Anthony Solometo: Lefty Showed Great Approach In First Professional Season

The Pittsburgh Pirates went heavy on high upside prep players in the 2021 draft, with Anthony Solometo taken first among that group. A lefty out of New Jersey, Solometo was also the first to make their professional debut among that group, pitching for the Bradenton Marauders.

He would go on to pitch 47 2/3 innings across 13 appearances, eight starts, and post a very impressive 2.64 ERA that was backed by a FIP of 2.83.

Solometo struggled with his control at times, with a walk rate just north of 10%. Based off his age (19) and the level he was pitching at, along with with his strikeout rate (27.1%), it was a great start to his career.

The thing that was most notable with Solometo during the draft process, and lead up to his debut, was the delivery. Somewhere in between Madison Bumgarner and MacKenzie Gore, Solometo’s delivery plays a large factor in his approach to hitters, as it helps disguise the ball for as long as possible.

After he was drafted, the Pirates seemed ok with him hitting the mound without making any specific changes to it, and then adjust should any problems should come across.

What was maybe most impressive when it comes to Solometo, was just how advanced he looked out there on the mound, showing awareness above his years and experience. Solometo features three pitches, all of which work well off of each other based off his release and the movement.

Fastball

In his own way, Solometo broke statcast, just not in a way we are use to seeing with Oneil Cruz. With the movement on his pitches, especially his fastball and changeup, looking so similar, Baseball Savant had a difficult time picking up the difference between the two.

There were a few games that the fastest pitch logged was credited as a changeup (92 mph at times), despite having the velocity and spin rate of the fastball.

So logging them for a traditional breakdown was harder, and I opted for a more video based breakdown.

Solometo’s fastball sat in the low 90s this season, and ranged in between 88-93 throughout the year. It had really good tailing action, and Baseball Savant listed it primarily as a sinker based off the movement.

One thing I noticed in watching him pitch was his struggles in throwing inside on righties at times, as the delivery does seem to limit his control. He did hit his spots at times, getting some called strike calls on the glove side part of the zone, but it did appear he overthrew a lot when aiming for that area.

Using the pitch to the arm side fastball primarily was still effective for Solometo, as he was able to jam up lefties and get righties chasing.

Slider/Changeup

I didn’t hear much about Solometo’s changeup during the process, and even through his first full season, FanGraphs doesn’t have a grade for one on his profile page. While you’d probably like there to be a little more separation when it comes to the velocity between the fastball and changeup, with such similar movement on the two it helps keep batters off balance.

You can see early on him forcing batters into either weak swing and misses, or beating the ball into the dirt for a grounder.

The slider had good break on it, but like the fastball, he didn’t throw it to the glove side as often. He threw a beautiful back-door slider on a righty that broke right into the zone for a called strike three. Against lefties he threw it the same way, trying to get it to start it at the hitters hip and have it break into the zone. There wasn’t much video available of him trying to get lefties to chase away with the pitch (he did have quite a few appearances on the road that weren’t televised).

Full At-Bats

I also decided to show some full at-bats that really stood out through watching Solometo this season.

The first clip shows him throwing that slider on the glove side of the plate, against a righty. It was thrown too far in and taken for a ball, but he also came back and broke one in back-door the very next pitch that was fouled off for strike two. He struck out the hitter by getting him to chase a fastball away.

One of the biggest adjustments young pitchers have to make is throwing their secondary pitches for strikes — sometimes having to work backwards and lead with secondary over the fastball to keep hitters guessing. In the second clip he did that, with three of the four pitches being sliders. The last one was in on the lefty, who swung and missed at it.

In the third clip, it was really the last three pitches that stood out. Down 2-1 in the count, Solometo throws a fastball that breaks down and low on the lefty, almost like a reverse back-foot slider, with the hitter swinging and missing. He went away with a slider before coming back in with another fastball that is also swung and missed at for the strikeout. He didn’t throw that slider away often, but when he did, he paired it well with his other pitches.

The final clip shows Solometo more on the aggressive side than we usually see, the velocity doesn’t jump much but he throws the fastball higher in the zone than he usually does, using that to set up the changeup low and away for a strike three.

Making Adjustments

Adjustments are one of the biggest parts of baseball, and Solometo had to make plenty throughout the season. It was a great sign he was so successful at making them on the go. Probably the biggest he made was in his delivery, specifically when in the stretch. Solometo eliminated the leg kick with runners on base after allowing four stolen bases in his first start.

He allowed just one stolen base the rest of the way, with runners successful just 25% of the time.

Solometo was one of the youngest players in Single-A this season, and with the way he pitches, that’s probably going to be a theme going forward as he seems to have the pitch ability that could let him move on the quicker side of things.

It will be interesting to monitor his progress throwing in/away from righties/lefties and it would be nice to see the velocity get an uptick, but regardless Solometo took a great step forward in his first pro season and showed why he was one of more hyped up prep pitchers in last year’s draft.