Every Pitch of Drew Thorpe’s DEBUT!! #54 OVERALL Prospect!!

Drew Thorpe’s debut highlighting every pitch he threw. All pitch selections are from baseball savant. His stat line was 5 IP, 1 ER, 4 SO, 2 BB, and 3 hits. He ended with no decision. The game ended 4-3 Mariners.
Pitch abbreviations:
CHG - Changeup
4SFB - 4-Seam Fastball
SL - Slider
CUT - Cutter
SWP - Sweeper
Game from June 11, 2024.

[@UpAndComingMLB]

Here are my thoughts on Thorpe:
Thorpe was fine in his debut, showing off his plus-plus changeup very well. We’ll start with the change, it’s incredible, you think it’s a fastball grooved down the middle until it falls off the face of the earth straight towards the plate. He used the changeup more than any other pitch and had a 37% whiff rate on it. His 2nd best pitch is the slider/sweeper, the sweeper is a bit slower and has more horizontal break than the slider. They’re probably just average pitches but are good enough to get some whiffs. Even though Thorpe has two at least average pitches, Thorpe’s fastball is really bad and may limit him to back end of the rotation ceiling. It averaged 91 mph and unlike a guy like Landon Knack, it doesn’t feature any impressive rise for a guy with such low velocity. Some people are able to make up for bad fastballs with great command, and while Thorpe limits walks he really didn’t have great fastball command in this outing. He has good command of the changeup though and did paint some fastballs on the edges. If Thorpe can command his fastball better, there’s no doubt he’ll be a potential all-star pitcher, but right now the fastball is so awful it diminishes his good secondaries. It’s a really unique issue of a guy with good secondaries but a bad fastball. He’s only 23, but I’ve never seen a guy be able to develop a fastball from below average to at least average so late in a career. As I said above, I think Thorpe might just be a back of the rotation guy despite the phenomenal changeup.