Oct 1, 2015; San Diego, CA, USA; A detailed view of the San Diego Padres logo on the field before the game against the Milwaukee Brewers at Petco Park. Mandatory Credit: Jake Roth-USA TODAY Sports
The San Diego Padres recently acquired right-hander Anderson Espinoza from Boston in exchange for Drew Pomeranz. What kind of pitcher is he?
As we enter into the trade season, this will be the start of a series I will do as “big” prospects are dealt. By big, I’m defining that as a consensus top 50-100 prospect in the game, so while there may be some very good prospects traded, we’ll be highlighting just the top guys in these more in-depth pieces. Today, we’ll take a look at Anderson Espinoza.
Who Is He?
Espinoza was signed in July of 2014 by the Boston Red Sox from Venezuela. They signed Espinoza to a bonus worth $1.8 million, as he was the #4 ranked prospect in that season’s international free agent class, but the top-ranked pitcher in his class. He was part of a big class for Boston as they went above and beyond the international spending limits in that season.
Boston started Espinoza with their Dominican Summer League team, most likely because DSL teams start their seasons before other short-season leagues. In four starts, the 17 year-old threw 15 innings, putting up a 1.20 ERA, 1.07 WHIP and a 3/21 BB/K ratio. He quickly earned a promotion to the Red Sox GCL team, where he made 10 starts, throwing 40 innings with a 0.68 ERA and 0.83 WHIP, posting a 9/40 BB/K. He also made one start with Boston’s A-ball club, throwing 3 1/3 innings without quite the same results, as he allowed 3 runs on 4 hits and 2 walks, striking out 4. All together, he posted a 1.23 ERA over 15 starts, throwing 58 1/3 innings, with a 0.94 WHIP and a 14/65 BB/K ratio.
After that tremendous season, Espinoza was highly rated on many ranking services. Coming into the season, Baseball Prospectus had him as the #73 prospect, and they were by far the lowest on the young righty. MLB.com had him rated at #39, and Baseball America had him ranked #19 in all of baseball. Heck, if you dig even deeper, John Sickels of minorleagueball.com had Espinoza #34, Sporting News had him ranked #31, Keith Law of ESPN had him at #38, and Scout had Espinoza had him at #89. He was very highly rated throughout the prospect community.
The Red Sox pushed Espinoza to their full season team in the South Atlantic League in Greenville to start 2016. Espinoza, before the trade, had made 17 starts, throwing 76 innings, posting a 4.38 ERA and 1.37 WHIP, posting a 27/72 BB/K. At their midseason ranks, Baseball America moved Espinoza up to #15 and Baseball Prospectus had moved Espinoza all the way to #24. I had Espinoza ranked #32 overall in my midseason top 50, but I also included a number of players that BA and BP had eliminated in their lists, so removing those players would have put Espinoza also into my top 25 prospects as well.
To get a look at Espinoza, I viewed three of his starts in full. Those three starts had a total of 14 2/3 innings, 13 strikeouts, a 3.68 ERA, and a 1.02 WHIP.
Size/Stature/Delivery Espinoza has drawn a number of comparisons to Pedro Martinez due to his stature, as he stands 6′ and is listed at 170 pounds, and I’d wager if he’s gained much on top of that 170, it’s not a ton. He is still growing, though, with some saying he’s added an inch or two of height since his signing, but this has not been reflected in his listings.
Espinoza has an easy, loose delivery. He takes a small step back and toward first base, then resets his right foot in front of the pitching rubber before lifting his left leg to just below his waist. At that peak of that lift, he gains the first speed of his delivery, having moved very slow and deliberate before that.
He than pushes forward hard on his right leg and gets very good extension with a straight left leg. He comes from a high 3/4 arm slot, higher when throwing his curve than when throwing his fastball or change. He finishes with a high leg kick from his right leg, ending up in good fielding position.
Because of the altering of speeds within his delivery and the straightened landing leg as he pushes forward, Espinoza was susceptible to issues with landing location inconsistency. Due to the amount of force and movement that Espinoza generates from his legs, when he gets his legs out of alignment, his pitches don’t have the same break nor velocity. This is more noticeable in his work from the stretch, and while he stays fairly consistent with his arm slot when his landing spot is off, he does tend to struggle with releasing early, which pushes the pitches high and arm side.
Pitches Espinoza mixes three pitches that give four looks. The first is a fastball that sits in the mid-90s and can touch as high as 98 (some have reported triple digits, but I’ve not heard confirmation of that from the folks I chat with in the scouting community). His fastball has very good natural sink to the arm side. When he struggles with his arm spot, he finishes with the fastball up and arm side, typically, sending right-handed hitters bailing out of the box.
He compliments that fastball with a change up that sat around 82 in the games I watched, giving him a very solid 15 MPH differential from the fastball. He has tremendous arm speed match with the fastball, and it is difficult to pick up the pitch, unless he’s struggling with the landing spot, when the pitch actually finishes more up and over the plate than up and arm side like the fastball. The change exhibits the same arm side sink that the fastball does, and with its speed difference, it’s typically Espinoza’s best swing-and-miss pitch.
His third pitch has multiple looks. He throws his curve ball with a 12-6 break. He throws the pitch in the lower 70s with a sharp break and good depth. He also can throw the same pitch in the 78-82 range with a more shallow break, but still the same sharpness to the break. The first pitch tends to be a swing and miss pitch that hitters struggle to gauge the full depth on. The second curve tends to generate a lot of weak contact as hitters either swing under the ball, popping it up weakly, or swing on the ball well, and its natural hard sink drives it into the ground.
It is notable that Espinoza this season looks larger than the video from last season. He’s added good weight to his frame, and it seems that he’s added height as well. Some of the video I’ve seen from last year show the exact same motion with no issue at all with the landing leg inconsistency. Perhaps his added size and height has led to some literal growing pains as far as his results go. That said, an 18 year-old producing as he has in full-season ball is already well ahead of the game.
Espinoza’s stuff is premium, to say the least. If he can add the size to take away the question of his ability to hold up with his high-velocity pitching, then this deal could end up looking like the Padres version of the John Smoltz – for – Doyle Alexander deal. Remember, Alexander was tremendously good for the Tigers in 1987. Pomeranz very well may be an excellent fit for the Red Sox, but in the end, Espinoza has the sort of elite upside that you just cannot find easily.
Espinoza has been assigned to the class-A Fort Wayne TinCaps of the Midwest League to start his San Diego Padres career. CBS Sports reported that Espinoza will make his debut for Fort Wayne on Wednesday evening at the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers of the Milwaukee Brewers organization. The game will be on MiLB.tv, and if you don’t have a subscription to MiLB.tv, it is only $29.99 for the rest of the season for every AAA and AA game and a very high number of A-ball games, so you can get a look at prospects before they ever hit the major leagues!
