The Seedlings To Stars 2012 Top 100 Prospects, #91: Chad Bettis

Name: Chad Bettis
DOB: 4/26/89
Organization: Rockies
Position: Pitcher
Notable 2011 Stats: 3.34 ERA, 2.73 FIP, 10 HRA, 45 BB, 184 K, 46% GB% in 169 2/3 IP with Modesto (High-A)

Why He’s This High: Like #95 prospect Barret Loux of the Rangers, Bettis put together an excellent age-22 season in High-A in his first full pro year, striking out over a batter per inning while maintaining excellent walk and homer rates.

Bettis has a couple of things going for him that Loux does not–he succeeded in a much more difficult environment (pitching in the Cal League as opposed to the Carolina League), he had a half-season of utter dominance in 2010 on his record in addition to 2011, and he has none of Loux’s rather well-documented injury concerns.

Like Loux, Bettis was a high draft pick in the 2010 draft, going 76th overall, and he boasts a well-rounded arsenal of pitches.

A fairly small pitcher at 6’1″ and 180 lbs., Bettis has a quick arm that allows him to unleash his fastball in the 91-94 mph range. He also boasts a slider and changeup that currently are about average but have plus potential. Bettis utilizes a relatively clean delivery that is very repeatable–the only issue is that he throws slightly across his body. Bettis does an excellent job of incorporating his lower half, which combines with his good arm speed to create velocity in spite of his small size and without putting undue stress on his arm. He does take the ball out of his glove early, so batters might get a good look at it, but that clearly hasn’t been a problem for him yet–he doesn’t do it out of the stretch, either.

Why He’s This Low: Like Loux and Trevor Rosenthal, the two pitchers lower than him on this list, Bettis wasn’t particularly young for his level, and it does say something that his organization opted to let him spend the entire year in High-A despite his obvious dominance.

As with Loux, we’re talking about a polished college arm who has yet to face upper-minors hitters and who doesn’t have one knockout pitch. While it’s not too much of a stretch to see his stuff taking an overall jump later on, there’s a decent chance that Bettis is what he is, and that he’ll settle in as merely an average-across-the-board type of pitcher. He still needs to show that his excellent strikeout-to-walk ratio won’t have a major drop against more advanced batters. As it is, he’ll turn 23 in April, so he’s the sort of prospect who will need to move quickly or risk being moved to relief, where some believe he may fit better due to his smallish frame and bigtime arm speed.

Conclusions: Bettis is not an incredibly high-upside pitcher, as he’s not particularly projectable and is fairly old for his level as top prospects go. That said, he’s above-average across the board in terms of both his arsenal and statistical profile, and that makes him a good bet to be, well, an above-average starting pitcher in the big leagues. You don’t see pitching statlines that are this excellent across the board that often in the Cal League, but Bettis’ ability to tame that environment speaks well to his potentially mastering the similarly foreboding confines of Triple-A Colorado Springs and, finally, Coors Field.

Put simply, few pitchers below the Double-A level have better odds of becoming useful MLB pitchers, though there are quite a few who have a better chance at turning into aces.

Previous installments in the Seedlings To Stars 2012 Top 100 Prospects:

Introduction
#100 Tyler Pastornicky
#99 Henry Rodriguez
#98 Francisco Lindor
#97 Yonder Alonso
#96 Taylor Green
#95 Barret Loux
#94 Christian Yelich
#93 Ronald Torreyes
#92 Trevor Rosenthal

For more on the Rockies, check out Rox Pile!

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