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Baltimore pitching coordinator talks O's young arms

By Ben Badler
April 22, 2009

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There aren't many teams in baseball that can boast the group of high-level pitching prospects that the Orioles have in their farm system.

"It's shaping up that at every level, we have some guys that are on the way," Orioles pitching coordinator Dave Schmidt said. "Our hope is that every year we're able to bring one or two new guys to big league camp that the staff there has not seen to add to the mix, keep that line of pitchers coming. We've been very fortunate. We've drafted good kids, good arms every year. So we keep getting the good talent, and it's our job to develop them."

Schmidt spent some time breaking down five of the Orioles' most promising young arms. For more on Chris Tillman, you can find Schmidt's comments on the Triple-A righthander in Thursday's Daily Dish.

On LHP Brian Matusz: "Brian is a college guy coming out of the draft. Chris (Tillman) was a high school guy who was drafted high, so their paths to the major leagues will be a little different. Brian is a little older coming out, a little more polished as a pitcher having pitched three years of college ball, and he pitched at a pretty good level of college ball too on the west coast in San Diego. So he comes out of the draft with some knowledge of how to pitch, knowledge of changing speeds. He has a good changeup and he has a very good curveball. He has a four-pitch repertoire coming out of the draft, so he may be able to advance quicker because of that, just because he's farther along when he signed. He showed us in big league camp the ability to pitch, change speeds, locate the fastball in and out, and just be a pitcher. He has used all of his pitches well and shown the ability to just pitch and change speeds."

On RHP Brandon Erbe: "Two years ago, he needed to make some adjustments in his delivery. He was a little bit violent, and I think it was affecting his ability to pitch down in the zone consistently. He has a very live arm—explosive mid-90s fastball—but he wasn't able to harness it down in the zone consistently. He pitched up a lot, which led to a lot of walks, a lot of high pitch counts and he wasn't able to go deep in games. It also led to a little bit of inconsistencies in his breaking pitch. So he made the effort, we worked on it in instructional league and came back last year with a better delivery, a little smoothed out delivery. He was able to throw more strikes down, he was able to add a two-seam fastball, throw some sliders for strikes and also add a changeup that he could kind of rely on. So he became more of a pitcher than a thrower. The things that I liked that happened last year and the things that we liked are that he was able to pitch more innings, cut down on his walks, keep his strikeouts up. The only thing that really went up was home runs, but I think if you look a lot of those were solo home runs, and I wasn't too concerned about those; he was able to pitch deeper into the game. We felt like he made a lot of progress last year. He's making the jump to Double-A this year, but he should be fine. He's become more of a pitcher."

On RHP Jake Arrieta: "Jake, like Brian, came out of college in the draft, as opposed to Chris and Brandon, who were high school picks, so (he's) a little faster mover because he has more experience coming out. A big strong kid, throws a hard, hard slider, developing his changeup. But he's aggressive—he comes right at you. He made a very good impression in big league camp this year. He got in there and I think not only with his stuff, but his professional manner, the way he went about his business, the big league staff was impressed with him, and that's great. He's a good hard worker, he's focused and he's on a mission: he's going to pitch in the big leagues. When you put that together with some physical ability, you've got a good package."

On RHP David Hernandez: "I think Dave sometimes has gotten, not lost—certainly not lost in our eyes, because we know how good he is—but I think he kind of, with some of the other arms, the high-profile guys in the system, I think he maybe flies under the radar a little, which is unfortunate because he has top-quality stuff. He has the ability to make hitters swing and miss at his fastball, which is rare. I can only remember one other guy in our system since I've been here who had that ability with a swing-and-miss fastball and that was John Maine. Dave has a live fastball, he's got a good breaking ball and a very good changeup. He's got a good three-pitch mix. He's led the league in strikeouts I think everywhere he's gone. The walks have been a little high, but if you look at the batting average against, they don't hit him. He has a very low opponents' batting average, so that's a good sign of stuff. If you give up less hits, you can afford to have a few more walks. I just think he's on the verge of really getting it—he's going to be a good one."

On RHP Bobby Bundy: "He was a physically mature kid coming out of high school. He's a big strong high school kid, shows me a fastball/curveball/changeup mix. Very mature guy for a high school kid. He's got his head on straight, knows what his priorities are already, doesn't need a whole lot of leading around—'hey we have to do this now,  hey we have to do that now'—and he seems to have his focus in the right place.  He is one of the most knowledgeable high school and maybe even college kids I have ever coached, he makes himself better by helping others and not just pitching he knows every position on the field, the way its suppose to be played and the situations that occur.  He didn't get to pitch a whole lot last year, he signed a little late, but he was in spring training, he's in extended spring training now, as long as he just gets the innings it's going to be great for him because he just needs the experience to get going, and he's going to be good.  His curveball is excellent, his fastball has life, he's working on his cutter and his changeup's going to be a good pitch too."

BI Presents: Orioles Top 21 ProspectsSubmitted by Thomas Belmont closeAuthor:

Thomas Belmont Name: Tom Belmont
Email: Tom@baseballinstinct.com
Site: http://www.baseballinstinct.com
About: I was born and raised in NYC. My father was a diehard Yankees fan but not biased and raised me to love the game more than any one team. For that I'm truly thankful to him. My life consists of my Family and Baseball. After 25 years in New York I moved to South Florida and found a love for the minor leagues and with that came my love for prospecting. Some call it Scouting. I just call it fun.See Authors Posts (19) on Wednesday, 22 April 2009 Email | Print

Baltimore Orioles Top 21 Prospects

Welcome back to the Baseball Instinct Top 21’s prospect lists. We’re continuing our break down of each organizations Minor League system with the Orioles, looking at who we believe are the top prospects in the system. We’ll highlight the Elite prospects in green and our Sleeper prospects in red so you’ll know who you should know right now and who you should be keeping a very close eye on.
The elite of each system are the prospects we believe to have the most current value regardless of age, level of play or past production. These are the guys we think will be able to reach a high level of MLB production in time, whether they are knocking on the door or still a few years off. These are the Gems. Our Sleeper prospects may or may not be names that you’ve already heard of, but either way, we think that before the 2009 season is over there’s a good chance that these are the guys who will be making a move up the charts.

Top 21

1. Matt Weiters C BAL 5/21/1986 6′5″:230 ETA 2009
2. Chris Tillman RHP BAL 4/15/1988 6′5″:195 ETA 2010
3. Brian Matusz LHP BAL 2/11/1987 6′5″:200 ETA 2010
4. Jake Arrieta RHP BAL 3/6/1986 6′4″:225 ETA 2010
5. Nolan Reimold OF BAL 10/12/1983 6′4″:210 ETA 2010
6. Brandon Erbe RHP BAL 12/25/1987 6′4″:180 ETA 2011
7. Troy Patton LHP BAL 9/3/1985 6′1″:185 ETA 2009
8. David Hernandez RHP BAL 5/13/1985 6′2″:180 ETA 2009
9. Bill Rowell OF BAL 9/10/1988 6′5″:205 ETA 2011
10. Brandon Snyder 1B BAL 11/23/1986 6′2″:210 ETA 2010
11. Chorye Spoone RHP BAL 11/16/1985 6′1″:215 ETA 2010
 

SHAWNEE — Dylan Bundy didn’t do everything in Sperry’s 5-1 Class 3A championship win over Chandler on Saturday afternoon at Ed Skelton Field, but the sophomore made his presence known.

Bundy pitched a complete game to lead the Pirates to their second consecutive state championship. He also allowed just three hits and struck out 17. And when he wasn’t on the hill, he was at the plate hitting home runs. His three-run shot to center field erased an early Chandler lead and set the tone for the remainder of the game.

Bundy, the younger brother of Baltimore Orioles prospect Bobby Bundy, is just a sophomore but he’s the last of the bunch which is good news for everyone else in Class 3A.

Chandler, which overcame a seven-run deficit against Eufaula in the semifinals, had no answer for Bundy.

"Man, my arm is tired,” Bundy said. "I think I threw 135 pitches, but I felt like I got better and better as the game went on. I felt pretty bad the first three innings but it got better every time out.”

And no, he didn’t expect to strike out 17. Bundy seemed mildly surprised he had that many.

"I knew this team was a good hitting team, I just had to compete like I always do,” he said. "I can’t believe it was that many.”

Sperry coach Bill Fisher is glad to have him. Performances like that aren’t always sure things in state title games, no matter how good you are. At the plate Bundy finished 2-for-4 with a walk. Sperry also got a home run from Jeremy Brenhardt.

"He was unbelievable,” Fisher said. "He totally took the game over, pitching and hitting. For a sophomore it was an amazing performance.”

So what makes the Bundy brothers so good?

"They’re just so competitive it’s not even funny,” Fisher said. "It’s four years in a row we’ve been in the finals and we won three of them.”

Dylan has played against this kid Bryce Harper, who is on the cover of SI  this week, several times.

One time was in OKC  2 years ago at the OK TX Shootout and Dylan threw an inside pitch that shattered his bat. Dylan struck him out several times and his team (OK Bucks) won.

Both are very good and have awesome work ethics to get where they are.