Video Scouting Report on Arizona Diamondbacks RHP Levi Kelly
The Arizona Diamondbacks low-A affiliate in the Midwest League at Kane County is flush with raw arm talent, but few have turned more heads this year than Levi Kelly. Who is the young right-hander, and what can Arizona Diamondbacks fans expect from his potential future?
Background
Levi Hunter Kelly was originally born in West Virginia. At age 15, he took the risk of moving to Florida to the prestigious IMG Academy in Bradenton. This gamble paid off for Levi, as he was an 8th round draft pick of the Arizona Diamondbacks in 2018, receiving a $350,000 bonus, which was just over twice the slot value for that selection.
The maturity required to move nearly 1,000 miles from home for your final years of high school and be able to maintain focus came through in his approach to his professional development. Kelly pitched 4 games and 6 innings with the Diamondbacks Arizona Rookie League affiliate in his draft year in 2018, not allowing a single run, posting a 2/6 BB/K ratio.
With so little pro experience in his draft year and an 8th round selection, Kelly was fairly off-the-radar coming into 2019. Even after very positive showing at instructs, Kelly was expected to open in extended spring before going to the Diamondbacks’ short-season A-ball club in Hillsboro, with the hope to move to low-A Kane County by the end of 2019.
Instead, the performance that Kelly displayed in spring training and extended spring early on convinced Arizona that he was ready immediately for Kane County in May, making his first start on May 4th. He’s now made 19 starts on the season, throwing 90 1/3 innings, with a 2.19 ERA, 1.06 WHIP, 9.04% BB rate and 32.33% K rate.
Scouting Report
Size/Build
Levi is a right-handed pitcher and is listed at 6’4″ and 205 pounds. His build looks right around those numbers if maybe even a touch slim for 205. Levi has long legs and long arms, which could give him the appearance of being taller than his listed 6’4″.
Delivery
Before getting into his actual delivery, one thing you notice immediately about Levi Kelly on the mound is that you have very little time to process what you see. He gets the ball from the catcher and moves immediately to ready position to pitch. His games are very fast-paced for that reason (a scout’s dream).
Kelly shades toward first base on the rubber, but not all the way to the first base side. He never seems to get completely upright in his delivery, but he is rather tall all the way to the point that his lead leg lands.
Kelly takes a short step back and toward his second baseman to open his windup before squaring his lead hip and shoulder toward the plate. He has a slight lean back on his hips at the peak of his delivery before coming toward the plate. His arm comes almost pure over-top in a high 3/4 slot with a bit of wrist curl around the ball just before he delivers that adds a hair of deception to hitters.
From the stretch, he has a more compact delivery, bringing his knee up and back to the point of essentially touching his right knee before pushing forward. This is all a very quick motion, and I did note that while he then lines up most of the time in his landing spot toward home, he did have more inconsistency issues with his landing spot than from windup, though this was more in stride length than being off in his direction to the plate.
One intriguing thing is that Kelly has an impressive pickoff move, and it does allow him to limit damage as he can keep baserunners close.
Control (55)
Unsurprisingly for a high school pitcher in his first full season, Kelly is more control than command right now, but when it comes to his two primary pitches, he’s definitely making the transition to command, especially with his fastball to the top and bottom of the zone. One big thing to note with the fastball and slider is that Kelly’s over-top arm slot and stride adds to his ability to have a well-commanded pitch be very effective.
One concern to watch with Kelly is that he does work at almost a frantic pace on the mound, and if he’s had any control/command issues this year, it’s tended to be a snowball effect, where he gets off on one hitter and is moving so quickly that he doesn’t take the time to reset himself and gather when he could be off just slightly in his delivery at that moment, causing the control issues.
Fastball (65)
Kelly’s fastball has excellent arm-side run with natural angle from his high arm slot. He runs the pitch up to 95-96, sitting more in the 92-93 range, even deep into games. He tends to see excellent “rise” on the pitch up in the zone, usually working his top velocity up in the zone. While his natural velocity is more of a straight plus grade, the impressive movement on the pitch is why I bump it up a half grade.
Slider (60)
Working in the mid-80s, I may be short-selling Kelly’s slider. He gets a unique and impressive 10-4 break on the pitch, which really messes up a hitter on first viewing as the depth he gets in his break is not something you typically see from a slide piece.
Kelly does struggle to work the pitch from middle to arm-side, however, which can limit its true effectiveness and keeps it as a pure 60 for me right now.
Curveball (50)
Watching 7 starts of Kelly’s, I probably had less than 20 quality viewings of his curve, so it’s hard to really give a ton of description on it. The good ones I saw were a bit sloppy in shape, but well-located and had late break that was more 12-6 with a similar tunnel and look as the slider. Even if he can simply sharpen the break on the pitch and/or improve location, he could have a very usable 4th pitch due to tunneling and view for hitters.
Split-finger (55)
The split-finger has been identified as a split fastball and a split change, depending on who you talk with, and that’s not uncommon across the game right now. Depending on where you let the ball sit on your fingers seems to be the general difference, but it can be a situation where you see no difference in velocity between a change or fastball.
Kelly has a unique take on it, really combining a split-finger fastball and a slider in what he terms a “splutter”. The break is completely impossible to square up, even if it isn’t a huge swing and miss pitch for Kelly. He’s just started his new grip on the pitch this year, so it’s very feasible that he could see this take another big leap forward in command and consistent break with more experience throwing the pitch.
MLB Comp
This comparison could really excite some Arizona Diamondbacks fans while those who don’t remember just how good he was may find me mentioning Mat Latos as a very good comparison for Kelly as a scary thing. Latos is a pitcher who shined bright for a short burst, but injuries quickly derailed what looked to be a very promising young career.
In his first few seasons in the majors, Latos was a guy who had an average fastball between 92.5-93.5 MPH along with a slider around 84 and a curve in the upper 70s. His change was seen as a split-change long before the pitch became popular, coming in around 10 MPH behind his fastball.
What makes Latos a very good comparison is both his size/arm slot (Latos is listed at 6’6″, 245 pounds, but he was leaner when he first came up). Both are very long in their limbs within their build, and Latos had a noted wrap in his wrist before releasing his pitches, akin to what Kelly does right before he throws his pitches.
Future Role
Kelly certainly could move fast with the fastball/slider combination as a bullpen piece, especially as a multi-inning option. He’d profile as a high-leverage reliever along the lines of the role Archie Bradley was used for in the Arizona Diamondbacks bullpen before his recent move into the closer role. However, he has shown so much growth over this season already as a starter that it is hard to imagine removing him from that role very quickly.
As a starter, Kelly will likely need to see either the curve or split develop to a true plus pitch along with his control also ticking up to at least plus in order to see him move beyond a #4/5 starter projection, but his splitter especially has the chance to project to that level, and that could give Kelly the chance to work as a mid-rotation starter or even better if he continues his progression with control/command.
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!
