Best of BP 2025: Change (In the House of the Fly Balls)

A pair weeks in the past I posed the query: How a lot ought to I care that the Angels have been the staff that drafted Ryan Johnson? I—as I typically do—possibly circled round it some with out answering. The broader query—how a lot does org context matter for prospects—is one we’ve struggled with over my decade on the BP Prospect Staff. The reply is “clearly, it issues,” however how do you bake that into an analysis or a rating?

9 years in the past now,  I wrote the 2016 Mets prospect checklist. For the needs of this train, please don’t look previous primary. I threw a 60 on his slider (I’d say future, however he was within the majors and making playoff begins the earlier season) with this observe:

“Like most Mets pitchers beneath Dan Warthen, he has began to mess around with a tough slider (the vaunted “Warthen Slider”). It’s not as far alongside as his rotation mates, however he has the best armslot for it, and the developmental observe document right here is great.”

We have now pitch-level information for the 2015 common season. Matz threw 11 sliders that 12 months and received zero whiffs on it. He’d throw it extra in 2016 with an improved form—extra depth—and improved outcomes, nevertheless it tended to make his arm harm intermittently and he’s been primarily a sinker/change pitcher since 2019 or so. He’s underperformed his top-10 nationwide prospect rating from that offseason, however he’s been broadly a quantity 4 starter, simply not the form I’d have guessed (outdoors of the plain sturdiness issues). He additionally ended up not being the form of pitcher the Mets have been attempting to develop in that period, however I definitely let org contact information my slider projection at that time. And he was throwing it, I wasn’t conjuring it from skinny air.

The perfect argument about being staff agnostic with regard to evaluations, is org context can change shortly even in the event you keep in the identical org. Dan Warthen was gone from the Mets 18 months after I wrote Matz’s blurb. Dave Eiland got here in and the emphasis on sinkers and changeups unfold past simply Matz shortly after. And naturally gamers can get traded. The Rays clearly made a degree to focus on Jackson Baumeister, Brody Hopkins, and Ty Johnson in trades final season. Smarter pitching dev groups choose gamers from organizations the place they’re beneath optimized on a regular basis, simply as they aim school arms from colleges that aren’t as up on fashionable pitch design or utilization. The one fixed for pitching prospects is change, and growth is rarely linear.

We prefer to say that prospect lists are a snapshot in time, so I believed it is perhaps helpful to have a look again at a few of our outdated prospect studies on one other Mets pitcher having a very good begin to 2025 to see what, if something, we will glean.

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Griffin Canning, RHP, New York Mets

The Angels quickly shifting school prospects to the majors is nothing new. Canning was a second-round choose of the Halos in 2017 and was beginning within the majors by April 2019. That’s not that aggressive a path for a PAC-12 starter, and he did throw 113 good innings throughout three ranges in 2018. However we didn’t get a ton of photographs at rating or evaluating him. Canning didn’t pitch after the 2017 draft, though Wilson Karaman famous in his write-up on the Angels checklist that he was a possible first-round choose apart from well being issues. After his fullish 2018 season we wrote this whereas rating him because the 56th greatest prospect in baseball: “sturdiness and well being issues might but restrict him to a mid-rotation final result, however he does have higher stuff than the same old mid-rotation beginning profile.”

Canning got here up in 2019, and pitched largely to the scouting report. He received above-average whiff charges on each his breaking balls, and whereas his heater received hit onerous when it received hit, it did run a 22% whiff fee. The following 5 seasons have been typically marred by accidents—right here come the well being and sturdiness issues—however usually talking, when wholesome he missed bats together with his secondaries, and his fastball received hit onerous. He began throwing his changeup extra in 2023 and 2024 for some motive—it’s common, however unremarkable—however all the time led out with the fastball. The Angels are fairly conventional on the subject of how they need their starters to pitch, and Canning ended up with such a generic four-pitch combine that Jarrett Seidler referred to as him “Joe Random Pitch Combine.” He was dealt to Atlanta in return for Jorge Soler (and extra importantly, Jorge Soler’s contract) and was non-tendered shortly after.

At this level Canning regarded like a busted mid-rotation prospect. You may in all probability blame accidents some, a nasty pitch combine some, a nasty fastball some (we all know much more about fastball form and the like than we did in 2019). If we have been rating 2019 Canning in 2025, he wouldn’t be a High 50 prospect due to how generic the stuff profile was. For those who can’t discover a plus pitch, how positive are you able to be that any will find yourself even common?

Then the Mets signed him to a major-league deal for actual cash. On the time I didn’t suppose a lot of it. They wanted to signal a whole lot of pitchers, and Canning has been fourth starterish prior to now and was probably keen to pitch out of the pen at this level. And hey Steve Cohen can afford a couple of million for a punt, it’s cheaper than bailing out Gamestop anyway. The Mets didn’t simply throw Canning into the mixer although, they made two vital modifications. One, they advised him to throw his slider extra—it had all the time been his greatest pitch—and two, they improved stated slider, giving it extra vertical motion on the identical velocity. Additionally they received a constructive tweak on the fastball form, however he deploys his fastball as a secondary pitch now, and it’s generated extra strikeouts than the slider, as a result of hitters don’t count on it in two strike counts. He has above-average stuff now, and appears the a part of a mid-rotation starter (granted that’s the 2025 model the place you don’t need him seeing the great hitters a 3rd time, not the 2019 model). Generally it truly is a long-term worth checklist. And generally you simply must get off the Angels, however org context isn’t the whole lot both. We have now to alter our analysis context.

Canning having a tweaked breaking ball and pitch combine isn’t a shock insomuch because it was going to be vital, however there needed to be one thing to unlock. No matter our pitch grade projections have been for Canning, the underlying foundation for them was really feel for spin. He ran above-average whiff charges on each his breaking balls even when he was posting 5+ ERAs within the majors. It’s not likely a shock he discovered a workable breaking ball to be his main providing even when it’s not precisely the identical one he threw as a prospect.

It will get weirder once you have a look at pitchers like Paul Skenes and Jackson Jobe including pitches even after making the majors. Jobe himself is a very totally different pitcher now than he was on draft day—that’s one other main element of Jarrett’s Annual essay—however the elementary good pitching prospect traits are nonetheless current in his arsenal. Skenes by chance discovering an elite splinker in a spring pen session isn’t projectable or predictable, nevertheless it’s additionally not a shock that an elite arm pace man who already made enormous stuff jumps year-over-year as an novice discovered an efficient arm-side grip pitch. He was in all probability going to eventually, whether or not it was a splinker, splitter, or kick change.

Is that this an argument to divorce our evaluations from discrete pitch grades to a extra holistic analysis of the participant’s underlying traits? Not as such. There’s simply going to be extra of a public/non-public info hole for a few of this. And you continue to would like they’ve proven the 11 sliders sooner or later. Nevertheless it’s value noting groups—a minimum of the good ones—aren’t concentrating on the 4 potential above-average pitch, good school performers like Canning as a lot as they used to.

If the final word puzzle is determining who will get main league hitters out, we’ve got to a minimum of acknowledge the trail to doing so isn’t so simple as water and develop, or a grade bounce of command and changeup. It’s not seeing 5 good sliders out of 20 from behind house plate and telling your self “effectively in a couple of years he’ll throw extra of the great ones.” There’s the truth is in all probability an underlying motive he threw 15 dangerous ones. It’s not simply wanting on the projectable Texas prep arm that for $1.5 million within the third spherical and betting on the 20 kilos of fine muscle. However we aren’t pitching coaches both and I can’t simply say “give him a bridge cutter” or “that slot is best for a sweeper.” We’re on a dangerous knife’s edge on the surface as public evaluators now, as organizations grind down smaller and smaller developmental benefits. It’s not merely throw your greatest pitch extra (though that definitely labored for Griffin Canning), however reasonably do you even have your greatest pitch but?