While we wait – and wait – for the Bryce Harper saga to come to its conclusion here’s some info on one of the other draft picks who signed today. Sammy Solis is a left-handed pitcher from San Diego, which has a nice little track record lately of producing big-league pitchers, including Baltimore’s Brian Matusz.
The 51st player chosen overall in June’s draft and the first pick of the second round, Solis was 9-2 with a 3.42 ERA for the Toreros in 14 starts as a junior. At 6-foot-5, 225 pounds, Solis has the look of a power pitcher. But while his size suggests that – and the Nats believe he could add velocity as a professional – in truth Solis had excellent control in college with a 3.7/1 strikeout-to-walk ratio.
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After impressing scouts at the Cape Cod League in the summer of 2008, Solis missed a chance to capitalize on that performance because of a herniated disc in his back suffered while lifting weights. Instead, he had to redshirt in 2009. But the Nats say he’s healthy now and Solis didn’t miss a start as a junior. There’s some thought he could move quickly to the big leagues. Solis just turned 22 last week and while he doesn’t have the ceiling of a Stephen Strasburg – or a Jordan Zimmermann for that matter – he does project as a middle-of-the-rotation pitcher. That’s still a valuable commodity.
Spoke with Nats scouting director Kris Kline just after he selected Solis in June. His fastball was tracked anywhere from 88 to 94 miles-per-hour this season and he has two different curveballs – a slow one that sits at 73 or 74 and a slurve that’s a little harder at about 80. That pitch is the one Solis uses to get batters out. The only problem? His arm doesn’t always sit in that higher slot.
Kline called it “a wandering arm”, noting that Solis’ college coaches at San Diego likely teach their pitchers to use different arm slots for their breaking ball. Kyle Blair, another San Diego pitcher who was a 4th round pick of the Cleveland Indians, does the exact same thing. Kline sees it as an easy tweak during Solis’ development phase in the minors. Solis has a chance at a 60 fastball, according to Kline. That’s scout speak for above average, not miles-per-hour. The breaking ball is also above average – at least the power version – and he has a nice feel for his change-up. Some observers see it as his best pitch, though Kline didn’t say that.
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