8/22/14

MMs Top 25: #13 LHRP Jack Leathersich



#13 LHRP Jack Leathersich (LR: #16)
Bats: R Throws: L
Height: 5' 11" Weight: 200 lb
Age: 24
Acquired: 2011 Rule 4 Draft, 5th Round, University of Massasschusetts- Lowell

2014: (AA/AAA) 3-3, 3.26 ERA, 49.2 IP, 1 SV, 15.2 K/9, 4.2 BB/9, 1.329 WHIP
2013: (AA/AAA) 4-0, 4.63 ERA, 58.1 IP, 3 SV,15.7 K/9, 6.9 BB/9, 1.646 WHIP
2012: (A/A+) 2-6, 3.00 ERA, 72.0 IP,  2 SV, 14.1 K/9, 4.0 BB/9, 1.153 WHIP
2011: (SS-A) 0-0, 0.71 ERA, 12.2 IP, 1 SV, 18.5 K/9, 2.1 BB/9, 0.711 WHIP
     
     First I was on the Leather Rocket express, then I was off, but once again I'm back on. Leathersich has always had control problems and they became more pronounced when he was promoted to Las Vegas last season. His performance was poor enough that the team re-assigned him to Binghamton to re-collect himself once again.

     Just like his last stint in Binghamton, Leathersich was flat out dominant. He struck out 79!!! guys in only 46 innings while keeping his BB rate under control at 4.1 per 9 innings. In fact, over his final 18 innings in Binghamton he was able to get that rate all the way down to 3.0 per 9 which is fantastic progress. Leather was promoted to AAA again at the beginning of the month and while it seems like he is struggling again, thanks to a 7.36 ERA; Leathersich has actually continued to pitch well.

     In his first 5 appearances back, Leathersich has faced 19 batters. 5 (26%) of them have struck out, 2 (10.5%) have walked, and 5 have gotten base hits (.294 batting average). While the hits seem pretty bad, only 1 of them was a solid contact line-drive. Encompassing everything, the overall periphals look strong. If he can continue at that 26% to 10.5% K to BB rate, he's going to be perfectly fine in AAA this time around and could potentially be ready to be a MAJOR piece in the MLB bullpen.

Ceiling: Stellar 8th inning bridge to the Closer (Andrew Miller)
Floor: Reverse Platoon Left handed specialist vs right handers (Antonio Bastardo)

3 comments:

Tom Brennan said...

Someday we'll have a Black Leather nite at Citi...Black striking out the side in the 7th and Jack striking out the side in the 8th. You can put it in the books!

Unknown said...

I am a fan of your website, but i dont agree at all with your way of ranking our prospects. You rank non prospects Travis Taijeron, LOGAN VERETT and DUSTIN LAWLEY over potential top 100 prospects in Marcos Molina and Amed Rosario. Just because the players are in the upper minors doesnt mean you should rank them that high. Travis Taijeron, Verett and Lawley will never be more than AAAA players while Rosario and Molina can be all stars. Same goes to Morris, Stuart, and Reynolds to a lesser extent, as they can be productive major leaguers

Mack Ade said...

Emmananuel -

First of all, that you for your kind words about the web site.

Christopher Soto ranks the prospects here and he seems to choose to give a higher value to players that are getting closer to the big leagues. I understand your comments about Rosario and Molina... and I too in the past used to do this ranking and it was easy to get caught up in a one yea wonder (example: Vincente Lupo, or Mark Cohoon) who looked like he was going to take on the world, but time is usually the best test when it comes to prospect ranking...