| By Dustin McComas |  | By 03-18-2010 |
The Texas Longhorns have two of the top arms in college baseball this season, one is a 2010 draft prospect, another could be a candidate for the No. 1 pick next spring. With the Mariners first pick coming at No. 43 overall, Brandon Workman could be in play for the hometown nine, while Taylor Jungmann could battle Vanderbilt's Sonny Gray for the top spot the following June.
One pitcher that is getting strong first round consideration is University of Texas RHP Brandon Workman . A third-round draft pick by the Phillies out of Bowie High School, Workman elected to pass up on a hefty signing bonus and take his talents to Austin. The move appears to have paid off. After a strong showing against LSU in 2009’s College World Series, Workman followed with an impressive summer campaign at the Cape Cod League and turned heads this off-season. Now, the power pitcher -- listed at 6-foot-5, 220 pounds by the school -- gets an opportunity to remain in the weekend rotation for the entire season. Here is an evaluation of Workman’s impressive start against the University of Houston at the Houston College Classic.
Take away the first two pitches of the game -- and Workman threw eight brilliant innings on the mound. The junior gave up a triple on his first pitch, and followed with a wild pitch on his second. After that, he was nearly un-hittable. His fastball sat comfortably between 92 and 94 on the radar gun and touched 95 on a couple of occasions. Workman isn’t a low effort guy on the mound, but he’s not a full out, max effort guy either -- and his big, thick frame allows him to pitch deep into games while maintaining most of that velocity. In the eighth inning, Workman was still touching 92 with consistency.
Delivery wise, I feel like Workman is hiding a couple hidden MPH. He has a tendency to keep his back stiff and straight when he finishes on the mound. Plus, his arm action isn’t as free flowing as it could be. That being said, against Houston he did a great job of locating his fastball down in the zone, and had the ability to work up the latter to blow his explosive number one by hitters.
One thing that Workman did in the off-season was develop a cutter to add to his power curve ball. He’s beginning to get more comfortable with that pitch, but he hasn’t mastered the command enough to throw that pitch in any count. Workman’s cut fastball does show potential to be an above average pitch with tight spin and a sharp break away from right-handers. It sits somewhere around 87-88 MPH. Against Houston, the Bowie native mixed in around ten cutters when he was ahead in the count.
Workman’s breaking ball is a power curve that can be an above average pitch. Sometimes Workman has a tendency to want to choke that pitch and overthrow it. That causes the breaking ball to normally end up in the dirt, and takes away from the amount of break as it approaches the plate. Saturday night he mastered the feel for that pitch early, and that translated to a lot of swings and misses by the Houston lineup. It’s a true power curve because of velocity that can occasionally reach the low 80’s, and because of a very tight spin, and sharp, quick break.
The Longhorn right hander was very efficient against Houston. He tossed eight innings giving up just one run on four hits, one walk, and he struck out seven. During those eight innings he only needed 93 pitches and 66 of those offerings were strikes.
Looking ahead to 2011 – Taylor Jungmann, RHP
After taking the nation by storm with a dominant freshman campaign, Taylor Jungmann entered the 2010 season ready to prove why he's considered one of the best, if not the best pitcher in college baseball, and a potential Top-10 pick in the 2011 Draft. Earlier this season the 6-foot-5 right-hander toed the rubber in a professional stadium, and it might not be long before he's doing it again but in a professional uniform as well. Here is an evaluation of Jungmann's performance against Rice at the Houston College Classic.
Early on, it took a while for the tall and lanky right-hander to get comfortable with his delivery and release point. At times, because his frame is so long, he has problems repeating his delivery which leads to minor control issues.
Against Rice, who boast another high-grade 2011 prospect in infielder Anthony Rendon, the sophomore's fastball was up, and consistently tailing out of the zone away from left-handers until about his third inning of work.
One of the causes is because his stride length wasn't matching up with his release point which led him to push the ball up the ladder. However, once the Temple, Texas native got into a rhythm he consistently located the fastball, and was able to go up the latter late in the count in attempt to get a batter to expand his strike zone.
The Longhorns ace sat comfortably at 93-95 MPH throughout the majority of his outing, touching 96 on a few occasions. During his eighth inning of work the Jungmann was still able touching 94 on the radar gun, and he was dialing it up to 92 frequently.
Once he got comfortable, his off-speed stuff began to bury hitters. The right-hander's power slurve/slider sat between 78-81 MPH. The pitch has slider action, but he doesn’t always release it out of his hand like a slider, thus the power-slurve classification entering the picture. The pitch proved devastating to both lefties and righties because he was able to bury it down in the zone. It forced several bad swings by right-handers, and lefties committed to the pitch only to see it break sharply down and in below the knees.
One thing of note: When Jungmann delivers his off-speed stuff he has a tendency to throw slightly across his body on occasion. It doesn't happen often, and he usually fixes it the next pitch. But when he really wants to get that great downward slider movement, he sometimes pronates his arm path on the front side, crossing the rest of his body.
Over the course of the off-season, Jungmann spent time trying to fine tune a screw-change to add to the arsenal. He's been able to mix in the offering with success, and it definitely has the makings of an above average to plus pitch as he builds confidence. Right now, it gets swings and misses because his other two offerings are dominant at the college level, thanks to sinking action with late screwball tilt. Jungmann mixed in the screw-change at 84-87 mph multiple times with great success against lefties on the outer half of the plate.
Jungmann tossed 7 2/3 innings, yielding just one run on four hits and two walks, and struck out eight. Both walks issued by Jungmann were in the first inning. His ERA this season is now a microscopic 0.83 and in 21.2 innings he boasts 27 strikeouts to just six walks. Batters are hitting just .200 against the Longhorn right-hander.
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Comments
The following 2 comment(s) for this article are shown below:
| 1. By: PositivePaul on 03-19-2010 02:14:21 Great article chock full of draft prospect info on these two UT guys, Dustin! Welcome to the site! I'm still curious as to what type of pitcher Jack and Co. like to draft. They certainly avoided pitching like the plague in their early selections, even though there was some good ones available. With his bigger frame and being a righty, I'm curious if that's the type of pitcher Jack likes. Certainly it's too early to see what might be available with the M's sandwich pick. If I had to guess, I'd say they might take the best available bat, though, over a pitcher. Workman does sound intriguing, though. |
| 2. By: Jason A. Churchill on 03-19-2010 16:06:16 Jack looks for value, that's clear. Robles is proof that size isn't exactly the "type" he prefers, but was a good value in that deal over a more protypically sized arm with less stuff or production. The chances that a bat is the value at 43 aren't as good as the chances that it's an arm, but that was the case a year ago at 33 with Baron. Although the situation is very different. The budget was blown, basically, on Ackley, and considering that, they did just fine. |
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