Scouting Notebook featuring Dylan Bundy

By Nathaniel Stoltz | @stoltz_baseball

As someone who frequently discusses prospects in his writing, one of the most important ways for me to get and stay informed about the minors is to attend minor league games. Certainly, statistics, video clips, and even MiLB.tv are invaluable resources as well, but nothing is quite like sitting right behind home plate and taking everything in.

So, without further ado, here are my thoughts on some of the more notable players I’ve had the pleasure of watching in person over the last couple of weeks.

(Cliff Welch/Icon SMI)

Dylan Bundy, RHP, Orioles (Double-A Bowie)

I’ll start with the obvious: Dylan Bundy is a fantastic pitching prospect. You don’t need to go see him to know that. At this point, he’s essentially the consensus top pitching prospect in baseball, which is no small feat for a guy who hasn’t even escaped A-ball and is the least progressed of the top four picks of the previous season’s draft.

So yes, Bundy is terrific. He has four distinct pitches: a fastball with riding life up and in that’s usually in the 92-94 range, a curveball with sharp, big break in the mid-70s, a solid changeup at 81-84, and an upper-80s cutter. The fastball is easily a plus pitch, the curve is unhittable when he sets it up and locates it, the changeup flashes plus, and the cutter is a nice change of pace when he locates it.

Many reports mention the curveball as Bundy’s worst pitch and the cutter as a plus offering, but in my viewings, the cutter looked a bit on the soft side, and several ran out over the plate, while the curve was inconsistent but deadly when he stayed on top of it, forcing some absurd swings by unprepared batters. He’s supposedly been asked to deemphasize the cutter in favor of working on the curve this season—at least the latter half of that seems to be paying off.

Given all the talk about Bundy’s polish for his age, some have suggested he could succeed in a major league rotation right now. Great as Bundy is, that idea is quite a bit off the mark. His biggest flaw at this point is a lack of pitch sequencing ability—compared to some of the polished college arms he was facing, Bundy didn’t have much of a feel for when to go to his offspeed pitches or what to use to strike batters out. It’s completely understandable why this is the case—until he reached High-A, Bundy probably went his whole life getting batters out using whatever pitch he cared to use. Only now is he starting to get any sort of pushback and negative feedback from hitters that will really allow him to assess what is working and what is lagging behind as he advances.

That makes his issue, which isn’t all that big of a deal for a teenage A-ball pitcher, not too difficult to fix, and given that Bundy receives high marks for his acumen and work ethic, there’s no reason he won’t get a better sense of when and where to throw what as he continues to progress. Still, Julio Teheran and Jacob Turner have been waylaid by similar issues in Triple-A and the majors, so it’s not out of the question that Bundy will experience some bumps in the road when he gets to those levels.

Overall, Bundy looks on a path to have a lot of major league success. He has a diverse and effective arsenal with good mechanics and control, with a lot of development time in front of him to tighten things up. He might not quite make it into the Justin Verlander/Clayton Kershaw class of ridiculous aces, but a career along the lines of Matt Cain’s seems feasible. Barring a total meltdown, he’s a #3 starter at the worst.

Carlos Sanchez, 2B, White Sox (Double-A Birmingham)

I actually saw Sanchez in his last game in High-A, so I feel fortunate to have caught him before he was promoted out of the area (He’s hitting .382/.425/.485 in 16 games since the promotion)

I first noticed Sanchez on the stat sheets when he hit .288 in Low-A last year despite turning 19 years-old midway through the season. Making enough contact to do that at such a young age, and playing up the middle defensively was a nice starting point, thought.                                                                            

So I’ve been a proponent of Sanchez throughout the 2012 season, but I was surprised when he exceeded my already-lofty expectations. Sanchez has hit .326 this year between High-A and Double-A, and he’s barely a month past his 20th birthday. Watching him, it’s easy to see how he does it—the switch-hitter has a very quiet setup, particularly as a lefty, and utilizes a short, compact swing to consistently square the ball up and spray liners into the                     outfield.                      

Sanchez does lack power and physical upside: his 5’10” frame is maxed out, and he’s hit three home runs his entire career. He did hit a triple to deep center when I saw him, but I got the sense that he couldn’t hit the ball a whole lot farther than the 350 or so feet it traveled, nor did he project to ever add any power. He is a sound defender and baserunner who has above-average speed underway.

Given how strong his hit tool is already, and how much time he has to refine his approach from this already advanced point, Sanchez projects as a top-of-the-order bat who can produce .300/.350/.380 batting lines while providing sound defense at second base. Given Chicago’s frustration with Gordon Beckham at the keystone, it wouldn’t be a shock to see Sanchez on the South Side a year from now.

This is an excerpt from the August issue of Big Leagues Monthly| Magazine.