Hunter Harvey called up

[Tony-OH]

11 hours ago, Roy Firestone said:

I realize Im a "come lately" on this post, and I also realize a teeny weenie sample size is really nothing to get too excited about...but man, that kid has a good arm. I spoke to Palmer off the air and he told me EVEN if the gun was jacked up, he was easily throwing 98  with some movement. And he showed poise and smarts. Palmer's quote"really early, but I was impressed. That was an easy windup and he surprised me with that kind of velocity. Kid has a great arm."...Please...baseball Gods...Let SOMETHING BE GOOD going forward this year!

I'm pretty sure all major league velocity readings we now get in the stadium and on broadcasts are directly from statcast, so there's no more "jacked up" radar guns. Now the stadium displays and broadcast readings are rounded  up, so a 97.5 to 97.9 will read 98, but statcast had him averaging 98.2 MPH on his fastball topping out at 99.6. 

During the broadcast Palmer stated he sat 94-96 but that was his starter's range. Since moving to the pen he's sat 97-99 as a reliever so he was right on his velocity range in his debut. Despite the extreme velocity, he has sink on his fastball which means his spin rate is pretty low and he'll work better lower in the zone than up, which is where he got hit a bit in the minors. 

If I have any concerns over his stuff is the lack of horizontal movement on any of his pitches. Though he does get slightly better vertical movement (7% better than MLB on fastball, 5% better on change), his horizontal movement (movement to or from a batter) was well below average on all of his pitches (take it with a grain of salt with the curveball since he threw one) -21% on fastball, -59% on change, and -26 on curveball.) Now part of the reason for the change having poor horizontal movement is the fact that it's a splitter basically. That should mainly move down vs horizontal but a splitter should have more vertical movement than his does so it kinda sits on the middle.

Now all of these numbers are from just his first appearances, but they back up what I saw this year though his command was actually better Saturday then I've seen it so that tells me the moment wasn't too big for him and he actually bared down which is good for the future if you ask me.

Overall though, it's hard not to like the miss he got and obviously the arm strength is special so he's the first real prospect that has come up this year and pitched out of the pen that I feel has a real chance of being part of a winning future.

 

 

 

[LookinUp]

On 8/18/2019 at 9:52 AM, waroriole said:

Just watched his debut. Damn that’s an electric arm. He’s the next Britton, if he’s healthy. 

I liked what I saw, but I did not see Britton. That'll only happen if he can get a better secondary or two. Britton's sinker was plus plus, and Harvey doesn't have any plus plus pitch. Almost nobody does.

On 8/18/2019 at 10:02 AM, Can_of_corn said:

Or maybe he had better options?

It is a lot easier to have assigned roles when the starters go deeper and you have four guys in the pen better than anyone in this pen.

Meh. He definitely had better options, but that's not to say that Buck's use of those options didn't improve performance. We can't know for sure, but his bullpens weren't built with expensive arms (when acquired). 

22 hours ago, Greg Pappas said:

He went on to say that he'll help tweak it to get it where it needs to be, but these balls are much slicker than what he is used to. 

This makes a ton of sense. Everyone's talking about the flight of the baseballs in AAA and the majors, but if the feel is also different, that's a game changer. Now I'm really happy that they're forcing guys through AAA (Zimmerman, Kremer) rather than moving them directly to the majors.