Nick Vespi 2022

[Tony-OH]

24 minutes ago, Frobby said:

Problem with Vespi is he’s extremely vulnerable when he’s not hitting his spots.  

He doesn't have a lot of room for error for sure. Everything he throws is pretty flat with good horizontal movement on the slider and curveball. The problem is even when he gets the slider away, it's hittable in the zone. He collected just 7 swings and misses on the slider but 11 base hits on sliders in the strike zone. 

The weird thing with Vespi is statcast calls his fastball a fastball vs a cutter but when you watch the pitch, it has pretty good vertical drop and horizontal movement but the horizontal doesn't really show up in statcast. Take a look at this:

Baseball Savant Videos | baseballsavant.com (mlb.com)

Does that look like a fastball?

Either way, his stuff is a little weird and when he get guys to chase his slider and curveball and his cutter/fastball can get under right-handers hands he can be effective, but he's one of those guys that when does make a mistake, the stuff is not good enough to get away with it very often.

[orioles22]

I usually hate to hear a prospect has "done all he can" in the minors, because it's usually said after a hot week or two, but Vespi has been very solid at Norfolk, even with going back and forth.

I'd like to think we're covered from the left side of the pen next year and beyond with Perez, Akin and Vespi. Then with Bautista, Tate and Baker, we have six of eight spots covered. Maybe Khreibel and whoever comes out of camp as the sixth starter completes the bullpen.

[ChosenOne21]

It really looks to me like Vespi's future is the last guy or second to last guy out of a good bullpen, or random middle reliever in a mediocre one. It wouldn't shock me if we could claim a better reliever than him off waivers at some point. Heck, we did it a couple of times last offseason.

[LookinUp]

8 hours ago, ChosenOne21 said:

It really looks to me like Vespi's future is the last guy or second to last guy out of a good bullpen, or random middle reliever in a mediocre one. It wouldn't shock me if we could claim a better reliever than him off waivers at some point. Heck, we did it a couple of times last offseason.

He might actually be a logical 3/4th piece in a big deal. Kind of like Sherrill but without quite that upside.

[Three Run Homer]

Vespi has been up and down (in more ways than one) with the O's this season, but we must acknowledge that having a 0 ERA at Norfolk in 27.2 IP is quite an achievement.  Let's hope he can keep that perfect ERA intact.   

There has never been a major league pitcher with a 0 ERA for in season with more than 25 IP.  (I would like to tell you the all time single-season leader in IP for a pitcher with a 0 ERA, but I haven't been able to figure out yet how to get BB-Ref to tell me that without paying to be a stathead; I would also like to know what the minor league record is for IP with a 0 ERA in a single season).