Luis Heredia hasn’t had the best results in his time in West Virginia the last two years. In 2013, he came into Spring Training out of shape, which led to him missing half of the season due to conditioning, when that would have normally been his first full season at the same level. Last year he was in much better shape, and went back to West Virginia to get a full season at the same level. However, he ended up missing two months with a shoulder injury, and only threw 89 innings.
The results also weren’t great in either season. He put up a good ERA in 2013, but that was paired with a very high walk rate. The walks went down in 2014, but the strikeouts also took a huge drop, and the overall numbers struggled.
It seems unlikely that the Pirates will send Heredia to West Virginia for a third season. When I talked to Heredia a few weeks ago, he said he didn’t know his assignment for the season. However, he has a goal for 2015, no matter where he starts.
“[Finishing in Altoona] is my goal,” Heredia said. “I don’t care if I play [in Bradenton] or West Virginia.”
Heredia struggled with the numbers last year, but when you look deeper, you get a different story. Like a lot of pitchers who have gone through West Virginia in recent years, he struggled in the first half, and had success at the end of the season. He had a 4.86 ERA in 53.2 innings through the month of July. That included a 22:26 K/BB ratio. In the month of August, everything came together for him. He had a 3.06 ERA in 35.1 innings, with a 21:7 K/BB ratio.
Going beyond the numbers, you get a bit more of the story. The Pirates changed Heredia’s mechanics heading into the 2014 season. They lowered his arm slot from what was more of an overhand slot, to a three-quarters slot. This was to add more control by giving Heredia the same arm slot for all three pitches, and a slot that he would have an easier time repeating. If you look at his month-by-month numbers, you’ll see a gradual improvement.
|
Month |
PA |
BB |
BB% |
|
June |
108 |
14 |
13.0% |
|
July |
107 |
10 |
9.3% |
|
August |
146 |
7 |
4.8% |
As noted above, he also finished the year with 21 strikeouts in August. That was an improvement over July, when he had just three strikeouts. It was also an overall improvement over June, when he had the same strikeout rate, but paired with a lot of walks. Heredia came into pro ball with a 12-to-6 curveball that worked in the mid-70 MPH range. The Pirates started having him throw a slurve in 2012, had him use the pitch more in 2013, and when he fully changed to a three-quarter arm slot, that became his breaking pitch. He is still learning the pitch, and needs to develop it into more of an out pitch.
Heredia was once one of the top prospects in the system, but dropped this year to number 20 in our rankings. As far as the tiered rankings go, he’d be in the same class as guys who were ranked as high as 14th overall. That tier includes recently drafted prep pitchers Trey Supak and Gage Hinsz. And that seems appropriate for Heredia, since he is now closer to a projectable prep pitcher than a strong bet to be a future ace.
There has been a lot written in the past about how Heredia can touch the upper 90s. That’s true, but he has no control in that range, forcing the Pirates to slow him down. He worked in the 90-93 MPH range last year, touching 94, and considering he will be 20 for most of the 2015 season, there’s still a chance he could add velocity. However, unlike most pitchers his age, adding weight and filling out his frame isn’t a focus. Instead, the focus the last two years has been taking off weight.
Heredia lost 40 pounds prior to the 2014 season, after weighing close to 280 pounds in 2013. He said that he lost eight more pounds this off-season.
“Not really easy, but not hard too,” Heredia said of maintaining his weight. “Just keeping it consistent in how I do everything. Keep the bad food away, eat healthy. That’s what I need.”
There could be more velocity in the future, especially if Heredia gets used to throwing from the new power arm slot. But the more important thing is continuing the trend of lowering his walks, which will help him a lot more than a few extra MPH. Another added benefit is that the new arm slot should help him avoid shoulder problems going forward.
“I feel a lot better. I feel more healthy when I throw,” Heredia said of the new slot.
Just like a projectable prep pitcher, Heredia needs to improve the quality of his secondary stuff. The slurve still needs work, and the hope would be that last August was the start of everything coming together with that pitch, rather than just one good month. Heredia also worked on the changeup last year. He had issues with the pitch, trying to throw it slower, instead of letting the grip do the work. That’s when he got some advice from West Virginia pitching coach Jeff Johnson.
“J.J. told me just throw it like a fastball, and it was much better after that,” Heredia said. The changeup should be thrown from the fastball arm slot, with the fastball arm speed, and the main difference is that the different grip slows it down. Once Heredia learned that, he saw improvements with the pitch, and that pitch will be a bigger focus in 2015.
It seems like Heredia has been in the system forever, which makes it easy to forget that he’s only 20-years-old. It’s very likely that he will start the year in Bradenton. To put that in perspective, 2014 prep pitchers Mitch Keller, Trey Supak, and Gage Hinsz will all turn 19 in the first half of the 2015 season. Their optimistic timelines would have them pitching in short-season ball in 2015, West Virginia in 2016, and Bradenton in 2017, when they turn 21.
Heredia is age-appropriate for his projected level, and will probably even be one of the youngest players in the league if he goes to Bradenton. The perspective here is that he is far from a finished product. That seems disappointing, since the expectations coming into pro ball were that Heredia would be a project at a younger age, and would more polished by this point. But the reality is that he’s a guy who had a mechanical overhaul, and has had less than a full season with those new mechanics, while still being at a very young age.
There is still a chance Heredia could be a strong pitching prospect. Right now he’s more of a project than he was projected to be a few years ago. If he continues the strides that he made at the end of the 2014 season, with lower walk rates and improving strikeout numbers, then he will be looking less like a project at the end of the 2015 season. And he might even realize his goal to finish the year in Altoona.
