On a day when Jonathan Mayo pegged Jesse Winker as his favorite to win the minor league batting title, he came back later in the evening with his Top 10 right handed pitchers in the minor leagues.
Here’s what Mayo had to say on Stephenson:
8. Robert Stephenson, Reds: Taken in the first round of the same 2011 Draft that saw Bundy and Bradley go in the top 10, Stephenson was selected No. 27 overall from the California high school ranks. He had an up-and-down year in Double-A in 2014, but his raw stuff is still as exciting as ever. There’s work to be done to become more pitcher than thrower and that will help him rediscover his command. That would allow him to fulfill his potential as a future front-of-the-rotation starter.
That really sounds like more of the same from what you (or well, I) heard when asking around and people who had watched him in 2014 had many of the same things to say. No one was concerned about his stuff at all, it usually came down to people thinking he would lean on throwing rather than pitching at times and it got him into trouble.
Here’s some new video, well, new to the internet, of Stephenson from August when I made the trip to Pensacola.