by Mike Rogers

Over at Project Prospect, there’s a nice and informative scouting report on the swing of 1st year pro, James Darnell. I had a three part series that looked at the 2008 college bats the Padres took in June of 2008 and I loved everything about James Darnell’s college statistics. I’m still a big time Darnell fan and think the former South Carolina Gamecock can be, at the very least, an average right fielder in the majors (not sure he can stick at third).

The scouting report makes a very interesting swing comparison: Justin Upton. Now, Steve Carter (who is using an alias but did play college baseball), cautioned he’s not expecting near the offensive production of Upton, but that they do have similar swings. An excerpt from the conclusion:

Darnell has the tools, ability, and swing to be a very solid offensive 3rd baseman. Eighteen home runs and a .998 OPS between Low-A Fort Wayne and High-A Lake Elsinore is certainly nothing to scoff at. But, the real test for Darnell will come at the Double-A and Triple-A levels. Then we will find out if he is just a polished college hitter pounding A-ball pitching, or a legitimate prospect. If he can improve his upper body pattern and make a few other refinements, he could go from a potential Casey Blake with patience type, and move toward his ceiling of a pre-2009 breakout Ryan Zimmerman with a higher on base percentage.

So, there’s some things to like. Casey Blake with patience definitely isn’t anything to scoff at and Ryan Zimmerman with better OBP is very good outcome as well. There’s a lot to like about Darnell.

Now, while you’re perusing the Project Prospect website, feel free to read my PITCHf/x look at Jake Arrieta, a Baltimore Orioles right-handed pitcher. Yeah, it’s self-promotion and I will not be ashamed of it! Why should you read about an Orioles pitching prospect? Well, because I’ll be writing these types of pieces for Project Prospect when prospects make their debuts. So, I want you to get used to the format for when I pen my piece on Mat Latos (which I already looked at his debut right here for FF) through the PITCHf/x lens.

by Mike Rogers

UPDATE: Unfortunately, as I was doing this this evening, I mistakenly lumped Latos’ curveball’s in with his change-up’s. I have since fixed this, and re-written the paragraph on his change as well as penned one on his curveball. Whoops.

I’m just going to get this out of the way: I did not see one single pitch Mat Latos threw, unfortunately. I was busy and missed both his abbreviated outing in the Future’s Game, as well as his Major League Debut last night against the Colorado Rockies.

Here’s what I know about him: he can throw the baseball. Hard.

These graphs are made possible by Harry Pavlidis and his Pitch Flight tool.

First up, are the release points. Click on both images to enlarge.

That y-axis is in feet. That means, Mat Latos is “releasing” (data’s actually recorded 50 feet from home plate, I believe, so it’s not “true” release point) the baseball from nearly 7 feet in the air. He’s a big boy as it is, and his tall-and-fall mechanics lead to an even higher, over the top release point.

Now, on to the PITCHf/x flight path graphs. What this shows me is the movement of each of his pitches on its way to home plate. This sort of thing is hard to read for some people, so I am willing to answer any and all questions on it later tonight.

The Fastball (the green line) — 56 of his 70 pitches recorded by PITCHf/x were fastballs and all were coded as 4-seam fastballs. He averaged 94.9 MPH on them. From the graph, I see a very straight heater which is what I saw when I graphed out his Future’s Game performance on the message boards over at Project Prospect. I don’t see a lot of downward movement on his fastball from this outing against the Rockies, either, but coming from such a high release, I’m sure it’s difficult to hit. Ideally, though, you’d like to see a fastball that bends or sinks more than Latos’ does.

The Change-up (the red line) — Latos has a big time arm, but I think his secondary offerings are where his bread is buttered. He threw just one change-up and it clocked in at 82.2 MPH. It came from a lower release point (1st base view) than his other three pitches, but that’s likely because he threw just one of them. Good dive on it and a decent amount of tailing action.

The Slider (the yellow-ish line) — He threw only 8 of these at an average velocity of 82.5 MPH. He’s got a little sweeping action on it (bird’s eye view) and has a lot of downward movement, as well. Both his change-up and his slider compliment his fastball extremely well due to their similar release points, but both dive well below his fastball. I really like both of these offerings much more than his fastball.

The Curveball (the blue line) — He threw five of these averaging 81.8 MPH. It seems very 12-6 but with good drop on it. It comes from the same plane and arm slot as his fastball and follows it pretty well, but it’s kind of slurve-y which leads me to believe that his slider and his curveball are the same pitch, just classified differently by gameday. I’ll defer to Harry Pavlidis’ week New Arms Roundup on Beyond the Boxscore this weekend.

Conclusion

First off, I need to say that there really aren’t any “conclusions” from his outings that were recorded by PITCHf/x. He threw just 8 pitches in the Future’s game and then another 70 last night. That sample is too small to draw any hard conclusions. However, it’s enough to give a decent hypothesis on Latos and his stuff. He’s got the tall-and-fall mechanics with a clean arm action and they seem to be repeatable. Some have panned his mechanics but that’s likely due to not being a fan of the tall-and-fall motion. Alex Eisenberg over at Baseball-Intellect said he’s not a fan of tall-and-fall but that he doesn’t see a red flag from Latos, despite that motion.  I trust Alex’s opinion and some others in the Project Prospect forums have expressed opinions similar to Alex’s: not a fan of that style of pitching (would prefer drop-and-drive), but for what it is, it isn’t overly cringe-worthy.

His stuff features a big time fastball in velocity, but I’d like to see him throw more 2-seamers as his 4-seamer is very straight in both horizontal and vertical movement. His breaking ball and his change-up are great compliments to it — it’s easy to see why Latos’ stuff is heralded. Now, if he can only stay on the field.

Edit to my conclusion: I am not sure what exactly type breaking ball he throws, but they seem to be very similar.

by Daniel Gettinger

Corey Brock is reporting that the Padres are likely to call up pitcher Mat Latos “this weekend for a start against the Rockies at PETCO Park.”  Latos has dominated minor league pitchers this season.  In 47 AA innings, he has 46 strikeouts to only 9 walks.  He has not yet allowed a homerun.  Stats aside, while he may be close to ready to face major league batters, I am indifferent about this move.

Because Latos has thrown only 56 innings in each of his past 2 seasons, a Latos call-up is likely to be short lived.  He has already thrown 72 innings this season, and assuming the Padres will not allow him to double his workload from last season, he only has 40 innings left.  That’s 6 or 7 starts, and a late August shut-down.

From a development standpoint, I would guess a call-up this season could be a somewhat good thing.  Latos will get a chance to experience life in the majors, be challenged by major league hitters, and have a better sense of what skills and pitches require further work.  If Latos holds his own in this stint, it could very well act as a precursor to a full season* in next year’s rotation.

*Of course, his innings next season will need to be closely monitored as well.

There are however some potential drawbacks to such an early call-up for Latos.  First, he accrues service time; not a huge concern since he will be shut down in a few weeks, but definitely something to consider.  More importantly, coming out of college, there were some concerns about Latos’s temperament.  He has only experienced success in the minors, but I worry that if he initially struggles in the majors, he may lose some confidence.  I have no idea how to quantify the effect of lost confidence, but it cannot be a good thing.  I also worry about Latos trying to do too much.  He might be so eager to impress that he overthrows his pitches and deviates from his usual mechanics, resulting in an increased injury risk.

The risks associated with a Latos call-up may be unlikely and small in magnitude, but the rewards are not large either.  Overall I am indifferent, but I am certainly looking forward to watching him pitch.