Former 1st Rounder Phil Bickford Solid in 2015 Debut

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While college baseball is slated to begin in earnest this week, the Junior College circuit already has, which means 2015 draft season has arrived. Near or at the top of everyone’s JUCO agenda is College of Southern Nevada righty, Phil Bickford. The 6’4” sophomore righty is already famous after spurning the Toronto Blue Jays’ multi-million dollar advances when he opted not to sign with the club after they made him the 10th overall pick in the 2013 draft.

Bickford attended Cal State Fullerton last year, then went to the Cape Cod League over the summer where his stock skyrocketed thanks to an uptick in stuff as Kiley McDaniel pointed out in his rankings. Bickford defected to the Junior College ranks at the College of Southern Nevada to take advantage of this ascent, as it meant he would be draft eligible in 2015. Bickford pitched at South Mountain Community College in Tempe on Saturday.

Phil Bickford, RHP, College of Southern Nevada

Delivery/Command/Feel to Pitch

Bickford’s body tapers down from his broad shoulders to his narrow but muscular lower half. His long arms always seem to be a bit bent at the elbows. He is a tightly wound, muscular kid, not the sinewy, smooth, projectable type of arm that is most associated with draft eligible high schoolers. Bickford uses his lower half fairly well during the delivery, driving hard off of the mound in a way that is more power than grace. His unwinds up through the hips and generates a good amount of torque before uncorking his pitches. The arm action is short as Bickford loads his arm with a bent elbow, similar to what you might see from quarterback, before unfurling out to about a 3/4 angle at release.

There is effort to the delivery but not so much that I would label it as violent. Despite that effort, Bickford repeated his delivery fairly well, especially early on in the outing, other than a few instances in which he varied his arm angle to alter the depth of his slider. Whether that was done consciously or not I don’t know, but it always made the pitch less effective. Bickford’s fastball command was a pleasant surprise as he worked in, out, up and down at will for the first few innings.

Stuff/Projection

The stuff was down a bit from Cape League ball which makes this a good time to remind everyone that it’s not even Valentine’s Day yet and there’s four months between now and the draft for players to grow and change. Bickford’s fastball sat 90-92 and touched 94 mph for his first few innings before throttling down to 88-90 as he finished up. The four seamers lacked movement, but the two seamers had appetizing sink and run to them. Both were vicious when Bickford was spotting them on the corners at the knees, which occurred half a dozen times or so in this outing. Projecting the fastball here is tricky, as Bickford has had some pretty vast fluctuation in velocity over the past few years.  It’s hard to know where it’ll be when the cement dries.

At 6’4”, 210, there’s some room for him to thicken up and get stronger but not so much that it’s going to make a world of difference. The best case scenario in my summation is for Bickford to shake off what could simply be early season rust, get back to being the mid-90s chucking howitzer scouts saw on the Cape and add enough strength to maintain that sort of velocity throughout a season as he matures. Of course as he does that, he’ll have to also maintain enough flexibility and athleticism, two things he already appears a tad short on. His physical development and the way his stuff is impacted by it will be an interesting thing to follow over the next few years.

Bickford’s slider flashed plus twice and sat between 78-81 mph with a good bit of horizontal movement but not much depth. It was a consistently average pitch until he began to fatigue in the fifth inning. His slider utilization was about what you’d expect from a 19 year-old (Bickford doesn’t turn 20 until July 10th) with pretty uniform location in the zone. He’ll have to learn to use it in various ways, first and foremost to run it away from righties in the dirt as he matures. He did try to throw one backdoor slider to South Mountain’s only lefty in the lineup but missed off the plate away. Bickford’s changeup was miles behind today, but it’s still early in every sense of the word.

Based on what I saw Saturday (hedging a bit based on past performance) my projected long term outcome for Bickford is that of a hard sinker, slider, cutter (purely an educated guess based on the way Bickford’s hand naturally interacts with the baseball) mid-rotation starter. He looked good enough for me to put a mid-to-late first round grade on him which, in what looks like a bit of a down draft, could slot him in the 12-15 range. If the velo ticks up as the spring chugs along then we could be having a different discussion. Beauty is very much going to be in the eye of the beholder come June.

Longenhagen’s Grades: Fastball: 55/60, Slider: 50/60, Changeup: 35/45, Command: 40/55, FV: 50 (#4 starter)

Kiley’s Grades: Fastball: 55/65, Slider: 50/60, Changeup: 40/50+, Command: 40/55, FV: 60 (#3 starter)

More notes from Saturday’s game:

CSN RHP/DH Kayden Porter sat upper 80s with the fastball and had a loopy, below average curveball. He’s just a redshirt sophomore, so there’s time for the breaking ball to tighten up. At 6’7”, 275 lbs there’s not much projecting to do on the fastball. He might be someone’s late round flier if they want to take a chance on something developing on the mound or in the batter’s box as Porter has some pop.

CSN sophomore lefty Anthony Martine touched 91 and flashed a fringe average breaking ball but, while his arm was loose, he had trouble repeating any aspect of his delivery.