The Diamondbacks called upon top pitching prospect Braden Shipley to make yesterday’s start against the Milwaukee Brewers. Though it marked his big-league debut, the 24-year-old has been on the prospect scene for a while now. The Diamondbacks originally drafted him 15th overall out of college back in 2013, and he’s been a fixture on top-100 lists ever since. Last month, Baseball America ranked him 63rd on their midseason list.

Despite his prospect pedigree, Shipley’s minor-league numbers have never quite lived up to his raw stuff. He spent the entirety of the 2015 season at the Double-A level, where he pitched to a 3.50 ERA — though peripherals suggest he wasn’t quite that good. The D-backs bumped him up to Triple-A this year, where he was equally underwhelming.

He posted a sterling 4% walk rate this year, but his 15% strikeout rate was one of the worst among prospect-aged Triple-A pitchers. Just as he did last year, Shipley’s achieved less-than-great results with weak strikeout numbers. Unfortunately for the Diamondbacks, that combination of characteristics doesn’t bode particularly well for success in the big leagues.

My newly revamped KATOH projection system isn’t overly excited about Shipley. It pegs him for 2.6 WAR over his first six years in the big leagues, which makes him roughly the 200th-ranked prospect by KATOH. My KATOH+ model, which incorporates Baseball America rankings, forecasts him for 3.2 WAR. That puts him within shouting distance of the top 100, but still well below the industry consensus.

To put some faces to Shipley’s statistical profile, let’s go ahead and generate some statistical comps for the 6-foot-1 righty. I calculated a weighted Mahalanobis Distance between Shipley’s Triple-A performance this year and every Triple-A season since 1991 in which a pitcher recorded at least 350 batters faced. In the table below, you’ll find the 10 most similar seasons, ranked from most to least similar. The WAR totals refer to each player’s first six seasons in the major leagues. A lower “Mah Dist” reading indicates a closer comp.

Please note that the Mahalanobis analysis is separate from KATOH. KATOH relies on macro-level trends, rather than comps. The fates of a few statistically similar players shouldn’t be used to draw sweeping conclusions about a prospect’s future. For this reason, I recommend using a player’s KATOH forecast to assess his future potential. The comps give us some interesting names that sometimes feel spot-on, but they’re mostly just there for fun.

Most people in the game agree that Shipley has the stuff to be a mid-rotation starter. He has three plus pitches, and many pitchers have carved out fine careers with much less than that. But contrary to his glowing scouting reports, Shipley’s minor-league strikeout rates suggest he isn’t fooling many minor-league hitters. If he’s having trouble fooling them, odds aren’t great that he’ll have a much easier time against big-league hitters. But then again, Shipley would be far from the first talented young pitcher to put it all together at the big-league level. His stat line — particularly his strikeout numbers — indicate a mediocre pitching prospect, but his arsenal hints at some upside beyond the stat line.