Many popular opinions of pitching prospects are formed from general scouting reports. While these reports are invaluable resources, they can’t always be trusted. Hundreds of minor league hurlers are credited with “mid-90′s velocity,” but very few MLB starters actually have that grade of heat, for example. It’s incredibly frustrating to hear about a pitcher with “a mid-90′s heater and plus curve,” only to have him come up to the big leagues and show a fastball that averages 90.5 mph and a slider.
When a pitcher come up to the majors, we can finally get a foolproof reading on what exactly his arsenal is comprised of, thanks to the great Pitch F/X system. In this series, I analyze just that–the “stuff” of recently-promoted MLB pitchers. Now that they’ve achieved their big league dreams and thus factor directly into the MLB picture, it’s high time that we know exactly what these guys are providing.
This time, I’m taking a look at White Sox reliever Addison Reed.
Addison Reed started the 2011 season in Low-A Kannapolis. By September, he was in Chicago. That’s quite a meteoric rise for the 22-year-old righty reliever, and what’s really interesting about his season is that he didn’t skip a single level. That means, at four different stops, he was just so dominant that White Sox brass decided he’d mastered the level before he’d accumulated 30 innings.
And with FIPs of 0.83, 1.54, 1.02, and 2.22 in each of those four minor league stops, it was clear that Reed was simply too good. His worst strikeout-to-walk ratio? 33/6 in 20 2/3 innings in Double-A.
Reed got into six games in September and continued to dominate. Yes, he allowed three runs on ten hits in 7 1/3 innings, but to cite that would be missing the point–he walked one and struck out twelve.
As you might expect from a pitcher with such silly numbers, especially one who was drafted fairly high (third round of 2010), Reed has great stuff. A three-pitch righthander, he works at 93-97 mph with his fastball, and the pitch has explosive late action due to his fairly low release point.
Obviously, given that he’s thrown just 7 1/3 innings, we’re looking at just a 137-pitch sample, but it doesn’t take a genius to realize that when a guy gets 14 whiffs in 95 fastballs, his heater’s posing some serious issues for hitters.
Reed’s other two pitches are a slider and changeup. The slider, oddly, comes in at just 78-83 mph–a huge separation between a fastball and slider, and one that would even be a big difference for a fastball and curveball. It’s definitively a slider, not a curveball, though, as the pitch features huge horizontal break away from righthanders. Reed threw 31 in his September callup; six drew whiffs.
The righthander also features a sinking changeup that shows good velocity separation from his fastball, coming in in the low 80’s. He’s not consistent with it and doesn’t fully trust the pitch, and he threw it just 11 times in his September time. Still, three of those eleven pitches drew whiffs.
The most encouraging aspect of Reed’s approach is that he relentlessly pounds the strike zone:
If you’ve got this sort of plus-plus grade of stuff, the best thing to do is challenge hitters with it, and that’s exactly what Reed does. The amount of strikes he throws makes his whiff rates even more impressive, because he’s not throwing a bunch of unhittable sliders in the dirt–he’s putting the ball in the strike zone and batters still can’t hit it. Reed threw 52.2% of his pitches in the strike zone, far above the MLB average of 45.3%, and his overall whiff rate (16.1%) was still nearly double the MLB average (8.6%).
I have no reason to believe that Reed can’t be an absolute shutdown reliever right now, let alone in the future. I suppose the only question on my mind is whether this terrific of a pitcher might be better served throwing a greater portion of his team’s innings and moving to the starting rotation. Reed did some starting in college and started two games in his 2010 pro debut, and I see more than enough potential in his changeup if the White Sox want to go that route. Whatever his role is, a pitcher with this grade of stuff and this percentage of strikes is going to have tremendous success as long as he stays healthy. I don’t put relief pitchers in my top 100 prospects, but if I did, Reed would be the first guy I’d consider.
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