The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of: Zach McAllister

Many popular opinions of pitching prospects are formed from general scouting reports. While these reports are invaluable resources, they can’t always be trusted. Hundreds of minor league hurlers are credited with “mid-90′s velocity,” but very few MLB starters actually have that grade of heat, for example. It’s incredibly frustrating to hear about a pitcher with “a mid-90′s heater and plus curve,” only to have him come up to the big leagues and show a fastball that averages 90.5 mph and a slider.

When a pitcher come up to the majors, we can finally get a foolproof reading on what exactly his arsenal is comprised of, thanks to the great Pitch F/X system. In this series, I analyze just that–the “stuff” of recently-promoted MLB pitchers. Now that they’ve achieved their big league dreams and thus factor directly into the MLB picture, it’s high time that we know exactly what these guys are providing.

This time, I’m taking a look at Indians starter Zach McAllister.

For most of his minor league career, Zach McAllister was sort of the quintessential “average” prospect. He always did enough to be considered a potential member of a big league rotation down the line, but nobody ever saw him as a #1 or #2 starter.

The former Yankees prospect finally cracked a big-league roster this year with the Indians at age 23, and he posted a 6.11 ERA in four starts. That seems pretty bad, but can be more accurately broken down into two terrible starts (his first two) and two very solid starts (his final two). Furthermore, he had a 3.37 FIP, as he posted a 14/7 K/BB while allowing just one homer in 17 2/3 innings. Basically, he was victimized by a .403 BABIP in a small sample, and while one could cite his 27% line-drive rate as the main driver of the elevated BABIP, that’s also likely to come closer to a normal rate in a larger sample.

As one would expect from an average prospect, McAllister has rather average stuff. He works with an 89-93 mph fastball with good sink from a three-quarters delivery. He uses it a little over half the time, leaning on the pitch more heavily against lefties than righties.

One of the biggest issues with McAllister that immediately jumps out is his fastball location. Just look at how many pitches are up and out over the plate to righties:

And the issue doesn’t go away to lefties:

That’s no area to be throwing any pitch, let alone a sinking fastball with middling velocity. But here’s the weird thing–it actually worked out for McAllister. His fastball drew a 5.6% whiff rate against lefties (okay, not great), but went for a strike 66.3% of the time (to be expected given all the balls down the middle, and only was put in play 19.1% of the time (now that’s a surprise), instead often being fouled back (25.8%).

Against righties, the pitch was put in play more often (23.7%) than it was fouled off (19.7%), but shockingly, McAllister drew eight whiffs in 76 pitches (10.5%).

Of course, that’s all small-sample, not to mention the fact that hitters were facing the righthander for the first time. McAllister’s called strike rates with the fastball were fairly low, which is not surprising; maybe he is indeed doing something that’s causing batters to have trouble driving those up-and-over-the-plate fastballs, but it’s nearly inconceivable that McAllister could find a way to make batters not swing at those pitches.

Certainly, the one positive to take away from the fastball here is that McAllister is going to pound the strike zone with the pitch, and he shouldn’t have too much trouble with walks. His 1.80 BB/9 rate in Triple-A this year supports that. Now all he has to learn to do is to throw quality strikes with the pitch (Step 1: Down In The Zone), and he should be fine.

McAllister complements the fastball with an array of offspeed pitches that include a cutter, a slider, a curveball, and a changeup. He throws a lot of sliders and cutters to righthanders, and together, they comprise nearly as many of his pitches to his fellow righties as the fastball does. Against lefthanders, however, he’s far more varied, employing all four offspeed pitches in addition to upping his fastball usage by nearly 10%.

Let’s look at the slider and cutter to righthanders:

McAllister leaves a few too many sliders up in the zone, but he does get a bunch of them down and away from righthanders. As with the fastball, he looks to have gotten away with it, as just 5 of those 37 sliders were put in play, while 6 of the 37 were whiffed at and 27 of them overall went for strikes. It’s certainly a usable offering against MLB righthanders, arriving at 80-85 mph with good break.

The cutter is a different story. It’s always up in the zone, and none of the 33 cutters to righties have been swung on and missed. Just 16 went for strikes.

His principal offspeed offering to lefthanders was a 77-82 mph changeup with plus movement. McAllister didn’t miss down the middle like he did with his other offerings, but he also struggled to find the zone as a whole:

Just 10 of his 25 changeups to lefties went for strikes; two were whiffs. The pitch has the raw tools to work quite well, as it comes in over 10 mph slower than his fastball and features an extra six inches of sink and three inches of run; he needs to work it in more and locate it better for it to turn into a plus pitch in the majors.

And that seems to be the theme with McAllister. There’s enough here to make for an MLB starter, perhaps even an MLB third starter, but he seems very unrefined. Too many pitches are left out in the middle of the plate, and his patterning and pitch usages don’t seem to be where they need to be. McAllister looks like a pitcher who, reeling from a poor 2010, decided to simply pound the zone in 2011 with little regard for other variables. That worked just fine in Triple-A, since he’s got enough stuff to make a hitter occasionally whiff, and Triple-A batters often got themselves out; the big leagues are a different beast. It might seem odd to say this about a guy who walked 1.80 batters per nine innings in Triple-A, but McAllister needs to take the step from thrower to pitcher. Time will tell if he ever “gets it,” but if he does, he could be an asset to a major league rotation.

For more on the Indians, check out Deep Left Field.

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