PEN
Tarik Skubal, P
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Scouting report
Skubal had recovered enough from Tommy John to throw a few bullpens for scouts toward the end of his junior year, but his camp thought he could do better than what was being offered, so he returned to school for his redshirt junior year. He was horrendous early the next season before he slowly began to throw more and more strikes as the draft approached. He's dominated opposing hitters since signing, amassing 212 strikeouts in 145 minor league innings before his 2020 big league debut. Until he set foot in the big leagues, Skubal had some relief risk because he was working with his fastball at a bizarre rate in the minors. His delivery looks like a pterodactyl is trying to throw a baseball, and it forces hitters to deal with a very strange look and angle, as well as big velocity and carry at the top of the zone. So unhittable is Skubal's heater that he's struck out 37% of hitters during his minor league career (48% over the final few weeks over Double-A play in 2019) while throwing the pitch roughly 70% of the time. No current big leaguer with a fastball that plays at the top of the zone throws their fastball that much, and anyone close to 70% is a sinkerballer. During his initial 2020 big league trial, Skubal was quite wild early on but, just as in his draft year, he slowly started to work more efficiently toward the end of the summer. His changeup (which has lateral action but almost no sink, which is sort of bizarre) and slider are now clearly his best non-fastball weapons, though he can only reliably throw the fastball for strikes. In addition to some of the visual command problems, Skubal's release point is highly variable. Because he has such a nasty mix of stuff, and because he has shown a slow, but relevant command progression in the past and seems to be doing it again, we're still inclined to project Skubal as a mid-rotation starter rather than the highest-ranked reliever on this list. He'll generate amazing rate stats early in his career but probably won't work deep into games, but he has top-of-the-rotation ceiling if he can develop better command. (Alternate site, MLB)