I had an opportunity to shake off the rust that had
accumulated over my eyeballs during the offseason and see Moravian righty
Brendan Close on Saturday. Baseball
America pointed their omnipotent finger at Close when they mentioned him in a
preseason write up on small school prospects to watch this spring. Clearly the best player on the field as the
Moravian Greyhounds swept a double header from the Catholic University of
America, Close has enough raw talent that teams will view him as at least a
little more than a senior sign. He’s not
a guy a team will bring on just to help fill the roster of one of their lower
level affiliates. There is a chance, albeit
a small one, that Close can find a niche and become a legitimate prospect. We’ll get into all that in a minute. For now, I’m going to take the next few
seconds and enjoy the fact that a kid this talented fell through the cracks and
ended up at a D-III school. People at
Lehigh, Lafayette, Temple and Penn State are paid to find kids like this. None of them did. I find solace knowing that the industry is still
not very good at mining baseball talent.
I’ll be paid to do this one day, I swear to Christ. On to Close.
Delivery
At an athletic 6’4”, 200lbs, Close has just a little
projection left in his body. He has the
athleticism to put on a little more weight and maintain his mechanics. He’ll have to maintain that delivery as is
because if it were to get any worse it would become an issue. While Close’s straight over the top arm
action isn’t anything to be concerned about, there’s plenty of noise from the
shoulders up. His head whips around quite
a bit possibly causing him to lose sight of the plate momentarily. It causes his command to suffer a bit.
Stuff
Close has an interesting repertoire, consisting of a fastball,
curveball, cutter and changeup. He works
primarily with his fastball which sits between 87-89mph and touches as high as
92mph. It has some run, especially when
he’s working to his arm side. The
velocity is average but it’s far too much for hitters at this level to
handle. Close relies on it almost too
heavily. Why shouldn’t he? It gets the job done. That’s fine for now, but his secondary
pitches are underdeveloped as a result.
When Close does work with the secondary pitches the results
are a bit underwhelming. The curveball
has a nice, sweeping, two plane shape to it, but it’s a little soft and loopy. The cutter moves plenty, so much so that I
thought it was a slider before I was corrected by his teammate, Ben
Hammel. The cutter has its moments but
again, the movement isn’t very crisp much of the time. Close tried to back door these pitches
against lefties in the first inning and got hit around a bit. He doesn’t use the changeup very much. He barely even threw it during between inning
warm-ups. His arm slot is suited
beautifully for a splitter and I hope whatever minor league pitching coach gets
a hold of him after he signs recognizes that.
Secondary Skills
Close walked five hitters in eighty innings of work last
season. I showed up thinking I’d see
plus control and command. Close’s
control is a true 60 on the scouting scale, but the command doesn’t grade out
the same. He left several pitches up. I
am mindful that Close was making his first start after an injury and was likely
a tad rusty. I will see him again later
this season and post an update. For now,
I’m going to refrain from expounding about what I’d do with Close to improve
his chances of making the big leagues one day.
I’ll do that later this season.
He shouldn’t be worried about that stuff right now anyway.
Scouting Grades:
Fastball: 50
Curveball: 40
Cutter: 40
Changeup: ? (need to see more of it)
Control: 60
Command: 40
Delivery: 50
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