Today I wanted to take a look at two pitchers, right handers Layne Somsen and Zack Weiss. Both spent plenty of time in Billings pitching for the Mustangs. Weiss split some time between the rotation and the bullpen, while Somsen was used exclusively out of the bullpen.
Zack Weiss
2013 Stats
| Team | W | L | ERA | SV | IP | H | HR | BB | K | WHIP | K/BB |
| AZL | 0 | 0 | 0.00 | 0 | 2.0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 1.00 | 2.0 |
| Billings | 2 | 4 | 4.70 | 0 | 30.2 | 33 | 8 | 6 | 23 | 1.27 | 3.8 |
| Total | 2 | 4 | 4.41 | 0 | 32.2 | 34 | 8 | 7 | 25 | 1.26 | 3.6 |
Scouting Report
[private_subscriber]
Fastball: His fastball works in the 91-93 MPH range, but is a bit straight.
Curveball: An inconsistent pitch in the 73-76 MPH range, but is an average pitch when thrown at its best.
Slider: His best pitch that comes in at 80-85 MPH with nice breaking action.
Change up: Clearly his 4th best pitch that is below-average.
Other: Struggled with allowing home runs in 2013 due to an incredibly low 30% groundball rate during the season. His walk rate was low, but he also hit several more batters and his control isn’t as good as the walk rate suggests. He struggled at times to find a consistent arm slot during the year, at times having a high 3/4 arm slot, but would lower it some as well.
Layne Somsen
2013 Stats
| Team | W | L | ERA | SV | IP | H | HR | BB | K | WHIP | K/BB |
| Billings | 4 | 1 | 1.66 | 1 | 43.1 | 37 | 1 | 15 | 40 | 1.20 | 2.7 |
Scouting Report
Fastball: His fastball works in the 89-91 MPH that can touch a little bit higher at times.
Curveball: While the pitch is inconsistent, when at its best it is an above-average pitch with 12-6 breaking action. It will flatten out at times and lack good breaking action.
Other: Somsen throws from a nearly over-the-top arm angle, giving him plenty of downward plane on his pitches. That helped him generate a high rate of groundballs in his debut as well as provide more downward action on his breaking ball. Like Weiss, his walk rate wasn’t bad, but his control wasn’t as good as the numbers indicated and will need to improve as he moves up in the future.
[/private_subscriber]