I was able to take in the game on Wednesday night with Robert Stephenson on the mound. It was my first chance to see him in person after being limited to small amounts of video from his time in Billings and watching on Milb.tv for his first start with the Dragons as they visited the Great Lakes Loons. Going into the game, I wasn’t sure exactly where I stood with the #1 pitching prospect in the organization between Stephenson and Daniel Corcino. Stephenson clearly had the larger upside while Corcino has the polish and MLB closeness on his side. After the game and going back to watch the video, I was able to make up my mind.
Video
Observations
In the video above, Stephenson shows off his plus fastball, a plus curveball and a good change up. The ability to show off three good pitches at his age is a very good sign. Mechanically, he seems to be clean, loading behind his back with his throwing arm. Unlike his first game with Dayton, where he was admittedly nervous and perhaps overthrowing early leading to less than stellar control of his fastball, on this night he was in control of his fastball for the most part. His fastball sat 95-97 and he touched both 94 and 98 three or four times each. His curveball is a very strong pitch right now and while it isn’t always a plus pitch, it is more often than it isn’t. At 78-81 MPH it is about 16-20 MPH slower than his fastball. The change up was coming in between 85-87 MPH, a solid 10 MPH off of his fastball velocity and had a little bit of tumble in it. One thing I have heard rumblings of is that he had been slowing his arm action down to throw the change up. Well, I decided to check it out for myself. I took video from back to back pitches where he threw a fastball followed by a change up and synched them up so that he was releasing the ball at the exact same time, then put the two next to each other so we can see if his mechanics look any different.
Fastball/Change Up comparison Video
In this video at least, there seems to be absolutely no slowing down of the arm speed to throw the change up when compared to the previous pitch which was a fastball.
Overall Impression
After watching the game and going back and watching all of the video (including some that I didn’t put in either of the two videos above – simply to save myself editing time), I decided that at least for me, Stephenson is the guy I see as the Reds top pitching prospect. While he is still several years away from the Majors, he just has a special kind of arm that you don’t often see. He has three quality pitches at age 19, can hit triple digits on the radar gun, solid mechanics and is able to throw strikes. While his command could improve, his control is there most of the time.