Ten days ago I wrote about Amir Garrett after being able to watch him on Milb.tv. He made one more start in Billings after that, then was promoted to Dayton and made his debut with the Dragons on Saturday night. Being able to see a player in person is always better than being able to see video of them, so I made the hour trip up to Dayton.
Video
As you can see in the video, Garrett was throwing all three pitches in the game and mixing things up quite often. Not shown in the video is the first inning, where he really struggled with his control, particularly of his curveball as he bounced 4 or 5 of them in front of the plate resulting in three wild pitches. He was stronger with his control after that inning. He mixed in his change up more than I expected to see and unlike his last start that I saw, had much better arm action with the pitch. His fastball looked good at times, but varied in velocity throughout the game quite a bit.
Scouting Report
Fastball: As noted above, his velocity varied quite a big during the game. In the first inning he was consistently 90-92 and touched 93. After that first inning though, he dipped down to 87-90 at times, with short periods of time where he was 89-91 and touched 92 every now and again. The pitch does have some good armside run to it, but he was inconsistent with both his velocity and his control of the pitch at times.
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Change Up: The pitch was better than when I last saw him. He sold the pitch much better with his arm speed. Garrett threw the pitch in the 80-84 MPH range. Like his fastball, he struggled some with his control of the pitch as he left more than a few up in the zone or even up and out of the zone.
Curveball: Another pitch that was inconsistent on this night. Early on, he simply couldn’t throw the pitch for a strike or even get it to the plate without bouncing it. He made the adjustments as the game went on and later on was able to hit the zone with the pitch with frequency. He threw the pitch at 70-74 MPH throughout the night and with his arm angle it would sweep across the zone and have some tilt to it as well.
Other: In his previous start that I saw, the mound presence wasn’t there for Garrett. He was visibly rattled when things didn’t go his way, once prompting a visit from the pitching coach. On Saturday he was much more composed, at least visibly. Overall he has the right stuff to become a successful pitcher. He has three pitches and all of them have potential to work at the next level, but he is still rather raw and it will show up at times. Finding consistency will be key for Garrett, but with his college basketball career still going, it cuts into both his spring and summer pitching that could delay how long it takes him to get there or if he ever will.
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