There may be no prospect that has been harder to get a handle on than Carmen Mlodzinski. Part of Ben Cherington’s first draft class with the Pittsburgh Pirates, the righty out of South Carolina was drafted 31st overall in 2020, pitching last year in Double-A Altoona.
He had a hard to decipher season in Altoona this past year, which has been the story the majority of Mlodzinski’s career. He topped the century mark in innings pitched, and was among the system leaders in strikeouts with 111.
Mlodzinski allowed just 10 home runs last year, despite a 45.7% fly ball rate. He posted a higher than average 17.7% home run/fly ball rate in the hitter friendly Greensboro park last year. He recovered in Altoona to a 7.3% mark.
Throughout the season, Mlodzinski wasn’t really able to gain momentum, despite having some strong outings scattered throughout the year. The Pirates experimented with him coming out of the bullpen, or having an opener start the game in front of him.
It wasn’t the biggest of sample sizes (just five games in relief), but in that time he did post a better K/9 (10.18 vs 9.31) and BB/9 (1.77 vs 3.81) as a reliever compared to being a starter.
The biggest thing is continuing to find himself as a pitcher, what works best, and what is the most effective way to get hitters out.
He’s made progress, especially towards the end of the season, and watching him on video, there is actually quite a bit there to build off of going into 2023.
Fastball Approach
This is maybe where the most experimentation has happened over the last year or so, with the righty trying to find the best way to attack hitters.
Over his last couple of starts, he started to attack hitters up in the zone more with his two-seam fastball, especially against righties.
As you can see throughout this video, the end result was a lot of weak contact. He gave up a single on a pitch that was in on the hands, and it blooped in the middle of no where in-between the defenders.
Using the elevated two-seam fastball, he generated five swing and misses just in that two minute video alone. As the game progressed, and he started to get the release point of the pitch, you can see the contact getting weaker and weaker.
His ability to throw the pitch glove side makes it that much more effective against lefties, as well as a secondary look against righties.
Slider Off The Fastball
Throwing his slider off his elevated fastball has led to some hard hit balls, but it’s sharp, down and away movement from righties is hard to track when the two are working in sync. In his last start of the season, he attacked hitters early and often with the slider, working the fastball off of it (more on that later).
Splitter/Offspeed A Weapon?
Of course any key to a starting pitcher is the ability to throw a third pitch, unless you are Spencer Strider of course, to help keep batters off balanced as you face them multiple times in a game.
Mlodzinski’s offspeed acts a lot like a splitter, with some downward/falling off a table action to it. How he incorporated it in his last game was impressive, actually waiting to work it in later in the game, after he went through the lineup one time.
He showed every hitter the same thing, had success with it, and before they could adjust, mixed in another pitch that again worked off his other two offerings.
The first few pitches in the video were an entire at-bat where he mixed in his fastball elevated in the zone, while changing the eye level the hitter throwing the offspeed low. It ends in a strikeout on a filthy pitch that looked like it fall off a table and worked away from the hitter.
I threw in some video from his September 4th start against Erie to show some of the progress and how at times it doesn’t have the same shape to it, but still has the tumbling action.
Putting It All Together
A few looks at Mlodizinski facing a couple of hitters in his last start of the season. Against the first batter of the game, he throws three straight sliders to start things out. The first one he broke over for a called strike one, the next two were a swing and miss, and fouled off. He finally finishes the hitter with a fastball up and in that the hitter couldn’t check swing.
Next up he switches things up, throwing all fastballs up in the zone before getting the hitter to swing and miss at a slider in the dirt. The last one was him just blowing fastballs by him, the last two swing and misses.
Mlodzinski was my pick for a prospect whose second half surge I’m buying, and I’ve written multiple times on his stuff and his search to put it all together.
It’s never been a matter of whether he had the stuff to be successful. It was putting it all together.
The last month of the season, even the game he got hit around a bit, was perhaps the best he’s looked. Perhaps he finally found the kind of pitcher he wants to be, and will go from there.
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