Pittsburgh Pirates Prospect: Two 2015 Draft Picks Dazzell

The Pittsburgh Pirates took a lot of college arms in the 2015 Amateur Draft. In fact, the Pirates took 6 college pitchers in the top 10 rounds.

There was two specific pitchers from the Pittsburgh Pirates 2015 draft who threw last night in the minor leagues.  The Pirate’s 5th round pick Brandon Waddell and their 10th round pick Logan Sendelbach both threw strong games.  Both have been covered on the site before.  Waddell is a left-handed pitcher out of the University of Virginia and was the winning pitcher in the College World Series Championship game in 2015.  Sendelbach was not as known coming into the Pirates’ organization.  This is mainly because he was drafted out of Tiffin University in Ohio.  With that all being said, they both have performed well so far this year.

Last night Waddell made his 5th start of the season against Jupiter, a Marlin’s affiliate.  He threw 6 strong innings for the High-A Marauders.  In those innings he struck out seven players while walking none. The thing that made him so effective last night was his ability to get ahead in the count and keep the ball down.  Waddell is a lefty who has a lot of deception with his 3/4 arm slot.  When he is ahead of the count he is able to generate a lot of swings and misses by nibbling on 0-2 and 1-2 counts.

On the year Waddell now possesses a 0.93 ERA.  His strikeout to walk ratio is very impressive sitting at 26 strikeouts to two walks.  The Pirates tend to move players quickly through High-A, so if Waddell continues to dominate at this level he could get moved up to AA by June.

Logan Sendelbach found himself on the mound against the Rockies Low-A affiliate Asheville.  He threw 6.1 innings and gave up zero runs in that span.  One negative is that he only struck two batters in the start.  Sendellbach is not a big strike out pitcher.  He is successful by pitching to contact and getting ground ball outs.  He did this last night by producing 8 grounds outs compared to 3 fly outs.

On the year Sendelbach is 2-0 with a 1.32 ERA.  In 27.1 innings he only has 14 strike outs to 3 walks.  Sendeclbach was a college pitcher therefor could be viewed as advanced for the Low-A level.  The right-handed pitcher also could receive a quick call up to High-A in June if he continues to pitch well and show good control.

Related Story: Waddell Future Friday

Both these pitchers got wins last night and continued to lower their already impressive ERAs. For more info on Waddell see a write up above from a Future Friday post.  For more info on the minors check this link “minors”.