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