The St. Louis Cardinals have taken seven players out of the state of Maine since the June amateur draft was instituted in 1965. None of them have reached the big leagues. Trejyn Fletcher is looking to change that. Selected 58th overall last summer out of Portland’s Deering High School, the tooled-up outfielder is No. 10 on our Cardinals Top Prospects list.

Scouting Fletcher — St. Louis’s first ever prep selection from the Pine Tree State — was unique challenge. He’d arrived on their radar in 2018 while playing in the East Coast Pro and Area Code Games showcases, but that was as an underclass invitee. Cardinals scouts were impressed by Fletcher, but with a plethora of draft-eligible players to assess, their focus was elsewhere.

That changed the following March when St. Louis learned that Fletcher had been reclassified and would be eligible for the upcoming draft. That left three months to more-intently assess a player now competing in a wholly-different environment. In charge of those efforts was Assistant GM Randy Flores, whose title includes Director of Scouting.

“As you know, the scouting format for players in the Northeast is different than it is in warmer regions,” said Flores. “In particular, the level of competition Tre was facing. That, along with the limited amount of fair weather before the draft, makes it difficult to accumulate spring at-bats that mirror evaluation periods of Southern California prospects.”

Flores and Co. embraced that challenge. Along the way, they discovered that Maine contains more than raw-but-talented athletes. The state is flush with culinary delights… and not just fresh lobster. Read the rest of this entry »

Michael Kopech was awaiting what would be his only start of the spring when I talked to him in Glendale last month. Fully recovered from September 2018 Tommy John surgery, the Texas-born hurler told me it was all systems go; he was ready to climb back on the proverbial horse. Recently shorn — his once-flowing mane having been cut for charity — Kopech was simply “trying to get comfortable and find a good rhythm” as he prepared to “compete again for the first time in a while.”

The outing that ensued offered ample evidence as to why he ranks No. 2 on our White Sox Top Prospects list. Not only did the righty record a one-two-three inning, he reportedly hit triple digits on six of his 11 pitches. That’s what he does when healthy. Radar gun readings aren’t always 100% reliable, but Kopech was nevertheless clocked at 105 mph when he was 20 years old and pitching in the Red Sox system. That was five months before he was sent to Chicago as part of the Chris Sale mega-deal.

Kopech turns 24 today, and he’s once again celebrating his birthday in a holding pattern. Unlike a year ago, an arduous rehab schedule won’t be dominating his day planner for months to come. And as all Tommy John rehabbers can attest, the process is indeed arduous.

“There’s a lot of grinding,” Kopech told me. “Every day it feels like it’s great, and then it feels like it’s terrible. At first, it kind of feels like it’s not your arm. But once you get through the growing pains of trying to throw a ball with a new ligament in there, it becomes second nature again. For the most part, I treated my rehab process as a chance to get better.” Read the rest of this entry »

Brandon Woodruff made it to the big leagues without one of his old friends. He dramatically upped his game when he reintroduced that old friend to his arsenal. The results speak for themselves.

Woodruff debuted with the Brewers in August 2017 after logging a solid but unremarkable 4.30 ERA with Triple-A Colorado Springs. The righty then put up a 4.81 ERA and a 4.37 FIP in 43 innings after reaching Milwaukee. Respectable, but once again unremarkable.

The career-altering reunion happened midway through the ensuing season; a coming-out party of sorts took place down the stretch. With the Brewers chasing a playoff berth, Woodruff made seven September relief appearances and allowed just a lone one run in 12.1 innings. His October performance was every bit as good. In an identical number of innings, the former Mississippi State Bulldog surrendered two earned runs over four postseason outings.

Last year, Woodruff moved into Milwaukee’s starting rotation and fashioned a 3.62 ERA and a 3.01 FIP. Moreover, his 10.6 strikeouts per nine innings was the best of his professional career. Piggybacking on his previous postseason success, he proceeded to pitch four-innings of one-run ball in the National League Wild Card game.

This spring, I asked the 2014 11th-round draft pick about his ascent. Read the rest of this entry »

Drew Hedman’s title with the Arizona Diamondbacks is Major League Run Production Coordinator. The 33-year-old Pomona College graduate was promoted to that position in January 2019 after spending the previous 12 months as a pro scout. His backstory is interesting, in part because he bypassed business school along the way.

Hedman played four seasons in the Red Sox organization, and while he topped out in Double-A, that alone qualifies an accomplishment. A total of 1,521 players were selected in the 2009 draft, and only three of them went later than Hedman. As a 50th-round pick, the writing was on the wall by the time the ink dried on his first contract. Not that he didn’t give pro ball the old college try.

“I certainly knew the odds weren’t in my favor, but with that being said, I always tried to be stubborn enough to think I’d be the exception,” Hedman told me. “I did everything I could to put myself in the best possible position to make it. Obviously it didn’t happen.”

Staying in the game beyond his playing days was a goal even before his release. The question was, in which capacity? A front office role made sense — Hedman has a B.A. in Politics, Philosophy and Economics, with a focus in Economics — but his alma mater wasn’t yet the baseball breeding ground it’s become. Over a dozen Pomona alums have gone on to work for MLB teams since Guy Stevens, who now runs the Kansas City Royals’ R&D department — broke the ice in 2013. Hedman was cut loose in spring training that same year.

“Back then it wasn’t really a path that people [at Pomona] were exploring,” Hedman told me. “It wasn’t something I really knew existed, or knew how to approach if I wanted that to be a reality.”

A coaching role at the collegiate level ended up being Hedman’s “impactful first step” toward a return to professional baseball. In August 2013, he was hired as an assistant to Tim Corbin at Vanderbilt. Read the rest of this entry »

Pablo López has a pair of good throwing partners as he waits for baseball to return. The 24-year-old Miami Marlins right-hander has a Colombian catcher in his neighborhood, and a retired Venezuelan physician encamped in his spare bedroom. His relationship with the former is paramount to his future, and with the latter, a portrait of his past.

López is living in Miami, where he returned after spring training was abruptly halted by the COVID-19 pandemic. His priorities in camp had been a continuation of his offseason efforts, which came on the heels of a promising, albeit uneven, 2019 campaign. Despite a queasy 5.09 ERA — his FIP was a healthier 4.28 — López is projected to land a spot in the Marlins’ starting rotation.

For now, all he can do is keep his arm fresh with the help of the backstop and doctor.

“I’m going to this warehouse that has a turf area about 150 feet long,” López told me late last week. “They have portable mounds we can use, and I’m there three times a week. Outside of those three days, there’s a green area close to my community and I go out and play catch with my dad.”

Danny López grew up playing baseball in Venezuela. His own father, Pablo’s grandfather, coached him during his teenage years. Medical school then squelched any possibility of pursuing a professional career, but he did continue as an amateur. According to Pablo, his father “played for a company — big companies had their own league — and while I never got to watch him play, I hear that he was pretty good.”

Rather than follow in his father’s footsteps, Pablo went in the opposite direction. Accepted to medical school upon graduating from high school — at age 16, no less — the multi-talented son opted instead to sign with the Seattle Mariners. Five years later, he was traded to Miami. Read the rest of this entry »

Trevor Larnach projects as an impact bat at the big league level. Ranked second on our Minnesota Twins Top Prospect list, and 55th on our 2020 Top 100 Prospects list, the 23-year-old Oregon State University product has, in the words of our own Eric Longenhagen, “titanic raw power… and a refined approach.” Moreover, he makes consistent hard contact. Last season, 51.9% of Larnach’s batted balls were hit 95 mph or higher.

Larnach worked to further fine-tune his left-handed stroke over the offseason, and he continues to do so during the current pandemic-necessitated hiatus. He has a specific objective in mind. Larnach slashed .309/.384/.458 last year between High-A Fort Myers and Double-A Pensacola — heady enough numbers to merit an invitation to big-league camp — but an inefficiency has stuck in his craw. The extent to which he can conquer it remains unknown, but given that he draws much of his inspiration from the preparedness of Navy Seals, there’s a pretty good chance that he will.

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David Laurila: To start, how are you preparing while the season is on hold?

Trevor Larnach: “I’m hitting every day. I’m working with the hitting guy I’ve been with for quite a few years now, Tyler Graham. He recently went from Oregon State’s baseball staff over to the [Texas] Rangers’ staff, where he’s working with their Triple-A team. We’re basically taking what I learned from spring training into kind of an offseason format. I’m pretty much doing everything I did in the offseason, but incorporating a couple of things into my routine that got exposed in big-league camp.“

Laurila: What got exposed?

Larnach: “In big league spring training you’re facing big leaguers and upper level minor league guys. Of course, early on they’re still trying to work out the kinks — just as the hitters are — but putting that aside, I was experiencing big league level pitching: the stuff, the speed, the consistency. It kind of shapes your frame of mind to where you need to be to put yourself in the best position to succeed.

“A big positive for me was getting to talk to Nelson Cruz, Torii Hunter, Justin Morneau, Josh Donaldson, Marwin Gonzalez, and all these different guys. I was picking different things that each one had to say, and incorporating them into my game. Spring training is a perfect time to test things out. I was putting what I worked on in the offseason to test, while at the same time taking in things I took from those guys.”

Laurila: How does the pitching you were facing tie into that? Read the rest of this entry »

Pitchers learn and develop different pitches, and they do so at varying stages of their lives. It might be a curveball in high school, a cutter in college, or a changeup in A-ball. Sometimes the addition or refinement is a natural progression — graduating from Pitching 101 to advanced course work — and often it’s a matter of necessity. In order to get hitters out as the quality of competition improves, a pitcher needs to optimize his repertoire.

In this installment of the series, we’ll hear from three pitchers — Anthony Kay, Pablo López, and Zac Lowther — on how they learned and developed their changeups.

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Anthony Kay, Toronto Blue Jays

“I’ve been throwing this changeup ever since I’ve been pitching. I never really had a curveball until I was 16 or 17 years old. Growing up, it was mainly just fastball-changeup because my dad didn’t want me [throwing curveballs]. My older brother played, and he also didn’t have a curveball until he got older.

“I first learned a circle change, and I still pretty much throw it to this day. Of course, there has been a little bit of variation. When I came back from [Tommy John surgery] in 2017 it was pretty inconsistent, and I was trying to find a grip that made it more reliable. I used to be on the seams, like a two-seamer, and now I’m kind of moved over to where it’s almost the same, but just off the seams. I was cutting it a lot, and I think being on the seams was a big reason for that. Now that I’m off them, I feel I get a truer release to it.

“It was mostly an inconsistency issue. There were some days where it would be really good, and there were days where it wouldn’t be good at all; it would cut. So I figured I might as well just mess around with it a little bit and try and get it more consistent. I don’t know that I really understand why [the adjustment makes made it more consistent], but it did. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m not privy as to whether the Cincinnati Reds assign a grade to character in their draft reports. I also don’t know how much the San Diego Padres weigh that attribute when pondering possible acquisitions. I do know that Taylor Trammell projects as more than a quality big-league outfielder. He projects as a role model.

Trammell became a Padre last summer. Part of the trade-deadline deal that sent Trevor Bauer to the Queen City, he’d been selected 35th overall by the Reds in the 2016 draft out of Kennesaw, Georgia’s Mount Paran Christian School. Blessed with plus raw tools, Trammell is slotted No. 69 on our 2020 Top 100 Prospects list.

A prima donna he’s not. When he reaches the big leagues, Trammell will do so with a genuine appreciation for what life has presented him. Moreover, he doesn’t just embrace the game of baseball. He embraces the people who come to see it played.

“I have thoughts on fans,” Trammell told me in Padres camp last month. “I love them. There are people who come to games and want to heckle, and they have the right to do that. Do I agree with it? No, but if you want to pay money to come yell at us, I mean, do whatever you want. Go to a boxing match. Go to a baseball game. Go to a basketball game. Any game. When there are a whole bunch of fans in the stands, whether they’re rooting for you or not rooting for you, it’s great for baseball. They want to see a game and we’re putting on a show for them.”

If you’re rolling your eyes with skepticism upon reading that, you shouldn’t be. By all accounts, that’s who Trammell is. Part of a working-class family — his father is a post office employee, his mother once balanced two jobs — he hasn’t forgotten where he came from. The values he grew up with remain the same. Read the rest of this entry »

Zac Lowther was described as having “vexing funk” when he was profiled here in August 2018. That hasn’t changed. The 23-year-old southpaw — now No. 12 on our Orioles Top Prospects list — still disrupts timing with his delivery. Moreover, he continues to flummox hitters. In 148 innings last year at Double-A Bowie, Lowther logged a 2.55 ERA, fanned 154, and allowed just eight gophers.

Prior to last season, Eric Longenhagen described how Lowther “hides his arm behind his body… and has nearly seven feet of down-mound extension.” Last week, the 6-foot-2, 235 pound lefty shared that his recent developmental strides have been more mental than physical in nature.

“A lot of it is working on consistency and how I approach everything,” Lowther told me. “I’m not throwing 96 [mph] — I’m that funky guy who kind of goes against the scouting reports — so I have to place to ball and rely on all three pitches. I need to stay within myself; I need to be in the present, but also know how that pitch takes me to the next pitch.”

Lowther’s repertoire consists of a fastball, a curveball, and a changeup. The first of the three is his best weapon, despite its pedestrian (88-93) velocity. And more than deception is at play. The erstwhile Xavier Musketeer gets good carry, and as Longenhagen pointed out, sometimes sinking and tailing action. Read the rest of this entry »

John Tudor quietly had an outstanding career. Pitching for four teams from 1979-1990, he finessed his way to a 3.12 ERA over 1,797 innings. A crafty lefty who broke in with the Boston Red Sox, he had his best seasons with the St. Louis Cardinals. In 1985, Tudor threw 10 shutouts on his way to 21 wins and a second-place showing in that year’s Cy Young balloting. In five seasons with St. Louis, his ERA was a sparkling 2.52.

Tudor talked about his career, and gave his thoughts on won-lost records (he finished 117-72), at a Red Sox alumni gathering at Fenway Park a handful of years ago.

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David Laurila: By and large you were what’s known as “a crafty lefty.” I’m guessing you approached pitching as more of an art than a science?

John Tudor: “I’d say I look at pitching as an art. An acquired art. If you consider the thinking aspect of pitching a science, then there’s probably a little bit of both. Let me put it from an old guy’s perspective: I think it was more of an art in the years that I played than it is now. Now it’s more power. Guys are judged by how hard they throw almost more than their ability to get people out.”

Laurila: Do today’s pitcher really throw that much harder?

Tudor: “According to the radar guns they do. I haven’t been in a batter’s box for a long time, so I don’t know for sure, but I have a hard time rationalizing 104 mph when I’ve stood in there and seen 94-95. That was from some of the harder throwers. I think the guns are juiced a little bit.

“I do know that players today are bigger, stronger, and faster. Hitters are more disciplined. The strike zone has shrunk. It’s a more difficult game for pitchers compared to when I was playing.”

Laurila: How hard did you throw? Read the rest of this entry »