I've had two beautiful Colorado hikes this weekend obsessing over Kopech's last outing thinking he deserves his own thread. I'm hoping, perhaps more than anyone but Moncada he is not traded, as his trade value relative to worth right now is lower than the other top 4. This last start was his first with his new physique, adding a good 25 lbs of muscle, and likely resulted in his incredible sitting velocity. Does this build and late game velocity remind you of another righthanded sox starter about 30 years ago? Rocket did sit 97-8 late, but the highest I remember him hitting was 99 as a Yank against the Mets.
It's early still, and the sample size is small but given his physique and toying with upper A hitters would it be sacrilege to speculate whether he will actually end up with the better and longer career than Espinoza? Also, if this continues does he go to AA before the season ends?
1) Watching the video of his 9-pitch, 3 K inning at milb.com, I was struck by how much less extreme and obviously high-effort his delivery is now, compared to when he was drafted. They've really done a good job with that.
2) There's no question in my mind that he has the stuff to pitch in AA right now, and will likely have the stuff to pitch in MLB by next year's trade deadline. What we know nothing about right now is his start-to-start consistency. Note that Henry Owens has had the stuff to pitch in MLB for a year now (or longer) and has yet to develop the consistency necessary to make him a good option as even a 5 starter. Most guys do develop it -- it just sometimes comes along later than the stuff. AE is still in Greenville because he's gone backwards with it a bit.
So we'll know a lot more about him as the summer progresses. Best case is that his next four starts are as impressive as this one, and he pitches in Portland in August. Don't hold your breath, but that's what you dream on.
Last Edit: Jul 11, 2016 1:06:21 GMT -5 by ericmvan
"You either need some medication or you're an a******." -- David Ortiz correctly diagnosing Bobby Valentine
1) Watching the video of his 9-pitch, 3 K inning at milb.com, I was struck by how much less extreme and obviously high-effort his delivery is now, compared to when he was drafted. They've really done a good job with that.
Videos here:
Last Edit: Jul 11, 2016 4:07:27 GMT -5 by deepjohn
Post by James Dunne on Jul 11, 2016 7:17:45 GMT -5
At the risk of sounding like a pessimist, Allen Webster was just released by his KBO team yesterday. Kopech might be a future ace. He might also be the perfect sell-high trade candidate to a GM who thinks his three innings makes him the next Syndergaard, and his value will never be higher than it is as I am typing this sentence.
Okay, that's enough negativity from me. He's obviously a very, very exciting prospect right now. A big thumbs up should go to the scouting and development staff, for identifying someone so physically talented and seeing that a remaking/simplifying his delivery could cause his velocity to go from excellent to sublime. And an equally big thumbs up to Kopech himself for being coachable enough to make those adjustments. Remaking the delivery of a pitcher who is having success is tough to do
Post by brianthetaoist on Jul 11, 2016 8:46:26 GMT -5
Kopech has the definition of an electric arm, and he performed well at Greenville last year before his suspension (better than Espinoza, although a year older). And his ability to make the adjustments in his delivery speak very well to his athletic ability ... really, there's not much not to like about him as a pitcher. He hasn't really failed yet on the field, so it's easy just to mentally fill in really good performances during the time he missed and come up with a terrific prospect.
Of course, that's a logical fallacy. He may have run into problems late in the year, or just generally had a rough patch. We do need to see how he does the rest of the year.
But he's got true #1 ceiling, and I would have him off-limits in any trade discussion unless someone was talking to me about another #1 (and those guys aren't available). Personally, he reminds me of a less stubborn Josh Beckett.
At the risk of sounding like a pessimist, Allen Webster was just released by his KBO team yesterday. Kopech might be a future ace. He might also be the perfect sell-high trade candidate to a GM who thinks his three innings makes him the next Syndergaard, and his value will never be higher than it is as I am typing this sentence.
Okay, that's enough negativity from me. He's obviously a very, very exciting prospect right now. A big thumbs up should go to the scouting and development staff, for identifying someone so physically talented and seeing that a remaking/simplifying his delivery could cause his velocity to go from excellent to sublime. And an equally big thumbs up to Kopech himself for being coachable enough to make those adjustments. Remaking the delivery of a pitcher who is having success is tough to do
An excellent cautionary tale, but of course, not a comp. Webster was an 18th round pick, and at this age was the Dodgers #10 prospect, sitting in the low 90's and touching 94-95. He was eventually ranked as a prospect at age 22 roughly where Kopech was ranked at age 20.
"You either need some medication or you're an a******." -- David Ortiz correctly diagnosing Bobby Valentine
Post by humanbeingbean on Jul 11, 2016 10:17:31 GMT -5
If Kopech can have that repeatable and clean of a delivery while being able to paint the corners/hit the knees like he did in those 3 pitches, complemented by better offspeed stuff, anyone think he could approach Espinoza ceiling territory? Not that it has to be a competition between the two whatsoever, but it's pretty amazing to have two pitchers who throw so hard and whose ceilings are so high. And Kopech is obviously two years older than Anderson as well, but it definitely seems like Michael could more than hold his own in Portland (stuff wise). Let's hope Kopech can continue to build on this momentum, because having Espinoza and Kopech in the big league rotation would be electric to say the least.
Kopech has the definition of an electric arm, and he performed well at Greenville last year before his suspension (better than Espinoza, although a year older). And his ability to make the adjustments in his delivery speak very well to his athletic ability ... really, there's not much not to like about him as a pitcher. He hasn't really failed yet on the field, so it's easy just to mentally fill in really good performances during the time he missed and come up with a terrific prospect.
Of course, that's a logical fallacy. He may have run into problems late in the year, or just generally had a rough patch. We do need to see how he does the rest of the year.
But he's got true #1 ceiling, and I would have him off-limits in any trade discussion unless someone was talking to me about another #1 (and those guys aren't available). Personally, he reminds me of a less stubborn Josh Beckett.
So then the operative question becomes would Dombrowski trade the potential of Kopech and Espinosa (plus another high riser such as Devers or Swihart etc) for someone like Jose Fernandez or Chris Sale if the opportunity arose. My guess is yes.
At the risk of sounding like a pessimist, Allen Webster was just released by his KBO team yesterday. Kopech might be a future ace. He might also be the perfect sell-high trade candidate to a GM who thinks his three innings makes him the next Syndergaard, and his value will never be higher than it is as I am typing this sentence.
Okay, that's enough negativity from me. He's obviously a very, very exciting prospect right now. A big thumbs up should go to the scouting and development staff, for identifying someone so physically talented and seeing that a remaking/simplifying his delivery could cause his velocity to go from excellent to sublime. And an equally big thumbs up to Kopech himself for being coachable enough to make those adjustments. Remaking the delivery of a pitcher who is having success is tough to do
An excellent cautionary tale, but of course, not a comp. Webster was an 18th round pick, and at this age was the Dodgers #10 prospect, sitting in the low 90's and touching 94-95. He was eventually ranked as a prospect at age 22 roughly where Kopech was ranked at age 20.
Webster was newer to pitching, though - he'd been a shortstop in high school. But I agree, not a comparison really - more just a comment on the juxtaposition on the newest hard-throwing rising star really taking off right at the exact same time when the last one has basically fully burned out.
Well, OP's question was, where does Kopech fall in your own ranking of prospects?
The pundits have Kopech a distant fifth. I call BS.
He is throwing 56% strikes and hitters can't make hard contact. He's got a wipeout slider. His mechanics are simple and deceptive. No pitch tipping for this guy.
Ready to run through A, AA, AAA, and if he's still throwing strikes without hard contact, then he makes a Sept. callup.
Leaving the pundits and their butt-covering aside, he's 1/1A/1B with Benny/Moncada. Untradeable.
Last Edit: Jul 11, 2016 12:29:46 GMT -5 by deepjohn
Well, OP's question was, where does Kopech fall in your own ranking of prospects?
The pundits have Kopech a distant fifth. I call BS.
He is throwing 56% strikes and hitters can't make hard contact. He's got a wipeout slider. His mechanics are simple and deceptive. No pitch tipping for this guy.
Ready to run through A, AA, AAA, and if he's still throwing strikes without hard contact, then he makes a Sept. callup.
Leaving the pundits and their butt-covering aside, he's 1/1A/1B with Benny/Moncada. Untradeable.
Warning - overreaction alert!!
Now all we need is the GM of the Marlins to fall head over heels for 1 A-Advanced start and Michael Kopech can headline a trade for Jose Fernandez. Count me in.
Don't get me wrong, I like Kopech a lot, and feel like he deserves some credit for obviously working during the time he missed for his suspension and foolish injury, but 1 impressive start in A+ is exactly that 1 impressive start. The God given ability is there for this kid to become something special, and I wouldn’t care to see Kopech traded for peanuts right now, but we are still talking about a pitcher who has a lot of development in front of him and a ton of variance between his floor and ceiling.
Well, OP's question was, where does Kopech fall in your own ranking of prospects?
The pundits have Kopech a distant fifth. I call BS.
He is throwing 56% strikes and hitters can't make hard contact. He's got a wipeout slider. His mechanics are simple and deceptive. No pitch tipping for this guy.
Ready to run through A, AA, AAA, and if he's still throwing strikes without hard contact, then he makes a Sept. callup.
Leaving the pundits and their butt-covering aside, he's 1/1A/1B with Benny/Moncada. Untradeable.
"He throws 56% strikes" is a really cute way of saying he has 43 walks in 86 career innings. But yeah, he's getting a September callup this year and belongs in the same breath as Moncada and Benintendi.
Insulting pundits in the same post that you spew these hot takes in is quite rich, though.
" I have dreams about Dustin Pedroia." - Greta Gerwig
1) Watching the video of his 9-pitch, 3 K inning at milb.com, I was struck by how much less extreme and obviously high-effort his delivery is now, compared to when he was drafted. They've really done a good job with that.
2) There's no question in my mind that he has the stuff to pitch in AA right now, and will likely have the stuff to pitch in MLB by next year's trade deadline. What we know nothing about right now is his start-to-start consistency. Note that Henry Owens has had the stuff to pitch in MLB for a year now (or longer) and has yet to develop the consistency necessary to make him a good option as even a 5 starter. Most guys do develop it -- it just sometimes comes along later than the stuff. AE is still in Greenville because he's gone backwards with it a bit.
So we'll know a lot more about him as the summer progresses. Best case is that his next four starts are as impressive as this one, and he pitches in Portland in August. Don't hold your breath, but that's what you dream on.
All nine pitches here:
Bonus points for striking out the guy with the amazing mustache on a 100 mph fastball on the black and the announcer is so bored with it he doesn't even mention the immaculate inning.
Absolute lol at his making a September callup to Boston. The guy who ended last year with 65 innings and a 50 game suspension—then started this year with a broken hand from punching a roommate—is going to fly through Hi-A, AA, and AAA to be in Boston. I can see Dombrowski and Hazen planning how he can put him on the 40 man roster a full season before the thought is even necessary. Hey Dave, we have this guy who throws a hundred but he walks a lot of guys in Hi-A, you think we can fast track him up three levels within the next two months? Sure Mike, is he already on the 40-man? No, but who cares.
Last Edit: Jul 11, 2016 13:27:10 GMT -5 by klostrophobic
Yea, I should probably clarify, I mean Zone%. Pitches thrown in the zone. Among starters, the leaders in Zone% are Matz (52.9%), Colon (52.9%) and Kershaw (52.3%). I estimate that Kopech has a 56% Zone%, but hitters could be fouling off balls, which would throw my estimate off. So sue me.
More importantly, hitters can't touch the strikes he throws. Sure it's at Salem, but I said, if he keeps "throwing strikes without hard contact", he will run through A, AA, AAA, and have a Sept. callup. That is so true, it goes straight to God's ears.
Colon is still around after all this time because he can throw strikes and hitters just don't hit them. Hard to say why, but it's a true gift. Kopech may also have that. (Could be due to deceptive delivery, that doesn't tip pitches.)
Really, a pitcher's effectiveness can be inferred from outlier highs of Zone% and outlier lows of exit velocity. Even walks matter much less when the walk is less likely to score, without hard contact.
Kopech, Red Sox #1/1A/1B prospect.
ADD: suck it, pundits. Maybe that should be my sig.
Last Edit: Jul 11, 2016 14:35:25 GMT -5 by deepjohn
Post by burythehammer on Jul 11, 2016 14:36:53 GMT -5
You have no idea what his actual zone% or exit velocity against is. You're extrapolating this from a box score from one four inning start in A ball.
The three MLB pitchers you mention all have BB/9 well under 3. Kershaw and Colon are under 2. That should tell you something about your "estimate" with respect to Kopech.
Last Edit: Jul 11, 2016 14:40:00 GMT -5 by burythehammer
" I have dreams about Dustin Pedroia." - Greta Gerwig
I hope it goes without saying that like any pitcher, Kopech will have inning-to-inning inconsistency, especially right now, in only his second start. But that only makes his overall result all the more impressive. It means he had periods of such amazing lights out performance, such as the "immaculate inning," that he still gets a Matz/Colon/Kershaw result in the end.
Don't sweat the small sample size. Trust your eyes. You can see for yourself he is the real deal.
ADD: by inning-to-inning inconsistency, I mean he has innings, or stretches within an inning, when his Zone% dips (and he gives up a walk or two), and innings when Zone% goes up. Zone% might be 100% in an "immaculate inning"!
Any pitcher would have this, especially early in his season. But inning-to-inning inconsistency is a kind of random noise that a good projection should try to tune out.
Overall, his Zone% and ISO-against/BABIP (to the extent it correlates with exit velocity) are the important things to project, especially if these parameters become good in the extreme.
Last Edit: Jul 11, 2016 15:20:33 GMT -5 by deepjohn
It may be premature to think of Kopech as being up there with the top 4, but it does seem to me that given his stuff, age and the strides he's made already since being drafted that he's a guy that should be held on to unless some other GM is willing to value him like he's going to be the next Syndergaard or whoever. Even if you have to dream on him to see him getting there, there aren't a ton of guys that you can actually dream about without it being pure fantasy. He generates easy velocity that would make him one of the top couple of starters in the majors in terms of velo today, shows that he can hold it through at least 60-80 pitches, and has at least one secondary pitch that flashes plus, with pretty good looking mechanics and a change up that seems to have good separation from his heater and good arm speed too. He's one of two guys in our system of whom that can be said, so viewing him as a secondary piece in a potential deal for a good but not great player doesn't seem to make sense to me, especially because even if he doesn't pan out entirely, his stuff is so good that with another year or even the second half of this season, it seems like he would have a ton more trade value, given that he's made two starts in the last calendar year (roughly)
It may be premature to think of Kopech as being up there with the top 4, but it does seem to me that given his stuff, age and the strides he's made already since being drafted that he's a guy that should be held on to unless some other GM is willing to value him like he's going to be the next Syndergaard or whoever. Even if you have to dream on him to see him getting there, there aren't a ton of guys that you can actually dream about without it being pure fantasy. He generates easy velocity that would make him one of the top couple of starters in the majors in terms of velo today, shows that he can hold it through at least 60-80 pitches, and has at least one secondary pitch that flashes plus, with pretty good looking mechanics and a change up that seems to have good separation from his heater and good arm speed too. He's one of two guys in our system of whom that can be said, so viewing him as a secondary piece in a potential deal for a good but not great player doesn't seem to make sense to me, especially because even if he doesn't pan out entirely, his stuff is so good that with another year or even the second half of this season, it seems like he would have a ton more trade value, given that he's made two starts in the last calendar year (roughly)
No tradey Kopey! no no no! Tradey Kopey bad!
Seriously, among GMs he really can't have any more trade value than he already has. If you look at the deal the Braves proposed for Teheran, it's cleverly structured in such a way as to let DDo keep players that seem to have a higher value, such as Shaw and Benintendi (according to pundits), if DDo gives up Kopech.
I hope it goes without saying that like any pitcher, Kopech will have inning-to-inning inconsistency, especially right now, in only his second start. But that only makes his overall result all the more impressive. It means he had periods of such amazing lights out performance, such as the "immaculate inning," that he still gets a Matz/Colon/Kershaw result in the end.
Don't sweat the small sample size. Trust your eyes. You can see for yourself he is the real deal.
He's not inconsistent at all. He's consistently walked a lot of guys in his pro career, so far. Yet you claim that he throws more pitches "in the zone" than Clayton Kershaw, who currently has a 2% walk rate pitching in the major leagues. Try explaining that instead of deflecting with silly platitudes.
" I have dreams about Dustin Pedroia." - Greta Gerwig
I hope it goes without saying that like any pitcher, Kopech will have inning-to-inning inconsistency, especially right now, in only his second start. But that only makes his overall result all the more impressive. It means he had periods of such amazing lights out performance, such as the "immaculate inning," that he still gets a Matz/Colon/Kershaw result in the end.
Don't sweat the small sample size. Trust your eyes. You can see for yourself he is the real deal.
He's not inconsistent at all. He's consistently walked a lot of guys in his pro career, so far. Yet you claim that he throws more pitches "in the zone" than Clayton Kershaw, who currently has a 2% walk rate pitching in the major leagues. Try explaining that instead of deflecting with silly platitudes.
I think you're at least slightly exaggerating his walk numbers. Last year, the only time when he's thrown at least a half season in pro ball, he average 3.74 BB/9 over 65 innings. That's not exceptional, but it's not terrible either. Sure, he's walked 7 guys in 8 innings so far this year, and he had 9 in 13 GCL innings, but his entire career is a small enough sample so far that that could easily be significantly inflating the number. That's a noticeably better rate than Henry Owens put up in Greenville when he was a year older, and there were only 2 guys in the Sally last year that played the year at age 19 with better walk rates. That's not to say he doesn't need to sharpen his command/control, and I agree that he's not pounding the zone better than Kershaw, but you're definitely overstating his problems in that regard a little
Post by philsbosoxfan on Jul 11, 2016 15:38:22 GMT -5
I watched that game (watched the Kopech part twice). Initially he was wild high, you could see Procyshen signalling him to get the ball down. All three of his walks and the hit came in the first inning and a half. After that he was damn near perfect, hitting his spots and keeping the ball down. He pretty much looked like the video of the 4th, batters weren't going to hit his pitches, in the end, a 40/60 strikes to pitch ratio is pretty decent.
Keep in mind that it was his first appearance in 2-3 weeks and the reports at Lowell said he looked rusty.
"slightly exaggerating", lol, that's her specialty.
Last Edit: Jul 11, 2016 15:38:50 GMT -5 by philsbosoxfan
Proud survivor of a hole in the ozone layer, an ice age, a complete polar cap meltdown, a worldwide millennium computer shutdown, and multiple; solar storms, Mayan calendar dates, Nostradamus quatrains and Apocalypses.
I assumed he was being sarcastic. Among qualified pitchers, the lowest strike percentage in baseball is 58.5% by Francisco Liriano.
You are the very soul of generosity.
On the merits, though, Kopech was decent with his control last year, so I don't see a huge red flag there. I don't really see any major red flags anywhere, but again, he hasn't proven much of anything yet except that he has a truly elite arm, and he has the basic building blocks of a starter. Which is a really great place to start.