Player Breakdowns: April 12th

Jacob Misiorowski & Adam Mazur + Emmanuel Rodriguez

Jacob Misiorowski (MIL) - AA:

Misiorowski is an interesting case. He has all the physical tools to be a capable starter yet I think he’s destined for a date with the bullpen. That’s not to say he’s not a good pitcher or a good prospect, rather I believe that that’s the role best suited for his highest positive outcome. And I think he can be a dominant one. It’s a niche he’ll have to embrace, though, because some pitchers think it’s a demotion. I think it’ll keep him healthy and allow his stuff to play better for an inning or two at a time.

There’s a lot of variance on his fastball from outing to outing & inning to inning. He can drop as low as 93 on his fastball and then touch 99. We’ve seen what he can do one inning at a time in last year’s Futures Game. He sat 98-100 and looked like arguably the best righty in the minors. I’m not sure that’s the case given a starter’s workload. There’s an erratic nature to Misiorowski and like what the Brewers did with Uribe last year and with Hader in the past, I think they can make him work out of the pen. There’s a high effort output I notice with him that I just don’t like stretching to 5 or 6 innings. Give the kid his best shot at success and that can be as one of the more dominant pen arms in the league. And I know the point of the minor leagues and AA is to develop him further and stretch him out to see what they have in him as a starter, but let’s cut the crap and call a spade a spade. He may have all the physical tools to be a starter but the bottom line is that his best positive outcome given his command and high-effort output is likely to come out of the bullpen as a high-leverage multi-inning reliever — who can get to the big leagues as soon as this year.

How does he generate his velocity?

Misiorowski has solid mechanics and when I was watching video, I noticed that he gets a ton of layback. I’m not sure of the actual level of degrees, but I took a backside and side-shot snap of his layback the best I could to give you a better idea:

Backside:

He gets great extension and great external rotation allowing him to provide enough force to produce velocity. Now, I haven’t gone back and captured stills of every pitch he threw to see if there’s a reason he has such variance on his fastball from inning to inning. Here is an example of his backside layback which looks to be greater than 165-170 degrees. In fact, it may even be close to 180 degrees at its full extension — and the scapular posterior tilt combined with his spinal extension looks to be good (in layman’s terms, his chest is outward and puffed up facing home plate during his delivery). Think Billy Wagner when you think of layback and how his arm cocked back allowing him to produce a tremendous amount of force and velocity from his smaller stature (I think he was 5’9 or 5’10). Misiorowski is 6’7 and he’s getting good rotation.

Here is a side view:

Same thing — I know these pictures look like injuries waiting to happen but throwing a baseball this hard isn’t a natural phenomenon and there’s obvious wear and tear, however, there’s also arm care. I’m not going to write about the seeming increase in the incidence of Tommy John surgeries because a few high-profile names went down this year — this has been going on for some time and there are a ton of variables at play — of course, velocity and max-effort throwing are a part of the cause, but there are likely other things we need to look at before concluding — after all, velocity is incentivized in the big leagues and some pitchers wouldn’t even be looked at if they weren’t throwing mid to upper 90s.

You can’t vilify a product of what was sewn by Major League Baseball itself — these pitchers are seeking velo and any edge they can get because it’s a fat contract if they make it out on the other side healthy. It’s also an opportunity to just get looked at in the first place. It’s the same reason I don’t vilify the steroid era — it was absolutely incentivized by Major League Baseball (and majorly profited) before they and the media decided to crucify those that helped them gain public notoriety in the first place. I feel like I’m ranting this morning, jumping from subject to subject, so let’s get back on track. Back to Misiorowski. He produces a ton of force with his extension and external rotation — and his layback, at first glance, looks like it’s almost 180 degrees or nearing it.

He started last night for Biloxi, the AA affiliate of the Milwaukee Brewers, and he pitched to a line of 3IP 3H 0ER 3BB 4K. He was shoddy with his command last night but his stuff is so good that he got the strikeouts when needed. The defense behind him was also shoddy as I think 2 errors were committed behind him forcing him to raise his pitch count, or else I think he would’ve gotten a 4th inning. My take on Misiorowski for fantasy purposes is that I’m convinced he will be a bullpen arm. Now, that doesn’t mean he won’t stick as a starter — it’s just my personal opinion. I think he’s more valuable in the pen given the variables for both real-life and fantasy purposes.

Here’s some video from his start: