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.
Thanks for reading; feel free to contact me at gyoung@cts.com if you have comments about this article or just want to talk baseball.
November 28, 1999