Hidden Gems To Watch - Starting Pitching Prospects (Part Two)

With pitchers and catchers reporting, Major League Baseball is bearing down on a return to normalcy for the 2021 season. With the MLBPA rejecting MLB’s offer of a delayed start to the 2021 season, opening day is now officially scheduled for Thursday, April 1.

When analyzing the pool of pitching prospects for 2021, there are a couple of rule changes to keep in mind. Teams will be ordinarily be allowed a 26-man active roster, which basically creates an extra roster slot for pitching depth in the modern game. Also, teams will be able to name a five-player ‘taxi squad’ for road trips. I would anticipate a lot of taxi squad depth will come in the form of pitching as well. What this means is that, similar to 2020, we could see a large number of pitchers take the bump, diluting the average innings pitched by individual pitchers across the board.

This article will focus on ‘Hidden Gem’ pitching prospects for 2021. We all know that Ian Anderson and Sixto Sanchez are relevant young arms for your redraft league, so I’m going to dig deeper. The relevant player pool for this piece consists of pitchers outside the Top-400 ADP, using the RotoBaller Average Draft Position Aggregator Tool.

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Luis Garcia, Houston Astros

ADP: 463

Luis Garcia was on already my radar prior to the Framber Valdez injury this offseason. With the news that Valdez has suffered a fractured left ring finger that will require him to miss extended time and the revelation that top pitching prospect Forrest Whitley might require Tommy John Surgery, there’s suddenly a rotation spot available in Houston.

Luis Garcia is a rugged righty. He's built like a cross between a fire hydrant and an NFL middle linebacker (6'1", 244 lbs). He averaged around 94 mph on his four-seam fastball in a brief MLB stint last season. However, there are times where he can reach back and touch 95 mph plus. The fastball is a pitch he can work at the top of the zone, with some arm-side life that makes it a tough offering on right-handed batters.

Garcia’s changeup is a big-league pitch. It gathered a 47% whiff rate against big league hitters last season. It’s a pitch that bites and runs away from left-handed bats, featuring 17 inches of horizontal break (27% more movement than the average MLB changeup). He adds in some drop and near-perfect velocity separation from his fastball (around 10 mph), making Garcia's cambio a plus offering.

Garcia’s slider has also flashed above-average potential at the MLB level. He also toyed around with a cut fastball and slow curveball (76 mph), rounding out his offerings to present a starter’s arsenal. In his minor league career, he was generally not susceptible to platoon splits. In 108 ⅔ innings in 2019, for example, left-handed batters only managed a .511 OPS against Garcia, while right-handers posted an OPS of .572.

If Garcia is able to secure a back-end rotation role this spring, the upside is present for him to take a leap, not unlike the one taken by teammate Framber Valdez in 2020. With a current ADP in the 400s, Garcia is a no-brainer late-round dart throw in redraft leagues this season.

Dean Kremer, SP, Baltimore Orioles

ADP: 490

Dean Kremer, 25, was acquired by Baltimore in the trade that sent Manny Machado to the Dodgers in 2018. Kremer was a consistent performer at the minor league level, logging over 100 innings with multiple teams at multiple levels in both the 2018 and 2019 seasons.

Kremer wields a starter’s arsenal, featuring a four-pitch mix and even throwing in a couple changeups for good measure. Kramer's four-seam fastball has the carry to work up in the zone, and features some late arm-side run. His curveball is an ‘old-fashioned’. It tunnels well with the four-seamer and can flash some two-plane tilt when he’s feeling it. A cutter and sinker give Kremer some different looks to employ against left-handed bats. When it comes together, it’s a profile that can look like a mid-rotation starter at times:

11.0 IP / 5 H / 2 R / 14 K@DJ_KREY6 has been dealing through his first 2 MLB starts. pic.twitter.com/47dU8HWNKl

— Baltimore Orioles ? (@Orioles) September 12, 2020

In his brief MLB debut in 2020, Kremer maintained the strikeout stuff he flashed in the minor leagues, logging a 26.5% strikeout rate. His control wavered, however, and he posted a 14.5% walk rate which led to an ERA climbing to 4.82. Kramer’s FIP, however, was a measly 2.76. If he can pull his MLB walk-rate closer in line with his minor league production, there’s tons of profit potential here.

Garret Crochet, RP, Chicago White Sox

ADP: 497

The White Sox went back to the Chris Sale blueprint in the 2020 MLB Draft, grabbing left-handed flamethrower Garret Crochet in the first round out of the University of Tennessee. Crochet’s pre-draft Trackman data had him with the highest average fastball spin out of any college pitcher in the 2020 draft. Once Crochet hit the White Sox alternate site in the summer, the reports were that none of the hitters in Schaumburg could touch him. Then "Wrangler Rick Hahn" went off and shocked everyone by calling Crochet up to the Show in his draft year.

Crochet appeared exclusively out of the bullpen in his debut, and almost exclusively threw fastballs. Why? Because his AVERAGE fastball velocity in his debut was 100.1 mph. Between his size, stride, and that big velocity coming from a big lefthander, he made accomplished hitters look downright uncomfortable. Paired with a slider with good movement coming in between 86-88 mph, his stuff is best described as baseball weaponry.

It’s pretty clear from watching Crochet that his stuff will really play in a big-league bullpen. New White Sox manager Tony LaRussa has called Crochet “a valuable part of the final third of the game”. Therefore, anticipate Crochet’s 2021 redraft value to come from ratios, strikeouts, and potentially some holds for leagues that count them.

The White Sox have a strong bullpen. However, in the event that new closer Liam Hendricks can’t get the job done, Crochet could very possibly fill the closer’s role as soon as this season.

Keegan Akin, SP, Baltimore Orioles

ADP: 499

I’ve rooted for Keegan Akin for some time now, partially because he looks like he could be my young adult son. A slightly portly lefty hailing from Western Michigan University, Akin spent four years in Baltimore’s minor league system carving up hitters like so many Christmas hams. He posted 3 consecutive seasons of 100+ innings in the minors while maintaining a career strikeout percentage above 26%. Then, in his MLB debut, he took it up a notch and struck out 30.2% of all batters he faced at the big league level.

Akin’s arsenal is led by a four-seam fastball he throws 62% of the time. It’s an offering that he generally fills up the zone with, and with good reason. While MLB hitters swung at his pitches in the zone an above-average 71% of the time in 2020, their zone contact rate was a paltry 77.4%. That's nearly five points below the MLB average zone contact rate.

Why did big league hitter's struggle to make contact? Well, Akin’s fastball plays up in the zone due to his near-perfect 99% active spin efficiency. He gets almost pure backspin on his fastball, and even MLB hitters have a hard time dealing with it at 92 mph.

Akin is currently slotted in as SP2 in the Orioles rotation for 2020. RotoBaller’s Cutter projections show that he’s being extremely under drafted this offseason; 150 IP of 4.33 ERA and a 1.38 WHIP, with 151 strikeouts. As an essentially free pick at the end of your draft, Akin becomes a must-have guy if he meets those projections.

Edward Cabrera, SP, Miami Marlins

ADP: 543

Unfortunately, Edward Cabrera has been unable to begin his throwing program this spring. Marlins’ manager Don Mattingly has said the team plans to proceed with caution with Cabrera, given the young hurler’s importance in Miami’s overall plans. This puts Cabrera into FAAB follow territory instead of draft territory, but he is still a prospect pitcher you should familiarize yourself with for 2021 and beyond.

Cabrera, 22, is on Miami’s 40-man roster despite his young age. If the holy trinity of defense-independent pitching stats are K%, BB%, and GB%, then Cabrera’s minor league track record shows a young pitcher that excels in all facets of run suppression. During his 2019 season, he displayed tantalizing upside, with K-BB% above the magic 20% number, and GB% rates in the upper 40s.

Cabrera has an athletic, repeatable delivery. He features a fastball that he can dot around the zone and fizzes in routinely in the mid-90s. His secondary pitches play off the fastball, with slider and changeup both flashing above-average at times. In the event he can keep the arm healthy, there’s a very good chance that he contributes in the Miami rotation this year.

Bryse Wilson, SP, Atlanta

ADP: 552

Bryse Wilson is another in a litany of right-handed pitching prospects that the Braves have cultivated in their farm system over the last several years. Still only 23 years old, Wilson has appeared at the MLB level for Atlanta in each of the past three seasons. He’s not currently slated for a role in the starting rotation, but Wilson is on the 40-man roster and this is his final option year. Therefore, in the event that the Braves need pitching depth, it is very likely that Wilson is the next man up from Triple-A Gwinnett.

Wilson has shown the ability to log lots of quality innings throughout his career thus far. The Braves called on the athletic righthander to start in a tough spot in Game Four of the NLCS against the eventual world champion Dodgers. He acquired himself well.

He pairs two fastballs that are effective in their design. The four-seamer works up in the zone, garnering whiffs and flyball contact. His sinker works down in the zone with good, heavy movement generating plenty of ground balls. His feel for the sinker was better than his feel for the four-seamer last year, but when both are on it gives him foundational stuff to get MLB hitters out.

Wilson has vacillated between two shapes of breaking ball. When he’s throwing the slider hard (in the upper 80s) with tight spin, it’s an effective weapon. But he’s not yet at a stage where he can rely on either spinner to consistently generate whiffs. Look for his feel of these secondaries this spring. If they are working for him, Wilson should be acquired as soon as he gets that next bus ticket from Gwinnett to Atlanta.

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