Freddy Peralta

• I got swamped last night during my chat on Peralta questions. I just didn’t know much about him so I went and watched his debut.

• It looks weird in that he is nearly falling down on every pitch and just averaging 90 mph on his fastball. It reminds me of high pitchers trying to reach 85-mph.

• Fastball: It sat at 87-95 mph with some nasty glove-side run. It could be considered a cutter at times. He used it like Mariano Rivera did by changing the spin. Partway through the game, MLB Gameday started labeling some of his pitches as cutters. It was not two separate pitches since there was no unique spin-velocity grouping

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Caleb Smith

If I didn’t give Smith a Quick Look, I feel I was failing. I watched the 26-year-old lefty’s game from the 22nd (good camera angle) when he went 6 IP, 2 ER, 10 K’s, and 0 walks.

• Fastball: 91-94 mph. Kept it down and commanded it well. Hitter just couldn’t get a read on this pitch but I couldn’t tell exactly why. Some hitters are seeing it well since it has given up all his home runs.
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Yonny Chirinos

The 24-year-old righty has made two starts so far this season and I watched his start from the 5th because of a better camera angle. Since it was his first game, the Gameday’s pitch labeling was off with his slider and splitter getting mislabeled quite a bit.

• Fastball: 91-95 mph. Fairly straight pitch with a small bit of glove-side run and sink. His plus controls made this pitch play up. Also, he may have mixed in a handful of four-seamers.

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Tyler Mahle (68% owned at FanTrax)

I watched his game for the 2nd when he beat the Cubs by going 6 IP, 0 Runs, and 7 K’s. Mahle and the opposing pitcher, Tyler Chatwood, did have generous wide strike zone to work with.

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The Cardinals have added Jordan Hicks to their major league bullpen. The move comes as a surprise with Hicks skipping both Double and Triple-A. While Hicks’s role is not defined, he’s a talented pitcher who can’t be ignored.

The 21-year-old righty has previously shown a plus fastball. Here are the various scouting reports on it.

• FanGraphs: Grade 50/55, “…routinely sitting 94 or better during the regular season, Hicks’ heater sat 97-100 in the Fall League … trouble keeping it down … doesn’t play like an 80-grade fastball…”
• MLB.com: Grade: 70, “… fastball will sit in the mid-90s, frequently touch the upper-90s and flirt with triple digits, all with plus natural movement…”
• Baseball America: Grade: 70, “… 93-98 mph with his fastball, sits 95, and touches 101 in short bursts…holds his velocity … fastball plays up further with arm side life…”
• BHQ: Grade: 4+, 93-98 “… sits 93-96, topping at 100 mph with good late sink…”

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While I normally examine pitchers in-season, a couple of late-season call-ups I missed deserved some analysis.

Note: All breaks are from the pitcher’s perspective.

Luiz Gohara

The 21-year-old lefty got my attention by showing up as the 38th ranked starting pitcher by our auction calculator. If I’m going to take a guy to be my #3 or #4 starter, I should know a bit about him. Here is my take on his last start of the 2017 season against the Marlins.

• He throws straight to home with no funky angles from a ¾ arm slot and doesn’t fall off the mound after his windup. He shows a little more effort from the stretch. With his simple delivery, he’ll not have as much of a platoon split.

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Continuing my Quick Looks series, today looks at a pair of NL East arm…

Mark Leiter

It’s like the 26-year-old righty didn’t exist before this season. I like to look at previous reports on popup guys to see what has changed. I was able to find one report on him at 2080baseball.com.

“A senior sign out of New Jersey Institute of Technology, he certainly got on some radars when he posted a 20-strikeout game his senior year before being drafted by his favorite hometown team, the Phillies. He doesn’t have pure “stuff” – his fastball barely touches 90 – but he’s a smart pitcher who works with what he has and has posted a 3.37 career ERA in 95 games, 69 of them starts, over 445 2/3 innings. He underwent shoulder surgery prior to the 2016 season but enjoyed a strong campaign that summer and now gets his call-up just a few games into his Triple-A debut.”

It’s not exciting but it’s at least a starting point. Now to move onto the starts I watched. There are no good camera angles for any of his starts. The best was against the Mets (9/4) when he lasted just three innings (video from it). Also, I watch his last start at home (9/15) against Oakland to see if anything changed.

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Dillon Peters

• The 24-year-old, 5’9 lefty throws straight to home (no weird angles) from ¾ arm slot. I watched his last start from September 6th when he faced the Nationals.

• Fastball: 88-92 mph and it usually had a late dip. A few other times it had as much rise as a normal four-seamer. Looking at the pitch information, it seems to be just one pitch considering the spin axis. One possible explanation is that he lost fastball velocity as the game went on.

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Note: I was wanting to do Anthony Banda and Reynaldo Lopez but the camera angles for them are horrible so far. I do hope to write about them soon. In the meantime, check out newcomer Nick Pollack’s piece on Lopez. 

• Brandon Woodruff

• The 24-year-old righty started at the back end of several preseason top-100 lists. So far he’s made two starts for the Brewers and I watched the one on August 9th.

• Definite thrower. Everything is coming in at full effort. He just challenges hitters and hopes they miss.

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Jacob Faria

• For Faria, I watched his July 6th game against the Red Sox. The game was the most recent with a decent camera angle.

• The nearly 24-year-old righty used a 3/4 release with decent command and control of his pitches.

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