They usually appear in the Sunday paper. A journalist gets 5 minutes time with someone, jots down some quotes and writes a total fluff piece about the player. Generally, even though I dislike these pieces and find them vapid, I read them when they’re about prospects.

I found myself pleasantly surprised by this well-written, insightful piece into a player who, prior to this year, was relatively unknown. Marlon Morgan of the Memphis Commercial Appeal deserves some kudos for putting together a well-done “human interest” story.  After reading the story, I can’t fight this urge to write about Brandon Dickson myself.

Dickson, who I will barely refrain from calling ‘Cotton’ for the rest of this piece, went to Tusuculum College.  A quick look at their website reveals that Tusculum has an undergraduate class under one thousand.  Maybe I’m out of touch, but the school of engineering at my college was more than one thousand so this seems like a rather small school to me.  In any event, it’s in Eastern Tennessee about 30 minutes from North Carolina.  Morgan’s article has most of the pertinent background info on Dickson — if you haven’t already read it, stop and do so now.

Dickson threw 58.1 innings in his final year at Tusculum in 2006 with a rather underwhelming line — does anyone have the college equivalencies for Tusculum? Anyone? No? Moving on. After graduating, Cory Rauschenberger, a friend, put the Cardinals on the trail. The team signed Dickson in August of that same year and he tossed a couple of innings at Johnson City.

The following season Dickson spent in Quad Cities. 2007 produced the following:

Dickson struggled a bit as his stuff wasn’t good enough to simply put batters away but he showed very good control and a good sinker.

In 2008, he would split time between Palm Beach and Springfield featuring the same command, lack of a true out pitch and diminished — though still slightly above average — groundball tendencies.  He’d scuffle a little bit making the late season jump to AA but overall his statistical line was unassuming.

2009 would feature Dickson as a real workhorse in Springfield. He shouldered an impressive number of innings during his time there.  I saw him pitch on July 24th during a 12 inning marathon at Hammon’s Field.  From the box line it wasn’t a great night for him (7 hits in 5 innings & just 7 of 12 outs on the ground) leaving me with a rather vanilla opinion of the pitcher and a terribly un-witty caption:

Fastball that sat in the 89-91 range and touched 93.  Slider in the low 80s.  Fastball has to be down in the zone due to lack of movement or velocity.  Average pitch.  Slider is usable but unimpressive.  Got squeezed by the umpire in the lower half of the zone.  Has a very thin build in stature.  Doesn’t show a viable third pitch and command was iffy.  Looks like a nice organizational player but not a major leaguer.

That scouting report doesn’t read much like I imagine it would today. Revisiting my little black book of notes, I’ve got him throwing an 82-84 mph breaking ball. In Morgan’s piece, he lists a curveball but that doesn’t jive with my notes. Dickson struggled to get on top of his fastball during the July 24th game which didn’t give it much sink.  Morgan’s article also notes an improved changeup, which was not readily apparent in Springfield. So either Dickson has made great strides forward (possible) or I simply caught him on a bad weekend (also possible) or some combination thereof. His cumulative stats for 2009 at Springfield showed an improved strikeout rate:

In 2010, Dickson has seemingly come into his own.  His control has been very good with a 2.6 BB/9 (6.8%), maintaining the gains in strikeouts from 2009 to 6.6 K/9 (17.2%) and upping the groundball rate back into the impressive territory at 55% which is good for 3rd in the league. Despite a tepid FIP (4.09), Dickson is showing all of the skills you’d like a pitcher to show. Ideally, he’ll find a way to get that strikeout rate up but it’s serviceable now if he can maintain the groundballs.

To reference back to Morgan’s mention of that changeup again, Dickson is throwing something to retire he lefthanders. He’s has no career platoon split in his FIP though he does walk lefties slightly more often. Basically, there’s reason to believe in a viable pitch to nuetralize opposite handed hitters.

Brandon Dickson doesn’t profile as an ace. I suspect the seemingly demure Alabaman nicknamed ‘Cotton’ would humbly tell you the same thing. He does have an intriguing mix of groundball tendencies and excellent control that could translate into success at the majors. There’s too little data this year to guess at whether he’s really taken a significant step forward or is simply experiencing a positive variance in his performance.  He’s worth keeping an eye on as he continues in 2010. With luck I’ll set aside some time to watch one of Dickson’s starts on video. I think I may be pleasantly surprised.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 14th, 2010 at 12:00 pm and is filed under Brandon Dickson, prospect profiles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.