Nick Tropeano tries to succeed in the majors despite a slow fastball. He weapon is an excellent change up. He worked on it with coach Mike Roberts on Cape Cod:
Most days, Roberts asks the Kettleers to play catch using their changeup grips. He proselytizes about Pete Maravich’s habit of holding a basketball in his hands all day long. He stresses the importance of staying behind the delivery of the changeup to make it look like a fastball for as long as possible.
When Tropeano arrived on the peninsula after his sophomore season at Stony Brook University, he already possessed a predilection for off-speed pitches. His fastball topped out at about 88 mph, so he understood he needed a changeup to succeed. He had been experimenting with two distinct grips, one playing off a four-seam fastball and one off a two-seam fastball.
And, at a lanky 6 feet 4, he had the potential for more.
“He has such beautiful, long fingers,” Roberts said by phone this week. “I can see them now.”
Roberts and Tropeano worked on it every day for 10 weeks. By the end of the summer, Roberts said, Tropeano owned the best right-handed changeup he’d ever seen from a college pitcher. The next school year, Tropeano emailed Roberts pictures of his grip, which the coach still displays to college kids each summer.
While throwing hard is excellent, pitchers can make in the majors with an 88 MPH fastball is they change speeds well. Tropeano owns good three-true outcome numbers in both the majors and minors, but his ERA seems high. At the major league level, batters produce a lot of fly balls against someone who throws a two-seam fastball and change up.
Tropeano represents an unusual mix of talent. Good defense in the Angels outfield might help his ERA. More major league innings under his belt could help. He might be a bit predictable with his fastball. A full season of pitching should tell us more.
from baseballmusings.com http://ift.tt/1Sz4muw
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