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Article: Twins Daily Official MLB Draft Day 1

Seth Stohs
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bluechipper GCL Twins

bluechipper

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I'm quite concerned about his velocity number in general, and the fact that his velocity drops even lower after 55-60 pitches. I just don't see that combination as a front of the rotation starter. 

I get that. I'd be way more excited if he sat in the mid-90's, but with his other pitches and his control, I can see him at the top of a rotation. A lot of pitchers succeed throwing 90-94.

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markos First Round Pick

markos

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There's a reason McKay is viewed as a top 5 pick by everyone. Great command, great curveball, and a good fastball. Who is projecting him as a back end starter?

If you look at the past 15 years or so, the college guys drafted in the top 15 picks that actually became legit front-of-the-rotation starters all come out of college with big fastballs: Cole, Harvey, Sale, Strasburg, Price, Lincecum, Scherzer, Verlander, Prior. The only exception to this is possibly Jered Weaver. There is also a pretty long list of polished lefties with good-but-not-elite stuff that didn't amount to much in the majors: Sowers, Romero, Detwiler, Matusz, Minor, Bradley, Hultzen, Heaney. If you want to find exceptions to this, you really need to go all the way back to the 1990s when the A's selected Zito and Mulder.

 

Maybe there is something about McKay that makes him unique in this regard, but I think there is a lot of historical evidence that pitchers like McKay will struggle.

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nicksaviking All-Star

nicksaviking

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There's a reason McKay is viewed as a top 5 pick by everyone. Great command, great curveball, and a good fastball. Who is projecting him as a back end starter?

 

Well looking at the odds of draft pick success, that's probably the most realistic outcome for any pitcher drafted at or near the top of the draft. Plenty better, plenty worse. Plenty exactly that.

 

Looking at McKay, his velocity, handedness, draft position, repertoire and level of competition look most like Brian Matusz to me; both had huge college numbers also. Matusz was always a top prospect but his stuff never translated, even in the minors. 

 

That's only one sample point so it's nothing to base a projection on and I haven't heard any of the draft wonks use the comparable, it's just who I see.

 

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nater79a Draft Eligible

nater79a

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12:40
Josh: If you were the Twins, who would you pick?

 

12:40
Travis Sawchik: I am not a draft expert. But Hunter Greene is the most compelling guy, for me, in the field

 

...in the field.  He talking about SS or just the general  field of players in the draft?

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Vanimal46 MVP

Vanimal46

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If you look at the past 15 years or so, the college guys drafted in the top 15 picks that actually became legit front-of-the-rotation starters all come out of college with big fastballs: Cole, Harvey, Sale, Strasburg, Price, Lincecum, Scherzer, Verlander, Prior. The only exception to this is possibly Jered Weaver. There is also a pretty long list of polished lefties with good-but-not-elite stuff that didn't amount to much in the majors: Sowers, Romero, Detwiler, Matusz, Minor, Bradley, Hultzen, Heaney. If you want to find exceptions to this, you really need to go all the way back to the 1990s when the A's selected Zito and Mulder.

 

Maybe there is something about McKay that makes him unique in this regard, but I think there is a lot of historical evidence that pitchers like McKay will struggle.

 

Great post... Thanks for doing the research! 

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gunnarthor All-Star

gunnarthor

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If you look at the past 15 years or so, the college guys drafted in the top 15 picks that actually became legit front-of-the-rotation starters all come out of college with big fastballs: Cole, Harvey, Sale, Strasburg, Price, Lincecum, Scherzer, Verlander, Prior. The only exception to this is possibly Jered Weaver. There is also a pretty long list of polished lefties with good-but-not-elite stuff that didn't amount to much in the majors: Sowers, Romero, Detwiler, Matusz, Minor, Bradley, Hultzen, Heaney. If you want to find exceptions to this, you really need to go all the way back to the 1990s when the A's selected Zito and Mulder.

 

Maybe there is something about McKay that makes him unique in this regard, but I think there is a lot of historical evidence that pitchers like McKay will struggle.

How many college guys in the top 15 or so picks didn't have big fastballs? 

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Willihammer Cedar Rapids Kernels

Willihammer

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There's a reason McKay is viewed as a top 5 pick by everyone. Great command, great curveball, and a good fastball. Who is projecting him as a back end starter?

McKay's performance later in games is a real concern. Widespread reports of velo loss by inning 5. In the game I saw (vs Oklahoma two weeks ago) he started hanging curveballs around pitch 55 (a sign of fatigue) and almost totally abandoned it by the end of his stint, moving to a 84 mph cutter instead which hitters made a lot of contact on. He struckout 5 of the first 7 batters in that start but only 2 of the next 17.

 

Maybe when he turns pro and doesn't have to hit in the same game he pitches in, he'll have the energy to maintain velo a little deeper. Maybe he's got a mechanical flaw causing him to waste energy. Could be fixable. Or could be he just doesn't have the stamina to go deep into games consistently no matter what.

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Mike Sixel Cooperstown

Mike Sixel

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LH college pitchers drafted in the top 10 since 2007:

 

David Price

Daniel Moskos

Ross Detwiler

Brian Matusz

Mike Minor

Drew Pomeranz

Danny Hultzen

Andrew Heaney

Carlos Rodon

Kyle Freeland

Tyler Jay

A.J. Puk

 

hmmmm.....a few names stick out bad and good there, for me. And one super depressing one.

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ALessKosherScott College Ball

ALessKosherScott

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If you look at the past 15 years or so, the college guys drafted in the top 15 picks that actually became legit front-of-the-rotation starters all come out of college with big fastballs: Cole, Harvey, Sale, Strasburg, Price, Lincecum, Scherzer, Verlander, Prior. The only exception to this is possibly Jered Weaver. There is also a pretty long list of polished lefties with good-but-not-elite stuff that didn't amount to much in the majors: Sowers, Romero, Detwiler, Matusz, Minor, Bradley, Hultzen, Heaney. If you want to find exceptions to this, you really need to go all the way back to the 1990s when the A's selected Zito and Mulder.

 

Maybe there is something about McKay that makes him unique in this regard, but I think there is a lot of historical evidence that pitchers like McKay will struggle.

 

I think the good McKay as a pitcher reminds me a lot of Barry Zito. And the bad McKay is something closer to Christian Friedrich. 

 

At the same time, the bad McKay as a hitter is probably pretty close to the bad version of Joe Mauer and the good version the good version of the first baseman Mauer. So I'm not sure I get putting him on the mound given we're about 18 months away from a Mauer-less existence. 

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nater79a Draft Eligible

nater79a

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Well I assume he'll focus on whichever looks most promising early in his MiLB career (assuming he does both out of the gates). Given that, 50% on each seems about right given only the information we have today. Of course if he fails at one the probability that he later suceeds at it falls a bunch, but I'm not sure how we'd know that today. 

 

I'm hoping the Twins take McKay just because I'm curious as to how this plays out.  Pitch?  Hit?  Both?

 

May not help the big club in the future but it's a heck of a story line! 

 

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InfraRen Draft Eligible

InfraRen

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I don't buy him gaining velocity if he gives up hitting. I just dont

 

Yeah, I mean didnt Buxton pitch 98 the year we took him outta HS? He was obviously an every day guy then too. So I doubt McKay would have a big bump up at this point.

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rdehring GCL Twins

rdehring

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Warren Spahn was an all time great.

 

But despite what Bob Feller liked to claim, no one was throwing all that hard back then. There were probably only a handful of guys who regularly hit 90MPH prior to 1960s.

 

Which was also why those guys could go 8-9 innings every start every 4th day.

Interesting that you mention Feller. Went goose hunting with him one morning on our farm when I was about 11 or 12. Gave me a baseball with a very nice personal comment. While in college, my parents sold the farm and my Mom tossed it with a lot of other stuff.

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Bob Sacamento GCL Twins

Bob Sacamento

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Yeah, I mean didnt Buxton pitch 98 the year we took him outta HS? He was obviously an every day guy then too. So I doubt McKay would have a big bump up at this point.

Yes Buxton was clocked up to 98 on the mound his senior year.  There is YUGE difference between two way playing in HS and two way playing in College, especially a D1 school.  By concentrating solely on pitching, skills are honed instead of getting by with athletic ability.  McKay is considered the first real Top 5 pick as a pitcher and as a hitter since Dave Winfield in 1973.

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Vanimal46 MVP

Vanimal46

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Didn't McKay's velocity drop coincide with him trying a new pitch? I thought he pitched pretty well down the stretch for Louisville regardless of his velocity and his secondary pitches are supposed to be pretty solid. A lefty can get away with slightly less mph than a righty.

 

I generally agree that lefties can get away with slightly less mph than a righty. Though I'm a big believer in velocity being a key indicator of a pitcher's success. There's a new article on Fangraphs "In Game Velocity Changes - When Fatigue Attacks" that discusses the fine line of velocity and a pitcher's success. 

Matt Harvey for example was very very good when he sat at 96 and 2 plus secondary pitches. Now he looks like a shell of his former self now that he's sitting at 92. Arietta this season is seeing a drop in velocity, and as a result, struggling with a 4.68 ERA. 

If McKay is sitting at ~90 right now, and he loses any sort of velocity along the way, I fear the Twins drafted Tommy Milone. 

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