by Ben Davey

I had the chance to see him pitch, was greatly impressed, and am glad to say that this former 1st rounder might finally be coming into his own.

Luebke is a tall, lengthy south paw (6′4″ 205 lb), that can throw in the low 90’s (topping out at 94).  He also has a plus slider and a greatly improving change.  He has great late movement on his 2 seemer that can be wicked when spotted.  He also has one of the best moves to 1st base in the organization.  As a southpaw and the ability to have 3 plus pitches, he has the ability to be a top prospect and a front end of the rotation starter in the majors…

Last year both he and Kory Kluber skipped Fort Wayne in favor of being in Elsinore, and the results were disasterous.  In 15 starts, Luebke posted a 3-6 record with a 6.84 ERA, 72.1 IP, 97 H, 23 BB, 60 K.  He was sent down to Fort Wayne for his final 10 starts and improved with a 2.89 ERA, 56 IP, 52 H, 9 BB, 40 K.

This year he tried to avenge his demons and become the top prospect that he has the ability to be.

I had the luxury of seeing him pitch on Tuesday (5/19) and he looked great.  He ended up going 7 innings, 6 H, 1 ER, 1 BB, 6 K.  But aside from a shackey 1st inning he was downright unhittable.  His 2 seem fastball (which he threw probably about 60-70% of the time) was extremely sharp.  Velocity wise it was sitting around 89-91 mph, but between his height and the late movement on it, it looked more like 98 mph (seeing as how I could feel the breeze from the batters empty swings).  When he threw the slider/curve it also had great movement, but he couldn’t spot it nearly as well as the fastball.  When he could though it was also down right nasty.  I don’t think I saw more then 5 or 6 changeups but the change of speed alone from his fastball kept the hitters off balanced (and if they made contact it was a weak grounder foul)
From what I could read (thanks Madfriars) one of his biggest problems last year is that he was unable to continually throw down in the zone and locate his pitches.  He would throw a great fastball or slider and then comeback with a flat pitch left up in the zone and it would be knocked around.   Well, if he still had the problem, it sure didnt happen on Tuesday.  His pitches were all down in the zone and the few times he did miss up in the zone I think the hitters were so surprised that they didn’t do much with it.

If that wasn’t good enough, he followed up Tuesday’s performance by tossing 8 scoreless innings of 1 hit ball today (Sunday) against the Angels High A affiliate.  He is now 5-2, 3.05 ERA, a 4:1 K:BB ratio, and leadoff hitters have a sub .200 OBP against him.  My thought was that they would promote him to AA and Latos to Lake Elsinore but of course that didn’t happen.  Either way, he is proving to be the top pick that the Padres envisioned when they took him in the 1st round of the 07′ draft.  And also proving me right as my sleeper pick for my minor league pitcher of the year.