Archive for Amateur Notes 2022

Below are snippets of our notes from our in-person looks over the last few weeks, including thoughts on Rangers prospect Jack Leiter as well as six amateur prospects eligible for the 2022 draft. If a player’s ranking on The Board has been impacted by these looks, we’ve indicated that within the player’s writeup.

Jack Leiter, RHP, Texas Rangers

Leiter needs no introduction — he’s one of the top pitching prospects in baseball. He pitched two innings in relief of Cody Bradford (whose velo is up, by the way) last Friday against an upper-level Royals minor league contingent. Leiter had scattershot command of a 95-98 mph fastball that featured his trademark carry through the zone. His two breaking balls – a mid-80s slider and mid-70s curveball – had somewhat more distinct shape Friday than they did throughout most of his career at Vanderbilt, and he used his slider pretty frequently during this outing. The most striking aspect of Leiter’s look on this day was his changeup quality and velocity. Leiter’s cambio was in the 84-86 mph range during his draft spring at Vanderbilt but was 88-90 mph on Friday and had power tailing action. He ran a couple of them off the front hip of left-handed hitters and back into the zone for a looking strike. If he can do this consistently, it might become his best secondary weapon over time, though his curveball has that distinction for now, in part because of how well its shape pairs with his fastball. — EL Read the rest of this entry »

Every week, we will recap amateur baseball happenings in a post like this, with a focus on how the action impacts the next three draft classes, especially this year’s. You’ll find a primer on our approach, as well as our observations from Week 1, here. Now on to this past weekend’s notes.

Ben Joyce, RHP, Tennessee Volunteers: 0.2 IP, 1 H, 1 BB, 1 K (Current Rank: College Pitcher of Note, 35+ FV)

That line next to Joyce’s name actually represents the composite of his Saturday and Sunday showings, as he faced just four batters combined. Joyce has become a Twitter darling by frequently getting into the triple-digits with a fastball that has touched an eye-popping 103 mph, but after missing the 2021 season due to Tommy John surgery, and with just three innings in the books so far this year, scouts are still very much in the to-be-determined phase of figuring out where to line him up on draft boards. While we haven’t seen this kind of velocity since early-career Aroldis Chapman, teams are still trying to determine what else Joyce can do. So far, he’s been hovering around 90% fastball usage while generally finding the zone with the pitch; maybe we’d all lean that heavily on our heater if we could throw it as hard as Joyce does. Still, while his low-to-mid-80s slider flashes solid sweeping action, of the four he had thrown on the season entering Sunday’s game, none were in the zone, and to be honest, they weren’t particularly close. Even at 100-plus mph, you can’t live on fastballs alone, and many will be watching Joyce for the remainder of the spring in an attempt to figure out exactly what the entire package looks like. –KG Read the rest of this entry »