00:00Another huge jump that I want to talk about, Luis Morales of the No City designation, Athletics, 74-27.
00:12I think when you think A's prospects, you think of Leo DeVries.
00:16We'll talk about the top 10.
00:18He's well within it.
00:19The guy that they acquired in the Mason Miller deal at last year's trade deadline.
00:25But Luis Morales becoming one of the best prospects in baseball?
00:28Yeah, I mean, a guy I've loved for a long time here.
00:32I think we've had him on the top 100 list as long as anybody.
00:36And my one, or I guess I had two concerns with Morales.
00:39It was one, will he throw enough strikes?
00:43Two, what will the fastball shape look like with the big league ball?
00:47So typically when guys get to AAA and then the big leagues, that fastball will flatten out a little bit,
00:55induce vertical break wise.
00:56Like you'll lose a little bit of carry there.
00:58And it affects different pitchers differently, just the way that they throw.
01:02But I was concerned with Morales because it's more of a velocity over shape thing.
01:06You know, he sits in his big league debut in the 10 appearances.
01:09He averaged 97.5 with it.
01:10So I knew it was going to play, but how well was it going to play?
01:14And the shape did get knocked down a little bit, but not as much as, you know, I think you see with some others.
01:18And then you saw just the sheer velocity and still just playing really well from there.
01:22So that was encouraging.
01:23And then you also just have more disciplined hitters, tighter strike zone at the big league level.
01:28How is he going to respond to that?
01:309% walk rate.
01:31So, you know, I still think there's some hurdles for him to reach his ceiling, but we're talking about a right-hander here who sits in the upper 90s, who, by the way, was 22 years old last year.
01:41As a curveball that flashes plus, a changeup that has looked like a plus pitch through stretches, and even added a little bit of a bridge slider as well.
01:49You have that pitch mix.
01:51You have the sheer velocity.
01:52And now the command is coming along and doing what he did at the big league level in an environment where it was really hard to pitch.
01:59I mean, like Luis Severino really struggled with the splits there.
02:03And, you know, I think you look at some of the things that he overcame and being able to work around the long ball that just is inevitable in that ballpark, it was impressive to pitch to a 3-1-4 ERA in 48 and two-thirds innings.
02:14So I'm excited about Morales, and I think he's a big piece of this next phase for the A's as they look at, you know, now bolstering the pitching side of things because, obviously, they don't need to do much on the offensive side.
Be the first to comment