With the MLB Draft coming up on June 6, I’ll be looking at some potential targets for the Orioles at picks 22 and 37. Below are profiles of Andrew Thurman (University of California, Irvine), Marco Gonzales (Gonzaga), Aaron Blair (Marshall) and Alex Gonzalez (Oral Roberts). All velocities are based on conversations with the pitcher’s coach unless otherwise noted. All statistics are as of June 4. The second part of this series will be published later this week.
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The last year the Orioles’ first round pick was as low as no. 22 was 1998, the same year that the movie Armageddon was released.
It’s been awhile.
The O’s picked 26th in the first round and took a high school outfielder named Rick Edler. The last time the Orioles picked 22nd was in 1997; they took a high school catcher named Jayson Werth. This year’s draft, meanwhile, is not unlike all the other drafts before it – there will be a premium placed on college arms.
The pitching in the draft is “fairly deep, but there are four levels,” wrote Jason A. Churchill of Prospect Insider in an e-mail to Baltimore Sports and Life. “[Mark] Appel and [Jonathan] Gray, potential aces, then No. 2-3 types including Ryne Stanek, Chris Anderson, Alex Gonzalez, Braden Shipley, then another group that comes with similar upside but more risk such as Aaron Blair or Ryan Eades. The last group is the safer, No. 3-4 types like Marco Gonzales, [Andrew] Thurman.”
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Thurman, a right-hander, entered the UC Irvine baseball program as a freshman with an aptitude for pitching, but threw in the upper 80s and touched 90 mph. Three years later, Thurman’s stuff has taken a leap forward, sitting 91-93 mph and touching 95-96 mph with his fastball, which UC Irvine pitching coach Danny Bibona attributes to Thurman’s work in the weight room and in conditioning himself. Thurman, 21, is listed at 6-foot-3 and 205 pounds.
“He didn’t always have this electric stuff,” Bibona said in a phone interview. “He always knew how to pitch, how to mix.”
Thurman has retained the ability to mix and locate his pitches as his stuff has ticked up, according to Bibona. In addition to the fastball, Thurman throws a 12-to-6 breaker, slider and changeup.
“He started off the season pretty sharp, but faded some and is getting a lot of 51-53 range OFPs from checkers I am inquiring with regularly,” Churchill wrote. “That’s a No. 4 starter, maybe a light No. 3 on the high side. His best pitch is his changeup, reportedly coming in at 79-83 mph, with his curveball his best breaking ball looking forward. He uses the fastball-changeup combo a lot and when he has a feel for the latter he’s tough and very effective against left-handed batters.
“He might be this year’s Michael Wacha, whose breaking ball was below-average heading into the draft, despite good fastball velocity and a plus change. Thurman doesn’t bring quite the upside of Wacha, in my opinion, but he does create fastball plane and understands the value of the ground ball out.”
Thurman struggles with telegraphing his pitches by not having the same arm speed on all of his pitches, Bibona said. Thurman is also working to sharpen a few more aspects of his game in particular – keeping the ball down in the strike zone, controlling the running game and getting the leadoff hitter out.
Thurman threw 100.1 innings this year, striking out 91 and walking 19 with a 3.23 ERA. Bibona believes that Thurman should be able to go straight to a full-season team after signing with an organization and could reach Double-A not long after that.
“His character and makeup will help him go really far in this game,” Bibona said.
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Gonzaga left-hander Marco Gonzales is generally considered one of the most polished products in this year’s draft. Gonzales’ high floor and the fast track that he could take to the big leagues is undoubtedly intriguing for teams picking in the back half of the first round.
“I’d imagine Gonzales could handle Double-A,” Churchill wrote. “But conservatively Advanced-A might make some sense, at least for a handful of starts and depending on how the club that drafts him wants to use him after a 100-plus inning college season.”
Gonzales, listed at 6-foot-1 and 185 pounds, posted a 2.80 ERA in 106 innings for Gonzaga while striking out 96 and walking 25. Gonzales has done it with a fastball between 88 and 92 mph, along with a changeup, slider and curve.
“He uses a steady mix of located fastballs,” Gonzaga pitching coach Steve Bennett wrote in an e-mail. “He mixes fastball in and out to get the hitter off-balance then uses his changeup mostly to right-handers, and his slider and curve to left-handers.”
Wrote Churchill: “He throws strikes with everything, almost always has his stuff near its best and possesses well above-average command of his fastball. He sits 88-91 mph, but one concern is that once he goes to every five days rather than every seven, he may lose a tick off the fastball and sit 86-88, but he could be Jason Vargas with better fastball command from the get-go.”
Like Thurman, Gonzales’ work off the diamond paid off for him during his three years at Gonzaga. “He has gotten in much better shape, gotten a lot stronger, and with that his velocity has grown,” Bennett wrote.
Still, not all of Gonzales’ offerings are completely refined.
“The one thing I could say that Marco needs to work on it is his slider,” Bennett wrote. “It is a new pitch that he has just recently started throwing a lot. It has come a long way but I see it as a pitch that could easily become a very, very good pitch with a little more work.”
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Listed at 6-foot-5 and 220 pounds, Aaron Blair of Marshall looks the part of a prototypical big, power right-hander. Indeed, Blair can hit 96 mph with his four-seam fastball, but he wasn’t always that way.
“He’s made steady improvements every year,” Marshall pitching coach Joe Renner said via telephone.
Blair threw his fastball anywhere between 85 and 90 mph when he walked onto Marshall’s campus as a freshman. He flashed 92 mph by end of his freshman year; 92-93 mph is now his “comfort zone” with the four-seamer, according to Renner. Blair only had a fastball and curve coming out of high school, so he worked extensively on developing a changeup throughout his college career. Renner believes Blair’s changeup is now his best secondary offering. Blair also utilized a two-seamer more in his junior year.
“I keep hearing “more two seamers, more two seamers,” and that’s because Blair can get outs with two pitches — four-seam fastball up to 96 and a 50-55 grade curveball that flashes as plus,” Churchill wrote. “He generally has pitched at 89-93, but with 50 command, sometimes better. The changeup has improved quite a bit in the last year or so, with help from his time on the Cape, and now it’s a legit offering and sometimes plus, and he’s not afraid to throw it 1-0 or 2-1, and to right-handed batters and left-handed batters alike.”
Blair, though, has to do a better job of avoiding big innings. In his 13 starts, Blair allowed three runs in one inning five times. “That’s something, as he gets older, he’s going to do a better job with damage control,” Renner said.
Blair struck out 84 batters and walked 36 in 82.0 innings of work this season, which spanned 13 starts. He allowed just one home run.
“I don’t think he would be challenged a whole bunch in rookie ball,” Renner said. “I think he would probably dominate rookie ball, to be honest.” Renner suggests an A-ball start would be best for Blair once he signs.
According to Baseball America, Blair tested positive for Adderall in pre-draft testing, but that is not expected to impact where he’ll go in the draft.
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If you look at a mock draft or big board, one name that will likely pop up before Thurman, Gonzales and Blair is Oral Roberts starter Alex Gonzalez, a right-hander listed at 6-foot-3 and 200 pounds.
“I text polled five national cross-checkers and two of them prefer Chris Anderson to any of that group, and one likes Blair more than Gonzalez,” Churchill wrote. “I think it’s safe to say among those four, however, Alex is probably the better bet to go in the top 15-20 picks, and it’s because he has a 4-pitch mix and is a strikeout-groundout pitcher, with command and a physical frame with repeated delivery. His arsenal is simply a little better and further along than the other three, suggesting he not only may bring the most upside potential, but also may be the first of the group to work his way to the big leagues.”
According to Gonzalez, he throws a four-seamer at 90-93 mph and what he deems a “slider/cutter” at 85-87 mph. He also has a curveball and changeup.
“I get ahead of hitters with my fastball or slider,” Gonzalez wrote in an e-mail. “Then according to count, I make my next pitch choice. When hitters are behind in the count, I locate my off-speed lower in the zone – 1-2 or 0-2, sometimes 2-2. I rarely use my changeup and when I do, it’s usually to lefties when the count is 0-0 or 0-1 or 1-0.”
The Orioles, as evidenced by their handling of Dylan Bundy, do not like young pitchers in their farm system throwing cutters. Would that impact the Orioles evaluation of Gonzalez and their likelihood to pop him at 22 if he got to that pick?
“I can’t speak to the Orioles’ preferences, but in no way would I shy away from that for any reason,” Churchill wrote. “If the kid can pitch and doesn’t have red-flag mechanics — he doesn’t — there is no issue here, for me. He does have three other average or better pitches, and here is where consistency and command push him over the top a bit.”
Gonzalez pitched 113.1 innings this season, punching out 126 batters and walking just 27. He posted a microscopic 1.83 ERA.
Luke Jackson was born and raised in the Baltimore area and currently lives in College Park, Md. Jackson is a May 2013 graduate from the University of Maryland with a B.S. in broadcast journalism. Luke was the programming director at WMUC Sports and broadcasted Maryland football, basketball and baseball, among other sports.