Mark Appel Proved Wednesday The Big Stuff Is Back

When our other prospect writers submit scouting reports, I will provide a short background and industry consensus tool grades.  There are two reasons for this: 1) giving context to account for the writer seeing a bad outing (never threw his changeup, coming back from injury, etc.) and 2) not making him go on about the player’s background or speculate about what may have happened in other outings.

The writer still grades the tools based on what they saw, I’m just letting the reader know what he would’ve seen in many other games from this season, particularly with young players that may be fatigued late in the season. The grades are presented as present/future on the 20-80 scouting scale and very shortly I’ll publish a series going into more depth explaining these grades.   -Kiley

Mark Appel, RHP, Houston Astros (Arizona Fall League)

Kiley went long-form on Appel in today’s Astros list and it’s long enough that we won’t re-publish the whole thing here.

Fastball: 60/65, Slider: 55/65, Changeup: 50/60, Command: 40/50, FV: 60  –Kiley

We’re all well aware of the trials and tribulations of Mark Appel’s 2014 season so let’s jump right into how the former #1 overall pick looked Wednesday night in Old Town Scottsdale. Appel is a large, sturdy young man at 6-foot-5 and 225 lbs. and at that size and age 23, he’s devoid of any positive physical projection. The delivery is fine, and is quite efficient despite the fact that it doesn’t look especially athletic. There were times last night when Appel would lose his posture and either open his hips up early or fall off the mound toward first base a bit too much, causing his hand to come around the side of the ball instead of on top of it. As a result some pitches sailed on him, ending up high in the zone or out of it altogether. While he wasn’t surgical last night, not consistently anyway, walks have never been a big issue for Appel and despite last night’s showing I don’t anticipate them being an issue moving forward.

The stuff was great as Appel’s fastball sat anywhere from 93-97 with some arm side run. There were lots of 93s and 94s from the stretch where Appel is unable to take that giant, slow stride if he’s going to control the running game. It’s a 70 offering, or at least it was last night in a relatively short stint, that was deadly when Appel put it where he wanted it, especially if where he wanted it was in on the hands of left handed hitters. Appel showed a pretty advanced feel of how to use the fastball too, pumping it in for strikes inside and out, running it in on righties and off the plate away from lefties to get some swing and misses. There wasn’t a well struck ball put in play off of him.

The slider was also devastating, a 65 grade offering that flashed 70, twisting in anywhere between 82 and 88mph with two plane tilt. The changeup is behind, and while Appel maintains his fastball arm speed and can at least keep hitters off of it, it doesn’t have very much movement to it. It’s delivered anywhere between 83-87mph and I graded it out as a 45 with a chance to get to average. It would behoove Appel to work in more sliders, even against lefties either in on their hands like a cutter or down toward the back foot, so he has multiple weapons with which to battle potential platoon problems.

The total package is here for a #2 starter. An efficient delivery from a brick wall of a human being, two plus or better pitches and a third average pitch with signs of Major League pitchability. Unless the control hiccups are a harbinger of things to come (something that I’ll be on the lookout for the rest of the month here) I think he’ll be just fine.

Longenhagen’s Grades: Fastball: 70/70, Slider: 65/70, Changeup: 45/50, Control: 50/55, FV: 65

 

 

Jake Reed, RHP, Minnesota Twins (Arizona Fall League)

The 2014 5th rounder surprised the Twins with how quickly he succeeded after signing. At times for Oregon, Reed’s delivery was comically high effort/maintenance and with only small tweaks, the Twins have him consistently throwing lots of strikes with 93-95 mph fastball and average slider; he could move fast next year.

Fastball: 60/65, Slider: 45/50+, Command: 40/45+, FV: 40   –Kiley

Another standout arm from early this week is Twins 2014 5th rounder, Jake Reed. Always destined for the bullpen, Reeds has shown not only improved control since some mechanical tweaks were made in his delivery post-draft, but he’s displayed an uptick in stuff in Fall League as well. The fastball is sitting 93-95 and touching 97 with a good deal of movement. He’s complimenting it with a better slider than he showed this spring, too. It’s showing as a grade 55 offering in the low 80s with more movement than before, though the break is not sharp and violent enough for me to consider the pitch as truly plus.

If Reed is going to do damage with slidey, he’s going to have to locate it and, while he was mostly able to do that this week and showed greatly improved control compared to his days at Oregon, I have to hedge a bit on that grade because of his lackluster track record. While, for me, Reed does not yet look the part of a set-up man type of arm (the breaking ball isn’t yet on that level), he’s headed in the right direction. He looks good enough for me to slap a Future Value on him that’s a half grade above what Kiley has him in his Twins org write up, somewhere between a middle relief guy and set-up man.

Longenhagen’s Grades: Fastball: 70/70, Slider: 55/60, Control: 45/50 FV: 45