PIT

Reid Detmers, P

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Scouting report

There was some doubt about Detmers' stuff playing in pro ball the way it did in college -- 284 K's in 191 career innings -- both because Detmers wasn't throwing all that hard and because his best pitch's huge arc makes it easy to identify out of his hand. Still, Detmers' four pitches had well-defined shapes and he executed them consistently. Detmers works his heater in on the hands of righties and can run it off their hip and back into the zone for looking strikes. His curveball is hell's rainbow, especially for left-handed hitters who think it's headed for their lips, bail, and watch it bend into the zone. His changeup is typically located down and to his arm side. Plus, velocity has suddenly become the easiest thing to develop in pitchers, even ones well into their 20s. It’s not often that big conference college performers are divisive among drafting teams, but Detmers’ lack of fastball velocity (he sat 88-92 at Louisville) was concerning to some of them. Well, he's had a huge velo spike, and sat 93-95 and touched 97 in an outing not long before publication. It was the second start in a row where he’d averaged close to 94. The new velocity might be part of why Detmers was uncharacteristically wild early in 2021. If Detmers can hold this velo into the summer and start to wield it over the next several weeks with the same precision he did in college, he'll move into the Top 100.