Oakland Athletics Scouting Report On RHP Grant Holmes

Scouting Report

Size/Stature/Delivery
Holmes is listed at 6’1 and 215 pounds. He’s a right handed pitcher, though he does hit left handed when he hits. He’s built well and athletic on the mound. Though he’s not 6’4+, he’s built well to handle a heavy workload as a starter with an easy motion that generates high velocity with minimal effort.

He has an easy delivery with a simple leg kick and a hard drive toward the plate. He delivers the ball from a 3/4 arm slot and has a strong follow through. He finishes in a great fielding position as well.

I noted in the games that he struggles at times with his landing point as a lot of his velocity is generated in his powerful legs. When he gets off in his landing spot, he drops his arm slot a touch, and that hurts the movement that he gets on his pitches.

Out of the stretch, Holmes generates the same velocity as from his wind up, though I did note that he has a touch of a hop at the end of his stretch delivery that leaves him a bit exposed if he needs to field a comebacker.
Pitches
Holmes uses a great fastball that sits 93-95. He touched 100 in high school, but in the games I saw, he touched 98, and from many reports, he has the ability to still touch triple digits in short stints. The fastball works well with a heavy feel, making it a frequent pop-up pitch up in the zone and a ground ball machine low in the zone. Even when he struggled, the fastball is the one pitch he seemed to have consistent feel and control of, though he did tend to miss into the zone when he was missing his landing spot, and losing the movement of his fastball, which gave him the “heavy” feel on his ball, left his fastball easily driven.

His curve is unique in its combination of velocity and drop. He gets the velocity of a slider with the traditional movement of a slower curve ball. It’s absolutely a swing and miss pitch that gets hitters looking foolish. He gets huge drop on the pitch, working best when he starts the pitch around the batter’s upper belt and finishes just under the knees.

Holmes has been building on his change since high school, and it’s been coming along quite a bit. He seems to abandon it when he’s struggling, though, in spite of it having success. The change has great arm deception, coming out just like his fastball, though he is still working to get the movement to be similar to his fastball throughout the zone. He does get great sink action when it’s low in the zone, but higher in the zone is not the same hard plane as his fastball.

Video

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