Archive for the “Scott Gorgen” Category

Small sample size ahoy! Just looking at who was started out of the gates quickly at each affiliate and who has well… not.  Today we look at the pitchers.

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In 2009, Scott Gorgen split 130 innings between High-A Palm Beach and AA Springfield. He began the year in Springfield again and threw 46 innings before being shut down with elbow issues.

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This is part II of Steve’s look at our AFL pitchers.

Some time ago I promised a pitch f/x write-up on Scott Gorgen. The bonus here is that he should still be in the organization at the end of the week (for those that missed it, shortly after my Parisi write-up, he was snagged by the Cubs in the Rule V draft).

We’ll start again with the summary table. See this post for points of comparison.

A couple things stand out from that table

• The fastball, like Parisi before him, is a few notches below average, and unlike Parisi he never really gets it above 91-92. Also unlike Parisi it didn’t appear to be a ground ball generator (more on this later)

• The breaking ball looks like a “show me” pitch, both in utilization (not frequent) and in results (low whiff)

• And the most glaring number in the table, the whiff rate on the changeup is outstanding. We’ll dig deeper into that shortly

First we’ll take a look at the fastball. As the bullet point says, it’s a bit below average from a velocity perspective. Also of note is how infrequently he is using the pitch (~54% of the time when you combine the FF and FT). For comparison, PJ Walters (not noted for his vaunted fastball) used his fastball 60% of the time in his cup of coffee this past season.
As mentioned in the bullet points, his fastball (all of his pitches actually) doesn’t appear to generate ground balls. The following table summarizes his batted ball profile from the AFL season

These results are in line with his career minor league numbers.
Moving on to the most noteworthy thing about Gorgen, his change-up. Az made note of it after seeing him pitch, and the numbers seem to back up his assertion that it could be a plus pitch. While clearly a 64% whiff rate is unsustainable, the idea that it can be a swing and miss pitch probably has merit. So what makes his change-up successful? Or more exactly, what distinguishes his whiffs from the ones where the hitters make contact? For those questions I have a two-part answer (both parts are fairly obvious), movement and location.

First movement

It does appear that the more fade and sink the change-up has, the more likely a whiff.

And then location

Unsurprisingly the lower the better.
Final Thoughts:

Given Gorgen’s repertoire and usage data I’d lean towards pegging him as a future middle reliever. There aren’t many MLB starters that can rely solely on a below average fastball and a plus change-up. That isn’t to say the he can’t improve his breaking ball some to the point where it could serve as a decent complimentary 3rd pitch, at which point I’d be more inclined to see him as a starter. And finally, even if he doesn’t improve his breaking ball, he could still have value as a middle reliever that could get out both LHB and RHB.

Next up on the agenda are the reliever’s the Cards sent to the AFL. Stay tuned.

Wow. Why didn’t anyone wake me up and tell me the news? MLBAM has PITCHf/x camera systems operational at the Surprise and Peoria parks. This is great news for folks like me who can’t afford to fly out to the desert in order to scout some of the Cardinal players participating int he Arizona Fall League.

Here is a look at Scott Gorgen, “it’s just one inning” caveats apply. This is from the 15th.

A little wackiness on a couple of pitches and the way they were classified, but you get the idea.

A 90 MPH fastball out of the bullpen is not so nice, but we know Gorgen’s meal ticket is his circle change-up. It’s a beauty of an offering, coming in 10 MPH slower than his fastball with all sorts fade and sink. This jives with his scouting report from draft day.

Gorgen’s fastball generally scrapes 90 but sits more comfortably in the 86-88 range with excellent command. His circle changeup is a plus pitch he locates at will, and it has late tumble, making it resemble a split-finger fastball. Gorgen’s breaking ball and body are both short but he competes, is athletic and has shown durability, having surpassed 320 innings already in college. On the down side, he has little projection left.

After seeing this change-up in Pitch F/x, I like Gorgen’s future more than ever before.

EDIT: Pitch FX wonk Steve Sommer emailed me some comparisons to Gorgen based on his pitches. Gorgen’s fastball comps with Doug Brocail, Brian Sanches, Alfredo Aceves and Joe Blanton, among others. His change-up compares with Al Reyes, Duaner Sanchez and Joe Nelson (known for his “vulcan” change). His curve compares with Frank Francisco.

Here’s 26-year old Mike Parisi, who is coming back from Tommy John surgery.

This is from Saturday. Parisi went 4 innings, allowed one run and struck out three while inducing 7 ground-outs. What jumps out immediately that Parisi has added a cutter to his arsenal, I don’t remember reading anywhere he was throwing a cutter before. This is a good thing, adding the cutter is a pitch that has helped a lot of otherwise so-so pitchers. His sinker has decent “tail” (horizontal movement) but not a ton of sink. Meh. Parisi topped out at 93 MPH.

We’ll look at Reifer and Daley in a seperate post.

Looks like we won’t be seeing Scott Gorgen for a while. He’s undergoing shoulder surgery. No other details at the moment.

I know, I know – it’s early.  Small sample sizes and all that – I get it.  But still, I think that we’ve seen enough of some of our draft picks to have a very early idea of what we’ve got in them.  The truth of the matter is that I’ve been dying to write this post since the day Brett Wallace signed his contract, but I wanted him to get a few at bats under his belt.  He now has 68 plate appearances and 54 at bats.  That’s good enough for me.  So, then, after the jump we’ll take a look at how Brett and the rest of the 2008 draft class have been faring.  Read the rest of this entry »