Pro Pitchers I Saw in College

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.

November 28, 1999