Last time, we reviewed some of the hitters I’d seen in college. Now we turn to the pitchers. As with the hitters, unfortunately there were a couple of top young prospects I missed when they came to town, most notably Jeremy Ward and Barry Zito, so I won’t be talking about them. But enough of that; let’s take a look at a few of the good young pitchers I did see and check out how they did in 1999.
00 99
PITCHER Org Age School Drafted Lvl W L ERA G GS CG SHO SV IP H R ER HR HB BB SO WP AVG
Bess, Stephen Det 23 Rice 99(16) A- 0 0 1.06 7 1 0 0 2 17.0 9 2 2 1 0 7 23 1 .153
A 1 1 0.93 12 0 0 0 3 19.1 12 2 2 0 0 7 23 1 .174
*Kurtz-Nicholl, Jes KC 23 Rice 99(10) A- 5 2 3.08 24 0 0 0 0 38.0 39 19 13 0 0 14 38 4 .262
Pautz, Brad Phi 23 Minnst 99(4) A- 8 4 4.06 13 13 2 2 0 77.2 77 37 35 4 1 30 58 4 .264
*Pettyjohn, Adam Det 23 Fresno 98(2) A+ 3 4 3.77 9 9 2 0 0 59.2 62 35 25 2 1 11 51 2 .257
AA 9 5 4.69 20 20 0 0 0 126.2 134 75 66 13 8 35 92 4 .270
*Ramos, Mario Oak ?? Rice 99(6) SIGNED LATE -- DID NOT PLAY
Weaver, Jeff Det 23 Fresno 98(1) AA 0 0 3.00 1 1 0 0 0 6.0 5 2 2 0 0 0 6 0 .227
MLB 9 12 5.55 30 29 0 0 0 163.2 176 104 101 27 17 56 114 0 .278
* throws left
Stephen Bess: I don’t remember much about Bess except that he looked like he threw pretty hard. He had a very nice debut at two Class-A leagues. Also played some outfield in college.
Jesse Kurtz-Nicholl: Southpaw hurler with a live arm. Good slider is murder against lefties. Kurtz-Nicholl got his pro career off to a good start at short-season Spokane. He could move up quickly and eventually end up in the Royals’ bullpen as a situational lefty. Like Bess, he saw some time in the outfield at Rice.
Brad Pautz: My recollection of Pautz is about the same as that of Bess. Hard-throwing righthander. I believe he was used in relief at Minnesota but I’m not entirely sure about that. Pautz had a solid debut at Batavia.
Adam Pettyjohn: I actually didn’t see Pettyjohn pitch but I included him anyway. I don’t know anything about his repertoire but I do know that the Colorado Rockies had expressed interest in him during trade talks with the Tigers. His strikeout rate dropped after a promotion to Double-A but was still pretty decent. Good control is a plus. Pettyjohn threw a lot of innings, which is a bit of a concern in light of the fact that Fresno State has been known to work its pitchers pretty hard.
Mario Ramos: Ramos is a smallish southpaw built in the Ron Guidry/Jim Parque mold. He has a smooth, compact delivery. A decent fastball is set up by a nasty overhand curve. He throws strikes and works both sides of the plate. When I saw Ramos pitch, he occassionally left his fastball up, especially as the game progressed. Ranked the 39th best college prospect coming into 1999, according to Baseball America, Ramos “isn’t overpowering, [but makes] up for it with an advanced understanding of pitching.” Fellow southpaws Mark Mulder and Barry Zito get the headlines but Ramos should be a fine prospect in his own right.
Jeff Weaver: Weaver skyrocketed to the big leagues and got off to a terrific start with Detroit before the league caught up with him and hung some ugly numbers on him. When I saw Weaver in college, two things immediately struck me about him: first, he was murder on righties but southpaws abused him; and second, he threw 136 pitches. Weaver is a fine prospect but I do worry about his college workload, and he needs to find a pitch to counteract lefties; otherwise opposing managers will continue to stack their lineups–nearly 60% of the big league hitters he faced as a rookie batted from the left side. It’s hard to say what effect his initial exposure to the Show will have on Weaver–hopefully he’ll be able to learn from it and bounce back strong. Personally, I’d like to see him at Toledo in 2000, where he can refine his off-speed stuff and experience extended success above Double-A. Weaver’s got a real good arm but he needs to learn a few more tricks to consistently get hitters out at the highest level.
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