Ryan Ghan and Turk's Teeth team up to provide a post-draft, post-trade-deadline look at the lottery tickets and green shoots on the Angel's farm.
TT– Rounding into the home stretch, we present two pitchers, one a potential starting rotation candidate and one a potential closer, both reasonably close to joining the MLB roster.
Cam Bedrosian has obviously been pingponging between Anaheim and Little Rock or Salt Lake, and with just under 12 innings pitched at he Major League level, is beginning to fall off of prospect lists. But like Michael Roth, we keep him in our rankings as it's not clear he's 100% ready for regular action as of yet. If Bedrosian's early lack of success has brought some disappointment from fans, it's worth remembering that the former 1st round pick from the 2010 draft (the one that also brought us Kole Calhoun) is still just 22, and was drafted out of high school, only to miss all of 2011 after Tommy John surgery, and spent much of 2012 rehabbing. It was only in 2013 that he settled into a bullpen role permanently, and he still has logged fewer than 100 minor league innings in that capacity. He really only showed any clear success at it in the second half of last season, so as fans, we're essentially asking him to go from high-A ball to MLB closer in less than a year flat. It rarely works that way. But that's not to impugn Camrock's talent. As with Kevin Jepsen (the 53rd overall selection from 2002!), sometimes it takes awhile to put it all together. (Hopefully Bedrosian will get there sooner.)
Nate Smith is a younger pup, to the organization if not in years (he and Bedrosian were actually born within two months of each other). An 8th-round draft pick from Furman U in last year's draft, he made it from Orem to Arkansas in nine months flat, and would likely be tasting a cup of coffee right now save for a freak (non-critical) finger injury in late July. That the organization is committed to him and his development can be seen from the fact that Smith is the only starting pitcher that the Angelsare sending to the Arizona Fall League this season. Given velocity limitations, his upside is probably that of a back-of-the-rotation guy (his recent reverse splits tendency currently disqualifies him as lefty bullpen specialist), but among homegrown draftees not named Roth, he's probably the most developed LHP on the farm at the moment. Had Kyle McGowin not succumbed to elbow injury, our AA club (which just qualified for the playoffs last night behind another crisp outing from Tyler DeLoach) would feature a full starting five ripe for one-off spot-start show trials between Roth, Rucinski, DeLoach and McGowin. And Smith would likely be the lead in that dance.
More crackerjack scouting reports from our man in Havana (or Tempe, or Burlington, or wherever he may roam) below!
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(2) Cam Bedrosian
RG– He bends 96 mph heat across a 10 inch spectrum of horizontal movement (cutters to two seamers), his slider is a classic mid-80's sweeper, and his hard change-up has moments of devastating run and fade. Before catching a case of the yips in his major league call-up, he was doing a good job of consistently spotting his fastball down in the zone to his glove side before elevating above the strike zone, which destroyed minor league hitters at two different levels. He's got the stuff to be a first division closer for a long time.
(3) Nate Smith
RG– Fun fact: righties are hitting just .196 off of Smith in 2014. That's due largely to a .253 BABIP against, but change-ups tend to yield the lowest BABIP's, and that just happens to be Smith's best offering. It's a mid-70's tumbler that hitters have a tough time squaring up even when they're sitting on it. He commands his 87-91 mph fastball well, and the heat tends to play up the deeper that Smith goes into games because hitters become so frustrated trying to time his offspeed stuff. Lefties are posting an OPS on the year nearly 200 points higher than righties, indicating that Smith still has lots of work to do on his slow overhand breaking ball, which is currently more annoyance to hitters as an early-count, get-me-over-offering than a weapon capable of putting guys away. He might have been called up instead of LeBlanc had he not gone onto the DL with a broken pinky of all things.