There’s been a ton of buzz around Luis Escobar, the flame-throwing righty of the West Virginia Power. Escobar’s 46 strikeouts through six starts are tied for the most in Minor League Baseball, but that number has come at the expense of control and run suppression. For Escobar to rise through the system, having a 96 MPH fastball isn’t enough. He’s going to have to improve his command.
While Escobar outranks his fellow South Atlantic League pitchers in terms of strikeouts, he ranks woefully low in other significant categories. He is the ninth worst starter in terms of ERA (4.99) and earned runs allowed (17), and he has allowed the second-most home runs (5). These are all indicative of Escobar’s inability to keep the ball low in the zone.
COMMAND
Escobar has had trouble with his release point and solidifying a repeatable delivery. His move to the plate is, at times, forceful and can push him off to the first base side of the mound. At other times, he seems perfectly in control, keeps his front shoulder aligned well with the plate, and lands ready to field any come-backers. The variables here cause some of Escobar’s command issues, according to Power manager Wyatt Toregas.
“He has a drop in his back leg,” Toregas explained. “When he rushes through that, the balls are up in the zone.”
Those balls up in the zone frequently land in the seats or the gaps so simplifying his delivery will be crucial to Escobar’s continued success. Pitching coach Drew Benes notes that the erratic delivery, ironically, comes from Escobar’s intense desire to compete.
“When we talk about attacking, some guys can take that into physically with their delivery and trying to do to much,” said Benes “So with him, we talk about, ‘You attack in your mind, you attack in your heart,’ but there’s body control.”
Benes added, “When he controls his body and syncs everything up, he’s very good. When he starts to try to do too much, he doesn’t locate as well.”
An example of this night-and-day Escobar would be his last two starts. On April 30, in Rome, Georgia, Escobar pitched well despite striking out less than nine batters for the first time all season. In five innings, he gave up two runs on four hits. (It should be noted that two of those hits were a lead-off home run and a lead-off double.) On May 6, though, Escobar’s control issues reared their ugly head. He gave up seven runs and seven walks. Of his three hits allowed, two were homers and the other, a double.
The above video shows a little of Escobar’s bad habits on the mound. He has a lot of movement and hitches in his windup, and his release point comes early, leaving the ball up in the zone. The catcher set up low and slightly outside, but by the time the ball reaches the plate, it’s waist high and ripe for a homer.
Toregas dismissed the rough night, saying, “Your results here don’t really matter, but they do. It’s a grey area.”
Instead, Toregas would like Escobar to focus on development in the long-term over results in the present. “He needs to learn how to control his stuff a little bit better. He needs to learn how to pitch a little bit better because at the upper levels, everybody has good stuff,” he said.
STUFF
So much attention has been paid to Escobar’s fastball that the fact that he has two plus pitches other than the heat sometimes gets lost. Complementing the fastball are the curveball and the changeup.
Escobar rarely uses his changeup simply because he hasn’t needed it. If batters can’t catch up to the fastball, he’ll keep blowing it by them. If they start to make contact with the heat, he’ll give them a curveball to make them chase. Benes summed up the curve in one word: “nasty.”
The two-pitch combo has been successful in Low-A, where fewer batters have developed their plate patience.
“He can throw [the curveball] a lot and get a lot of guys with it, but we’re trying to get him to be more fastball-changeup oriented,” said Benes.
An advanced hitter may be able to pick up the break of the curve and lay off it, forcing Escobar to go back to his fastball, which the batter has been sitting on. Since the changeup comes out of the hand like the fastball, it can devastate a hitter’s timing.
“If he can throw his changeup, he can keep hitters off balance,” explained Toregas, “which is going to make the curveball also play up and they can’t just guess fastball.”
Developing the changeup may mean more outings like the one he had on May 5. In order for the pitch to develop and feel natural, he’ll have to use it in games in a variety of situations that may or may not call for a changeup. Escobar will likely have to sacrifice results and flashy statistics to prepare himself for an eventual move to Bradenton and beyond.
Manager Toregas and pitching coach Benes are cognizant of this catch-22. Benes said that Escobar will have to “find times to throw [the changeup] to develop it even though he doesn’t necessarily need it right now at this level.”
With stuff like Escobar’s, everyone is keeping an eye on the future. Both Toregas and Benes sound confident that Escobar has the goods to make it to the majors some day, but without the command and changeup, he may not make a lasting impact with a big-league club.
“In the Major Leagues, everybody has those pitches,” Toregas said. “It’s how they use them that keeps them in the Major Leagues.”
If learning to use those pitches means sacrificing a minor league ERA title or walking a few more batters, Toregas will happily make that call.
“He has an ability to, really, do whatever he wants whenever he wants because his arsenal allows for that,” said Toregas. “He has explosive stuff.”
