ATL

Zack Thompson, P

Edit player ✎
Baseball Reference → FanGraphs → MLB →

Scouting report

Arguably the most talented college arm in the 2019 draft, Thompson fell (at least in part) because of injury issues speckled throughout his amateur career. He was used pretty conservatively in a bullpen role after he signed for workload/health reasons, then spent 2020 at the alt site rather than race to the upper levels like most Cardinals college draftees tend to. The headline pitch here is the curveball, a deadly, mid-70s parabola much like Liberatore's. Like Libby, Thompson's fastball traits don't fit perfectly with it, which limits his curveball utility, but it's a great in-zone offering he can use to get ahead of hitters. His velocity actually ticked down throughout 2021 spring training -- he was 90-94 early, then 88-92 late -- but a source told me he was back up to 95 the week before this list published. There's a new-ish cutter/slider here, too, and it's interesting that even though Thompson has elite curveball spin rates, that hasn't translated to the spin on the cutter/slider at all; that pitch's rates were close to 2,000 rpm during the spring. It looks below-average to the eye. He threw few if any changeups this spring. So health and pro development hasn't enabled Thompson to make a rapid, instant leap in stuff quality. Rather than a No. 4/5 starter foundation with a chance to really pop, he looks more like a low-variance No. 4/5 guy. (Alternate Site)