Antonio Velez 2022

[UMDTerrapins]

I’m excited to see him make his first start with the organization with Bowie this afternoon. He’s one of the players received in the Scott/Sulser deal. Reports show very good control, a plus change up, decent slider and a low 90s fastball. 

[wildcard]

23 minutes ago, UMDTerrapins said:

I’m excited to see him make his first start with the organization with Bowie this afternoon. He’s one of the players received in the Scott/Sulser deal. Reports show very good control, a plus change up, decent slider and a low 90s fastball. 

We have seen starters with low 90s fastball do well at Bowie.  Its doing it in the majors that seen tough for young O's starters. 

[UMDTerrapins]

15 minutes ago, wildcard said:

We have seen starters with low 90s fastball do well at Bowie.  Its doing it in the majors that seen tough for young O's starters. 

True. Velez has a possible leg up though. He isn’t reliant on his fastball for his success. He only gave up an exceptional 1 walk per 9 innings last year, and his change up is his out pitch. How good his secondary stuff is will be pretty critical for his long term role. And if he pulls a Means and adds a few mph to his fastball, who knows. Probably a long relief/swing starter future, but I’ll reserve judgement before getting a good look at him. 

[MurphDogg]

Couldn't have gone much better. 4 IP, 0 runs, 1 hit, 2 BB and 7 Ks.

[UMDTerrapins]

Very nice start for Velez. The behind home plate camera angle makes it really hard to judge his pitches, and the announcers didn't call out any pitch speeds. I did have a few notes though. His fastball might not be blazing, but he has excellent fastball location. What was interesting is that he sells his changeup so well that I only saw one swing on a fastball where the hitter wasn't late (crushed foul ball in the 4th). Conversely, they were consistently early on his off speed pitches. He gave up one hit, that was a soft liner that Haskin maybe should have caught (didn't get a great jump). They just didn't put any good swings on him. He got 4 Ks on his curveball, which seems to be more of a weapon than I expected. And he's unafraid to throw the curve in any count....nice to see. He got 2 Ks on his FB, and 1 K on a change-up. He trusts his stuff and he knows how to use it. Will be interesting to see how it plays in AAA. I'm sure he'll get more starts at AA, but today at least, he didn't look challenged by the level at all. The Richmond hitters just didn't seem to time him well. 

[OriolesMagic83]

On 4/10/2022 at 3:58 PM, UMDTerrapins said:

Very nice start for Velez. The behind home plate camera angle makes it really hard to judge his pitches, and the announcers didn't call out any pitch speeds. I did have a few notes though. His fastball might not be blazing, but he has excellent fastball location. What was interesting is that he sells his changeup so well that I only saw one swing on a fastball where the hitter wasn't late (crushed foul ball in the 4th). Conversely, they were consistently early on his off speed pitches. He gave up one hit, that was a soft liner that Haskin maybe should have caught (didn't get a great jump). They just didn't put any good swings on him. He got 4 Ks on his curveball, which seems to be more of a weapon than I expected. And he's unafraid to throw the curve in any count....nice to see. He got 2 Ks on his FB, and 1 K on a change-up. He trusts his stuff and he knows how to use it. Will be interesting to see how it plays in AAA. I'm sure he'll get more starts at AA, but today at least, he didn't look challenged by the level at all. The Richmond hitters just didn't seem to time him well. 

Good to see the O's picked up a pitcher who knows how to pitch.  Not every successful starter in the majors has to have a 98 mph fastball, but a pitcher does need to have command of his pitches and a plan to attack hitters.  It sounds like Velez is at least ahead of our marginal starters who have already struggled greatly in the majors.

[jabba72]

Seems like a pitcher that could rise fast if he has another few outings like this. Norfolk is the bellwether test for many of our SP prospects. Alex Wells aced it in his 4 inning stint and is off to Baltimore. 

[wildcard]

6 hours ago, jabba72 said:

Seems like a pitcher that could rise fast if he has another few outings like this. Norfolk is the bellwether test for many of our SP prospects. Alex Wells aced it in his 4 inning stint and is off to Baltimore. 

Alex Wells did well as AAA last season.

[TheDeau52]

2 hours ago, wildcard said:

Alex Wells did well as AAA last season.

One might say he did Wells. See what I did there?

[NelsonCruuuuuz]

Another nice start today! Watched some on milb.

[Sports Guy]

17 minutes ago, NelsonCruuuuuz said:

Another nice start today! Watched some on milb.

He got rocked?

[NelsonCruuuuuz]

7 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

He got rocked?

Oh crap, I turned it off to watch end of Norfolk game. My apologies. 

[NelsonCruuuuuz]

I will add this: weather in upstate NY is atrocious. People in blankets. I’d pay attention to his other starts more.

[UMDTerrapins]

Hard to get much out of the broadcast....they only had two cameras on either side of the diamond. It looked like a pretty decent start through the first four innings, other than a solo homer. The weather was really terrible and definitely cost him in the 5th. He kept blowing into his hands to keep them warm. It was 40 degrees and very windy. The 2 run homer he gave up was a routine fly ball that just blew out, surprising everyone. Like NC said, I wouldn't use this start to learn anything about Velez, good or bad. 

[NelsonCruuuuuz]

So far, not looking like a nugget.