Prospect Previews: RH Starters 11-15
http://tinyurl.com/5cxtru
Graduates include Eric Hurley, Luis Mendoza and Doug Mathis. Though all three
are likely to begin the 2009 season in Oklahoma, I'm basically taking the
position this year that any players who have been given anything more than a
cursory look in Arlington are not eligible for the Prospect lists.
Make the jump for detailed capsules on five of the top-25 starting pitching
prospects in the Rangers very deep stable of young arms.
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15) Jake Brigham - 6'3", 190 lbs. (6th Round, 2006) - DOB: 2/10/1988
Brigham is a big, projectable, talented kid who has caught the eye of scouts
wherever he's been. But he's always been a little raw and he missed out on
the chance to move up the learning curve this year after missing the entire
2008 season having undergoing Tommy John surgery in October of 2007.
Brigham's draft status slipped in the weeks leading up to the 2006 draft and
he fell to the sixth round. The Rangers stepped up and gave him fourth round
money to bring him into the fold out of a small Florida high school. As a
first year player in the AZL, Brigham posted a 3.70 ERA, fanning 58 in as
many innings, but also walking 19 and hitting five batters. In his second pro
season at Spokane (at age 19), he was much the same pitcher though slightly
worse in most categories (3.16 ERA; 65 K's; 34 BBs; 11 plunks in 77 innings).
Nonetheless, Baseball America saw fit to rank him as the Northwest League's
20th best prospect stating that Brigham "has the components necessary to be a
middle of the rotation starter."
Brigham is a power pitcher with a 92-95 mph fastball, a plus curve and a
developing change. Since entering the system, his stuff improved - he gained
velocity and refined his bender - which, at times, caused his control to
suffer a bit.
2009 Projection: The Rangers are hoping that Brigham will be ready to begin
to throw off a mound competitively by the end of spring training. Should he
return to Spokane when NWL play begins in mid-June, he would be
age-appropriate for the circuit.
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14) Kennil Gomez - 6'2", 175 lbs. (Int'l F.A., 2006) - DOB: 4/08/1988
Gomez followed a fine Arizona Rookie League season in 2007 (3.15 ERA, 38
strikeouts and 10 walks in 34.1 innings) with an even better 2008 season for
Class-A Clinton (2.97 ERA).
I'm not sure that any of the young pitching prospects in the Rangers system
get more movement on their fastball as Gomez does. The wiry Dominican gets
tremendous sink and run on his 90ish fastball to induce lots of grounders
(2.08 G/F ratio) and weak contact (.232 opponents' average). He can break off
a sharp curveball and possesses an advanced change that keeps lefties off
balance (.201 / .258 / .353 split). That's the good news.
The bad news is that Gomez saw his season cut short after just three months
of action due to weakness in his shoulder. This may be one case where really
leaning on a kid (jumping from 37 innings almost exclusively out of the pen
in 2007 to 88 innings as a starter in 2008) might not have been such a great
idea. The Rangers believe that Gomez is no worse for the wear, however, and
remain intrigued by his ability.
I saw Gomez pitch in Surprise last spring and immediately fell in love with
his plus stuff, loose arm, and his approach, but his mechanics are a bit
worrisome. He works quickly and seems to have an idea of when to bring his
offspeed pitches. His 70 / 20 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 88 innings of work
suggests that he is not afraid of bringing it in the strike zone on a
consistent basis.
2009 Projection: I fully anticipate that Gomez will open the season on the
Advanced-A staff, having thoroughly proven that his ability is too much for
Class-A hitters. I expect that the Rangers will attempt to manage his innings
a bit more in 2009, so he may spend some time in the bullpen before rejoining
the rotation.
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13) Michael Schlact -- 6'8", 215 lbs (3d Round, 2004) -- DOB: 12/9/1985
When the Rangers took the lanky righty out of a Marietta, Georgia high school
back in 2004, they knew that this was the sort of kid who might not realize
his potential until he reached his mid-20's. He's not there yet but at 22,
he's continuing to make progress towards that goal.
After an up-and-down year in which he began the season as one of the youngest
starters in the Texas League, Schlact ended the season as one of the biggest
question marks in the system. This winter, the Rangers will have to either
put him on the 40-man roster or risk losing him in the Rule 5 draft this
December.
Now, you might not think that anybody would take a chance on a guy who posted
a 5.23 ERA in Double-A, but the prospect-laden Frisco team was heavily
scouted this year and Schlact had plenty of stretches where he looked very
much like a big league pitcher. It just takes one organization to see
something they really like to lose a kid like this in whom the organization
has invested a lot of time and energy to carefully develop.
Schlact's bread-and-butter pitch is a power sinker that sits 91-92 and got up
to 94 mph at times this year. He's added a slider to his repertoire since
joining the organization and it too can be a plus offering at times. He
doesn't make much use of his change, but when he does it has good tumbling
action. He's never missed a lot of bats and he probably never will.
Schlact has been among the organization's leaders in innings pitched in each
of his four full seasons and this year was no different as he eclipsed 125
innings by the end of July, but he ran into arm fatigue. His ERA through six
July starts was over 8.00 and he surrendered seven jacks that month whereas
his almost never had allowed more than two in a month throughout his career
to that point. The Rangers shut him down for a couple of starts to catch his
breath and when he returned to action, he reeled off one of the best
stretches of pitching in his career, posting a 2.78 ERA through his final
four starts of the season.
2009 Projection: Depending on how the big league club's rotation shakes out,
Schlact could begin the season in the Oklahoma rotation. More likely,
however, he'll return to Frisco for at least a month or two.
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12) Kyle Ocampo -- 6'3" 195 lbs. (13th Round, 2007) -- DOB: 9/09/1988
One of the things that the Rangers are pretty clearly privileging in their
scouting and development of amateur pitchers is the ability to throw a plus
curve -- not a slider, but a curve -- and here we have another example of
that philosophy.
The Rangers paid third-round money to keep Ocampo away from Cal Fullerton
last year and he signed too late in the summer to see game action. He came
into the system with impressive prep credentials, having appeared in Perfect
Game and Aflac showcases where he established himself as a top prospect. In a
pre-draft report, Baseball America ranked Ocampo among the two or three best
in the country at "spinning a filthy breaking ball."
The Riverside, California native appeared in 16 games for the Arizona Rookie
League Rangers this year, making nine starts and he posted a 3.29 ERA while
punching out 56 and walking 19 in 52 innings of work. He used his lively
90-94 mph fastball (described as "hot at the plate" in one scouting report)
and hard breaking curve to hold right handers to a .233 / .313 / .326 line.
Like many of the elite American high school pitchers, his change is
underdeveloped at this point.
Ocampo has the sort of body -- long and thin, loose armed -- that leads
scouts and coaches to project much more velocity as he grows and matures.
2009 Projection: I would expect Ocampo to open the season in the Clinton
rotation and he's a candidate to become next year's breakout pitching star in
the Rangers system.
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11) Carlos Pimentel -- 6'3" 190 lbs. (Int'l F. A., 2006) -- DOB: 12 / 01 /
1989
By most accounts, Pimentel is not an extreme high-upside guy like many of the
Latin American signees of his class, but he was pushed up to face much older
competition in the Northwest League this summer because the Rangers believed
that he had improved so much between his first and second pro season.
Pimentel more than held his own, just missing Baseball America's NWL top-20
list.
In his first pro season as a 17 year old in the Arizona Rookie League,
Pimentel posted a 5.53 ERA and allowed lefties to light him up to the tune of
a .358 batting average. Nonetheless, he showed the ability to miss bats,
racking up an incredible 12.54 strikeouts per nine innings of work.
This year, he once again dominated righties (.205 / .322 / .320). But it's
the remarkable improvement he made against left-handed hitters (.204 / .278 /
.327) that was probably the most impressive part of his 2008 season, as it
provides evidence that the young man has the capacity to learn and adjust
that is the hallmark of pitching prospects who go on to succeed in the big
leagues. Pimentel's K/9 fell below 9.00 this year, but he allowed just 48
hits in 65.1 innings of work.
The loose-armed 6'3" Pimentel pitches downhill from a high three-quarters
slot, and gets good late movement on a low-to-mid 90's fastball. He has
the power curve the Rangers love and clearly he's made enormous improvement
with his change over the past 18 months. Command continues to be an issue for
Pimentel. He walked too many this year and he has a tendency to lose focus
and elevate the ball. In spite of being a pronounced fly-ball pitcher, he
allowed just four dingers in more than 65 innings of work.
2009 Projection: Pimentel will almost certainly spend the season in the
Class-A rotation where his fly ball ways probably won't hurt him too much. If
he improves as much between last season and next as he did between his first
two years as a professional, he could find himself in High-A by the end of
the year and Frisco on opening day in 2010.
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