Joba Chamberlain Scouting Report from Pags
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From Mike Pagliarulo of www.BaseLineReport.com
'The Yankees have called up Joba Chamberlain and sent down Brian Bruney. The 21-year old power pitcher is coming off a two inning performance in Scranton where he struck out five out of six minor league players. The Yankees intention is to ride the young horse to the playoffs. Chamberlain is a mature player for his age and maintains three plus major league pitches. The Yankees feel he does not need development any longer and is ready to pitch in the majors. '
Fastball: Plus life through the strike zone. A fastball sitting at 96-97 as a reliever. Tops out at 100. He has below average command with this pitch and he likes to use it early in the count to get ahead. With runners on base he will use his fastball more often because he is slow to the plate. His FB shows some tailing action to his armside. (96-99)
Curve: His curve is a 12-6 type curve. He will use this pitch early in the count to good fastball hitters. He is capable of throwing this pitch for a strike. It is a hard curveball with good depth and rotation. He’ll only use it as an outpitch to RHH when he feels they can get on his fastball. At this time it is a plus pitch (79-84)
Slider: A hard slider, with not much break to it and thrown to his gloveside. He likes to throw his slider as an outpitch with no runners on base. He tends to get on the side of it creating some sweep action, but that is not by design. He will get more strikeouts with his slider than he will his fastball. His best slider is off the plate and out of the hitting zone. (88-92)
Change : Chamberlain’s changeup is used against LH only. He doesn’t have a lot of confidence in it and will only show it when he is ahead in the count. It has small tailing action to it (80-84)
Overall: One of the Yankees “Core Prospects”. Chamberlain has a power arm and is being groomed to pitch out of the pen for the Major League club. He has not pitched much in 2007 nor has he pitched much in his career with the Yankees out of the pen. He is a quick worker, a bit hyper on the mound, and tends to overthrow his pitches. His command is below average, but he doesn’t walk many batters as everyone will get a FB to hit.
Most of his strikeouts will come from his slider, a plus swing and miss pitch that will act as a cut-FB at times with depth. Chamberlain can throw his FB, SL, and CV for strikes. He will attack the strike zone early. His body is similar to that of Roger Clemens. He gets good arm extension but tends to get violent with his delivery. He has a quick arm action that creates deception for the batters. Difficult to pick up his release point.
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