would. This list is based off of video clips and stats, so certainly not a great list but I've done reasonably well over the past couple of years and I think I'm pretty good at synthesizing information that is relevant. Obviously team lists are far better, but it still is a good exercise in video scouting and contextualizing with (surface level) stats.

I'm going to talk more about him in the official list, but the player who has interested me most this cycle and almost feels underrated at this point is Jud Fabian, CF from Florida. As of right now, Fabian is a top 10 pick and I don't really see him getting bumped out.

This is an excerpt of my writeup on Fabian:  

"I think for model driven people Jud Fabian is going to be really difficult to value properly. From a demographic standpoint, his plusses are his age, his excellent senior year BB/K ratio, and his raw power, but it’s weighed down by a horrific junior season (from a plate discipline standpoint) that forced him back to Florida his senior year. This is a really difficult situation to model, as there are very few players like him.

Zoning out and looking at what he does well gives a pretty clear picture as to why he’s a top 10 pick. Fabian has plus power, above average speed, will be able to stick in center field (giving him a lower offensive bar, not that I think he needs it), and a plus arm. These sorts of tool freaks tend to have poor plate discipline, but that really isn’t the case here. Most of his swing issues from junior season come from a very steep bat path that is conducive to having a lot of strikeouts. If this was a pitch recognition issue, it would be far more concerning, and probably would be an early second round guy. From the video I’ve seen, it doesn’t seem to be the case. I think it’s hard to pass up an opportunity to draft someone with above average to plus tools across the board aside from the hit tool, where the main issue is a mechanical one (ie fixable) rather than a pitch recognition one (less confident this is fixable).

Now it’s a pretty big concern that the mechanics are heavily optimized for one part of the plate and not the others, since teams are more creative now with their pitches and are more than willing to exploit any weakness in the strike zone than just throwing fastballs down and away. This optimism comes from the thought that in general, teams are better at making swing adjustments than in previous years. 

One final note is that if we say that SEC competition is roughly A ball, which I think is fair, then in the context of Jud repeating A ball as a 21 year old, we would be pretty happy with his performance and discount the prior season pretty heavily, at least in my opinion."

It's very hard to make the major leagues, and you need to have outlier tools. Fabian has a couple and plays a premium position, which makes me overlook his flaws. It's not a complete package, which is risky, but the payoff could be extreme, and for teams that know how to integrate PD and scouting and can line up their PD's strengths with Fabian's weaknesses, this is a future All-Star. Looking at where he could go in the top 10, I could see the Cubs on him at 7 based on their Christian Franklin selection last year, and the Royals at 9 could be another great fit given their recent track record of player development and how well it has been the last few years.

Zack Trageton-Tampa Bay Rays-RHP

First report on Rule 5 pitchers. Not sure how long this last given how bad MiLB.tv is.

Unfortunately, no velo numbers which makes this difficult to do. This report will be based on shape of pitches and rough estimate how hard he was throwing.

Name: Zack Trageton

Date: 4/8/22

Position: RHP

Team: Tampa Bay Rays

Acq: Rd 6, 2016 HS

Arm Slot: H3/4

Pitch	Type	Present	Future
Fastball		45	45
Changeup	Vert drop w some fade	40	50
Curveball	12-6	40	45
Slider
Control		50	50

Physical Description: High waisted, strong build nearly filled out.

Mechs: SWU, H3/4 arm slot, pitches DH. Med high leg kick, shows his glove to the press box as he is pulling down, full arm circle but fairly compact, everything is inline towards the plate. No real violence, starter delivery.

Abilities: Vertically oriented FB that works well up in the zone. CB and CH work well off of the FB. CB has 12-6 break and at times has late bite to it. The CH is also vertically oriented, drops with some fade. It is his best pitch, and works well against lefties.

Weaknesses: Approach angle is fairly steep, curveball gets loopy and he leaves it up. No real plus pitch, lacks ability to get K's at the next level. Able to fill the zone, but not overly precise.

Summary: 

His fastball shape works well up in the zone, with offspeed shape that complements it well. Not a fan of the CB, it has solid break but lacks bite to be effective. It works in A ball, but I doubt it does at the next level. The CH has above average drop with late fade, works well against lefties. Trageton needs to improve his CB to be a viable option, projects to be an upper level org arm. Put him as a follow due to good stats, but it's A ball and not that relevant. Would not recommend him for the Rule 5 this year.

Matthew Ellis-Indiana University-C/DH

Date Seen: 4/9/2022

Age at Draft (2022): 21.11

Matthew Ellis is a older college player for the class that burst onto the scene the first week of college baseball, where he his homerun of Clemson had an exit velocity of 118 MPH, the highest in Trackman history. His raw power makes him stick out and his batting practice is fun to watch. He is physically maxed out, but he doesn't need to add any more strength because his present power is so impressive. His feel for hit is typical of someone of this prototype, it's a fairly grooved swing and he has bat to ball issues that leaves him with a below average hit tool. It's certainly good enough to hit over the bar for catchers, but as we'll see later he really needs to hit well enough to be a DH, which is more difficult. 

Defensively, Ellis is a trainwreck behind the plate. He doesn't get much help from the pitching staff; they all have been extremely wild this year. However, this does not get around the fact that he is a poor receiver, struggles to block pitches and has a well below average arm. They have him on one knee already but it does not appear to have helped. It's pretty surprising that he is this much of a mess back there since he's a solid athlete, especially for his size. He'll be able to slot in as the third catcher on a team by default, but it's a DH only profile, even with the ABS. 

In summary, Ellis is a 1 tool guy, who's 1 tool happens to be elite.  His defense is bad, but guys with his raw power are hard to find. You have to be an outlier in some way to make the major leagues, and Ellis's power certainly qualifies.

This may require a separate blog post in the future, but I do not think that this type of player benefits from the DH in the National League. It makes sense that bat only, no defense guys benefit from it because that's what a DH traditionally is, but I think that teams in general are better off using the DH as a quasi load management tool rather than a spot to put a big bat but contributes nothing else. This seems to have started to happen, but I think that unless a team has a Yordan or Nelson Cruz, most teams will shift more to the load management and want to have players with positional flexibility (I have not run an analysis on if load management works in baseball, just a hunch). Ellis is a DH only guy for me, so there is a lot of pressure on the bat.

Comp: Chris Gittens

Round: 5-7

Tool Breakdown:

Tool	Present	Future
Hit	30	40
Power	30	60
-Raw Power	70	70
Run	40	40
Throw	30	40
Defense	20	30

Manuel Mercedes-San Francisco Giants

Name: Manuel Mercedes

Team/Signing: SFG/ INT-Dominican Republic

Position: RHP

HT/WT: 75/163

B/T: R/R

Arm Slot: Sidearm

FB Type: Sink

Tool	Velocity	Present	Future
Fastball	94-98	6	6
Changeup		3	5
Curveball		4	6
Slider
Command		3	4

Physical Description: Tall, thin frame with room to add 30 lbs. High waisted, long arms.

Mechanics: Whippy arm action that can be a bit inconsistent. Mostly a long arm circle but will occasionally be more compact. Starts windup facing 3B line, slight crossfire delivery w avg extension. Rotates hard but still stays balanced, some head mvmt. Finishes upright for the most part. Mechanics are inconsistent and aggressive but a strong foundation to build upon, esp w plus athleticism.

Abilities: Good athlete, plus arm speed. Aggressive delivery but has control of it. FB has sinker shape more conducive for GB than S&M but was able to have success up w some feel in the zone. More lateral than vertical break on CB with hard bite + depth, K pitch for both sides of the plate. Works well w FB. Throws a power CH that mirrors FB, goes well w arm slot, hard sink. 

Weaknesses: Sinking action on FB limits S&M. CH needs a lot of refinement, not much feel presently. CB can get away from him, again needs more refinement. Shaky command.

Summary: Mercedes has electric arm speed and is super loose, great athlete. Control and mechanics make him a likely bullpen arm, but stuff is so powerful that he has a good chance of slotting in high leverage situations, plus unique arm slot gives him an interesting bullpen role. FB shape may concern some but was impressed by how well the FB/SL combo worked together. Shot at starting due to plus athleticism and body control leading to improved command despite aggressive mechanics.

Bonus Rec: Signed for $400k in INT mkt. Put $1,750,000 as a draft prospect which is Comp/High 2^nd Rd money.

Video from FanGraphs.

Revisiting 2021: Chayce McDermott

My biggest draft miss last year was Chayce McDermott, Ball State RHP, who was taken in the fourth round by the Astros. I was not satisfied by my evaluation and out of all the guys I saw in 2021, this was the player I did the worst on. Rather than wait on if he does well or not, I want to talk about what I did wrong, so I do not make this mistake in the future.

The issue comes down to misvaluing the overall package. He has a plus fastball with carry and ride, plays in a ML bullpen. He spins his curve well, but when I saw him he rarely had any feel to it. The shape was there though, and I missed on that. He has all of the traits of a ML bullpen piece, but I focused too much on the negatives and not enough on the obvious pluses. In the future, I need to realize these types have a far greater shot at making the majors than someone with 3 average offerings and “good” feel for them, and value that correctly. This was a classic “picker” mistake, and even if McDermott flames out in A ball it does not make my evaluation correct. 

Rule 5 Watchlist: AL East

Something I want to do for this year is to use my MiLB subscription more. Since 90% of my live baseball viewing is amateur baseball or MLB, it can be hard to get calibrated as to what a middle of the road minor leaguer is. Middle of the road minor leaguers aren't making the show, but it's helpful to figure out what plays and what doesn't at the minor league level, and it's hard to pick up on that at Big 10 baseball games or Indiana HS baseball.

To use the subscription more, I want to have a goal and so I decided to start a series devoted to pitchers that are Rule 5 eligible, and writing scouting reports on them. I'm limiting to just pitchers because the camera angles aren't really conducive to writing good reports on hitters.

It's a little unclear looking at FanGraphs Roster Resource as to who is eligible for Rule 5 this season, but the is MLB's fault rather that FanGraphs. I'm counting those who have an "R5" next to their name.

Here is a list of guys I'm interested in. I'll put a 6 part series of Rule 5 interesting pitchers, 1 for each division. It'll change over time and not everyone will have something written, but it's good to put a list together and see who rises/falls.

Blue Jays:

Roither Hernandez-AA

Brody Rodning-AA

Rays:

Phoenix Sanders-AAA

Michael Mercado-AA

Caleb Sampen-AA

Jacob Lopez-AA

Zack Trageton-AA

Franklin Dacosta-AA

Jack Labosky-AA

Christopher Gau-AA

Miller Hogan-AA

Orioles:

Diogenes Almengo-AAA

Ryan Conroy-AA

Cameron Bishop-AA

Nolan Hoffman-A+

Conner Loeprich-A+

Red Sox:

Frank German-AA

Joan Martinez-AA

Victor Santos-AA

Andrew Politi-AA

Oddanier Mosqueda-A+

Brendan Nail-A+

Yusniel Padron-Artiles-A+

Yankees:

Sean Boyle-AAA

Shawn Semple-AAA

Barrett Loseke-AA

Michael Gomez-AA

Matt Sauer-A+

Anderson Munoz-A+

Jhonatan Munoz-A

Alfredo Garcia-A-

2021 Triple A Park Factors

Here are my park factors for Triple A based on last season's data. Honestly, I could do a weighted average of the past three years, but with the weirdness of the baseball plus the realignment, it made no sense to do so. The model was fit as a random effects model, where total runs in a game was the dependent variable and the random effects were stadium and away team. There are better ways of doing this I am sure, but a random effect model is quick and easy.

Ethan O'Donnell-Northwestern-CF

Date Seen: 4/1 - 4/3/2022

Age at Draft (2023): 21.3

O'Donnell went undrafted in 2020, but looks to be one of the better college hitting prospects in the Midwest for the 2023 draft. After a freshman season that went fine but unremarkable (.248/.343/.444, 5 HR, 11/39 BB/K in 134 PA), he has turned it on this season, where (as of this writing) he is hitting .352/.442/.732 with 5 HR and a much improved 12/15 BB/K ratio.

In my viewing, O'Donnell lead off and feasted off of a poor IU pitching staff. There were a couple strikeouts, but he made up for it with multiple extra base hits and a home run. He has fringe average raw power presently, and since has some physical maturity left, projects to add a half grade of raw power at peak. His swing has loft and is geared for power, and is able to tap into all of his raw power because of his feel for contact. The swing does leave me a bit concerned he will have trouble with pitches up in the zone, but I did not see that issue this weekend. This is a good bat regardless of position, and in an era where centerfielders actually do have to hit and hit for power, he has starter potential.

Defensively, O'Donnell runs well and has solid reads of the bat, making him a comfortable fit in center field. His arm is a bad combination of weird mechanics and poor arm strength, which does hurt his defensive value. If the arm necessitates it, he can play left field above average, but I am projecting him as a center fielder due to the range and the athleticism.

Overall, O'Donnell has the athleticism to stay in center with rare raw power for the position. A below average arm hurts him and may force a shift to left, where he would be an above average fielder, but would put extra pressure on the bat. There are not really any bad hitting centerfielders that are starters anymore, and while O'Donnell is a solid fielder, his calling card is his bat, and it makes for an interesting player because of that. He should be in the conversation as a Top 100 player next year.

Comp: Brandon Nimmo

Round: 2-3

Tool Breakdown:

Tool	Present	Future
Hit	30	55
Power	30	50
-Raw Power	45	50
Run	50	50
Throw	40	45
Defense	40	50