Scouting Report on Baltimore Orioles RHP Grayson Rodriguez
At this time last year, Grayson Rodriguez was a fast-rising, high-helium prospect for the 2018 draft that went from a guy with potential stuff coming out of the summer/fall to a guy getting talk in the top 10. How is he doing in his first full season?
Background
After his big rise on draft boards throughout the spring of 2018, Grayson Greer Rodriguez was drafted 11th overall in the 2018 draft by the Baltimore Orioles.
The Orioles managed their new arm wisely, easing him into pro work, with 9 appearances, 8 of them starts, with their Gulf Coast League team in 2018. He tossed 19 1/3 innings, posting a 1.40 ERA, 1.24 WHIP, 8.8% walk rate, and 25% strikeout rate.
Grayson was assigned by the Orioles to their low-A club in the South Atlantic League in Delmarva. He’s had his innings managed, already skipped once in the rotation. However, when he’s on the mound, he’s been incredibly dynamic, posting a 0.54 ERA over 16 2/3 innings across 3 starts, with a 0.78 WHIP, 9.5% walk rate, and an incredible 44.4% strikeout rate.
Scouting Report
Size/Build
Rodriguez rose up boards last spring in large part due to a significant maturity in his body. Always a big kid, Rodriguez carried some “bad weight” on his 6’5″ frame before really dedicating himself over the summer and fall before his senior season and showing up at a much more “cut” 225-230 pounds. He’s continued work in that regard and probably checks in at 215-225 now, with very little, if any, bad weight on his frame.
Delivery
Cleaning up his physicality has allowed Grayson to take big strides with his delivery consistency. He has a short knee lift to just waist-high and a turn at the waist, exposing the first number on the back of his jersey in his delivery at the top of his knee lift before he explodes to the plate. He generates his big velocity with that twist and being able to do that in his set.
Rodriguez has a fairly long arm path, and in high school, he struggled with synchronizing his upper and lower body, sometimes leaving all the pressure on his arm to generate velocity. He’s eased much better into his thick legs to generate that velocity, and that’s allowed him to have much more consistent arm path and also better control and command of all of his pitches, especially the movement of the pitches.
Control (55)
This is still a work in progress, and probably a true 45 grade right now, but he’s shown already the big strides in pro instruction and cleaning up his body that leads one to believe that he should have above-average control as he reaches the majors, if not even potential for plus control.
Fastball (70)
On pure velocity, Rodriguez probably sits more 60/65 with his fastball, but his ability to locate the pitch already in his first full season is an impressive thing. He typically runs the fastball up to 96-97 and sits 92-95 deep into starts. I’ve had some reports that he was popping 98-99 at fall instructs, so there could be even more velocity there in short bursts.
From his 6’5″ height and 3/4 arm slot, Grayson generates excellent movement low in the zone on the ball, but what has impressed many this year so far is his spin rate and ability to locate in the top part of the zone with the fastball. If he can push both ends of the strike zone with his heat, that’s a very positive thing.
Changeup (55)
I’m very, very impressed with the step forward in his change from high school video I’d seen to the video I’ve been able to see this year. Rodriguez gets good velocity separation, but most importantly, the arm action looks exactly the same. He could definitely bump this grade up as he learns to manipulate the movement of the pitch now that he’s learned how to create the arm movement deception for it.
Curveball (45)
Rodriguez’s fourth pitch by a decent amount, and perhaps not a pitch that he ever gets to average, is his upper-70s curve. He gets good consistent shape on the curve, but like many with long arm action, his arm action can actually serve to hurt the pitch as it seems to give a “tell” to the hitter due to the change in arm speed required to generate the curve.
Slider (60)
For me, this was his best secondary pitch, though the change has improved enough that I can understand anyone who would grade the change above it. Rodriguez’s slider has a bit of a hybrid slider/cutter look to it. He gets up to the upper-80s with the pitch, typically sitting in the 85-88 range. It’s an effective pitch against righties and lefties, seemingly getting the ball off the heart of the bat constantly, generating weak grounders or swing and miss often.
MLB Comp
The comp that immediately came to mind for Grayson may scare Orioles fans to some degree just because of his difficulty staying healthy, but after being selected 19th overall in 2012 from Texas A&M, Michael Wacha moved to the Cardinals by mid-2013, and he’s won 55 games, made an All-Star team, and tossed over 750 big league innings, even with his injury, and this is his age-27 season, which is an impressive accomplishment total by that age for a college draftee.
Wacha’s had very good production throughout his major league career, with 11.1 fWAR in his career, posting a 21.1% strikeout rate and 8.1% walk rate over his big league career. While he has some time to work up to that level, Rodriguez already has comparable raw stuff to Wacha and could be a similar type of pitcher.
Future Role
The comparison to Wacha gives a potential of a #2/3 role in a rotation, but another player I strongly considered was young Max Scherzer, as early on, he worked to use his excellent raw stuff before finding another gear that made him arguably the best pitcher in the game.
I’d personally like to see Grayson consider something like a split-finger rather than the curve as he could maintain his arm speed and get a pitch that has some north-south movement to complement the horizontal movement of his slider and location of his fastball.
He will get plenty of looks in the rotation with that sort of ceiling, but Grayson certainly could be wicked in a bullpen role as well.
Benjamin Chase
After 6 years of writing for FanSided on various sites and offering contributions to various other websites, family changes have encouraged me to start this site. I spend a ton of time watching baseball at all levels, but I love watching minor league baseball on milb.tv as I'm hours away from the closest minor league team. This is an effort of all those games I enjoy on a daily basis!
