Category Archives: Scouting/Evaluations

Baseball began with a stick and a ball; the ultimate showdown of pitcher vs batter. The goal was, and still is, to get the ball past the batter’s bat by throwing it as hard as possible. However, the game has now evolved to a point where the fastball no longer gets the job done every time. Without a good breaking ball and/or changeup a pitcher will have more lack of success. There are several different variations of the breaking ball, but the two most common are the curveball and slider. Some pitchers have both or just one of either. Both Continue reading Why the Slider may be the Most Effective Pitch in the Game→

Kansas City Royals’ pitching prospect Connor Mayes was a 24th round pick this June out of the University of Texas. Born and raised in arguably the recruiting capital of the country, Mayes had tough competition. However, he was still able to be ranked in the top 100 RHP’s in Texas out of high school. His career at Texas was up and down, half as starter, half as reliever, putting up decent numbers. In the end, KC still saw something in Connor no matter what his stats were. Most likely what they saw was his plus command and consistent mixture of Continue reading Scouting Report: Connor Mayes→

The absolute #1 thing on a scout’s list when observing pitchers is velocity. Velocity, velocity, velocity. A pitcher throwing 88+ consistently in high school or in freshman year/sophomore year of college is going to get his name put ahead of lower velocity pitchers every time. However, the underlying truth of how good a pitcher is, is the movement of the ball, often called “stuff.” “Stuff” is a term used a lot in baseball. But, what does that mean exactly? “Stuff” is referring mainly to how much each of a pitcher’s pitches moves; i.e. a curveball having big break dropping off Continue reading Why Velocity is Over Scouted→