4. Michael Kopech, RHP
Birthdate: 4/30/96 (20 years old)
Level(s) Played in 2016: short-season A, high-A
Stats in 2016: 56 1/3 IP, 2.08 ERA, 1.10 WHIP, 14.67 BB%, 38.22 K%
Here’s what you need to know about Kopech: 105.
This summer, one of Kopech’s Salem teammates was charting one of his starts with the radar gun. He wrote down that number. 105 would be a modern record velocity, and it set baseball Twitter ablaze for a number of days and still gets talked about.
I don’t believe Kopech actually did throw 105. He’s never had a single 104 charted in his career, though he has had a couple of 103s and often throws 101 in a start. The thing that is most impressive is that a teammate that sees Kopech day-in and day-out saw 105 on the gun and didn’t think “that’s a tad high”. He simply logged it as the actual velocity!
the thing that is most impressive is that a teammate that sees Kopech day-in and day-out saw 105 on the gun and didn’t think “that’s a tad high”
Kopech isn’t just a fastball, either. He has a slider that flashes plus and routinely works as an above-average pitch, and his change up is a consistent, if mostly average, offering.
Where Kopech does struggle is in his delivery. In order to generate the velocity that he does, he has a significant amount of hard lean and movement in his delivery, and it can throw him off-balance if he gets too far, and that will throw off his control.
Kopech got headlines in the spring for getting in a fight with his teammate and breaking his pitching hand, but from all accounts, his teammates love him, and the incident this spring was an isolated issue.
Kopech has eased up some of the “violence” in his delivery present before this season, and with the level of athleticism he has, he should be able to maintain his delivery better going forward. His Arizona Fall League performance was one to watch for sure.
Kopech will be sent to the upper minors in 2017, most likely, and the White Sox absolutely got one of the most exciting arms in the game by pulling in Kopech.
Next: #3