Feb 28, 2017; Phoenix, AZ, USA; Chicago White Sox starting pitcher Michael Kopech (78) pitches against the Seattle Mariners during the first inning at Camelback Ranch. Mandatory Credit: Joe Camporeale-USA TODAY Sports
Mandatory Credit: Joe Camporeale-USA TODAY Sports /
Michael Kopech is having a successful season at AA in his first season in the Chicago White Sox organization. What can be expected from the flame throwing righty?
Player Profile
The Chicago White Sox acquired Kopech from the Boston Red Sox as part of the deal for ace Chris Sale. Can he be the Chicago White Sox future ace?
Kopech was originally drafted in the first round by the Boston Red Sox in 2014 out of high school in Texas. He fit the traditional Texas high school profile with a big arm and velocity.
The Red Sox sent Kopech to their Gulf Coast League team in his draft year, where he made 8 appearances, throwing 13 1/3 innings, putting up a 4.72 ERA, 1.50 WHIP, 15% walk rate, and 26.67% strikeout rate.
Kopech was enjoying an excellent 2015 for low-A Greenville in the South Atlantic League before he was suspended 50 games for a banned stimulant. Before the suspension, he had thrown in 16 games, 15 of them starts, hurling 65 innings with a 2.63 ERA, 1.23 WHIP, 10% walk rate, and 25.93% strikeout rate.
In spite of his suspension, Kopech’s excellent season drew the notice of national prospect rankers, as he was rated the #89 prospect in Baseball America’s offseason top prospect list and #98 in the Baseball Prospectus list.
After a suspension, one would think Kopech would have learned his lesson and walked the straight and narrow more than most, but he ended up out at the start of the 2016 season due to an incident in spring training where he broke his pitching hand in a fight with a teammate.
That incident led to Kopech being sidelined until mid-June, making his first appearance June 17th with Lowell in the New York-Penn League. He only made one appearance there before joining Salem in the high-A Carolina League. Combined between the two levels, he made 12 starts, throwing 56 1/3 innings with a 2.08 ERA, 1.10 WHIP, 14.67% walk rate, and 38.22% strikeout rate.
After being shorted on innings, the Red Sox sent him to the Arizona Fall League for extra work, and if it weren’t for the incredible performance of Gleyber Torres, Kopech may have had an argument as the MVP of the AFL, as he posted a 3-0 record over 6 starts, throwing 22 1/3 innings with a 2.01 ERA, 1.16 WHIP, 9.09% walk rate, and 29.55% strikeout rate.
The performance between Salem and the AFL rocketed Kopech up the rankings to #32 with Baseball America, #16 for MLB Pipeline, and #36 for Baseball Prospectus. He was ranked #22 in the Call To The Pen Top 125 released last January.
The White Sox assigned Kopech to AA Birmingham, where he’s posted a 2.66 ERA, 1.10 WHIP, 14.06% walk rate, and 33.85% strikeout rate over 9 starts and 47 1/3 innings this season.
Next: Kopech's scouting report
Scouting Report
Size/Delivery/Control
Size – Kopech is listed at 6’3″ and 205 pounds, and while those numbers look right, Kopech does have incredibly long limbs for his 6’3″ frame. He’s built athletically lean and long.
Delivery – Kopech works from the first base side of the rubber. He begins with a gentle step back before bringing his knee up to letter high and turning his hip slightly toward center field.
He explodes toward the plate from this position. He has long arms, and he tends to have a fairly long loop of his arm through his delivery, so speeding up his delivery at all causes major control issues.
When he stays in his delivery at a good speed, Kopech finishes with a long stride toward the right handed batter’s box and then fires across his lead shoulder toward home plate. While he is consistent in this landing spot, he often attempts to gain another tick on the fastball and sees his arm slot dip just below his normal 3/4 slot, leading to control issues.
Control (45) – Kopech has yet to post a season of sub-10% walk rates. It was notable to see how absolutely dominant he was last fall against some of the best prospects in the game when he kept his walk rate at 9%, let alone getting it below that.
Kopech’s cross-fire delivery does hinder his ability to control, let alone command. He works well around the plate typically, but when he does over throw, he tends to see his slider fall out of the zone and his fastball sail up out of the zone.
Whether Kopech would be able to generate the same velocity as he currently does if he would square his body more is unknown and is certainly part of the reason he’s probably not had it changed yet, in spite of the Red Sox cleaning up his high school delivery significantly.
Fastball (80) – On pure velocity, Kopech’s fastball is a pure 80. You reach 102 without question, that’s an 80 fastball. You have a teammate charting a game write down a 105 and not question the radar gun, and you definitely have an 80-grade fastball.
On op of just the velocity, however, Kopech gets some late life on the pitch, where the cross-fire delivery allows for some interesting movement on the fastball away toward glove side.
Change Up (45) – Kopech saw flashes of his change last fall that made his stuff play up tremendously that have not been consistent yet this spring. When the change is at its best, he gets heavy sink on the change from his 3/4 slot and long arms.
He tends to see the change feel like his fastball out of hand but drop down rather than drift to the glove side, which throws batters off and leaves them either frozen or swinging wildly.
Slider (65) – Much like his fastball, at just pure velocity, a 90MPH+ slider is worthy of a plus grade. However, Kopech’s slider can not just climb up and over the 90 MPH mark consistently, but he gets a tremendous late, sharp break on the pitch that mimics his fastball until it breaks hard down and glove side rather than the fastballs more slight break glove side.
MLB Player Comp
While many want to take Kopech’s velocity and compare him to New Yorks Mets ace Noah Syndergaard, however, the velocity is really the only thing he has in common with Syndergaard. “Thor” is 3 inches taller, roughly 35-50 pounds bigger, and exhibited worlds better control throughout the minor leagues, never even having a walk rate over 9% at any level, let alone over 10%.
The guy who really catches where the White Sox hope to see Kopech get to is a guy who was competition for the Chicago White Sox on the starting pitching trade market this offseason, Tampa Bay Rays right hander Chris Archer.
Archer and Kopech have similar builds, both standing 6’3″ tall, with about 10 pounds of weight separating them, but very similar builds as Archer has a more narrow build to Kopech’s more broad build.
Archer struggled throughout his minor league (and at times in his major league) career with his walk rate, and he has a similar pitch mix and velocity as Kopech, working just a hair below 100 with his fastball, touching 99 in his career and 98 in every season of his career with a 94.6 MPH average velocity.
Archer also works with the high velocity slider that Kopech features as well, ranging the pitch from the low-80s to 93 MPH in the last few seasons, with an average velocity of 88-89 the last three seasons.
Archer’s primary success has relied on his change, which will also be a big component of where Kopech’s future success comes as well.
Kopech very well could hang at AA for the entire season as he’s not yet crossed 100 innings yet in the minor leagues, and the White Sox won’t want to over-stress his arm at this time. He’s just 21, however, so even if he opens 2018 at AAA at 22, he’s still very much in line with typical age progression and would be in line to be in good position to take over a rotation spot in 2018-2019.
