Atlanta Braves Newcomer Chris Ellis In Depth Review On The Player and Person

Nov 21, 2015; Boston, MA, USA; Notre Dame Fighting Irish mascot Leprechaun throws a baseball before the NCAA football game against the Boston College Eagles at Fenway Park. Mandatory Credit: Greg M. Cooper-USA TODAY Sports

Chris Ellis Scouting Report

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Ellis has the prototypical size that you would like from a workhorse type of pitcher, 6’4 and 220 pounds. He’s got wide shoulders, and he is built well, not holding any “bad” weight on his long frame. He has tremendously long legs and arms, so that does add a different look to hitters.

I watched five of Ellis’ starts for this piece, two for Inland Empire and three (including his playoff start) for Arkansas. In those five starts, Ellis went 2-2 with a 4.61 ERA, 1.35 WHIP, and 6/24 BB/K ratio over 27 1/3 innings.

The first thing that will stand out in watching multiple Ellis starts in one sitting is that you realize that you’re watching different starts. For better or for worse, Ellis is an emotional pitcher, and he reacts on the mound strongly to the goings-on around him. Take the playoff game, for instance. He got through the first four batters in 9 pitches with two strikeouts, and we’re not talking a weak lineup here – Royals prospects Raul Mondesi and Jorge Bonifacio were two of those four hitters, with Mondesi one of the strikeout victims. Then in the next batter, Ellis didn’t get a call on a fastball with some late break that his catcher admittedly didn’t frame well and should have been a strike. He responded by trying to groove a strike, which the hitter drove for a double to the left field wall. Ellis was visibly over exerting himself on the mound after that, falling off hard toward the first base side on each delivery, keeping the damage to one run, but certainly not helping his case as he lost his release point and, thus, his control, requiring more pitches just to get out of that 2nd inning.

Ellis has a fastball that has a lot of life and movement. He tops out around 95-96 and sits in the low-90s primarily, but he alters his grip on that fastball ever so slightly to get sink, arm side run, opposite side sink, and late high rise depending on his gripping of that fastball. He throws a curve ball that runs around 75-78 and a change up with a lot of life that runs around 81-84. The change up is excellent, and when he’s on, it’s a borderline dominant-caliber change.

Until midway through his draft season, he was a reliever, and he’s still showing some signs of not pacing himself well in an inning, seemingly attempting to challenge each hitter as if he can use as many pitches as needed on each hitter. That can sometimes bite him in the butt as his pitch counts pile up in a hurry. He is a pitcher, not a thrower, however, which is frequently an issue for reliever converts.

His mechanics are a major concern for me. Ellis is all arms and legs, and that can be used to throw off hitters, but it can also throw off the pitcher if he doesn’t know where those limbs are going. Ellis notably had many landing marks in the dirt of the mound where his lead foot would strike, which is definitely not a good sign, and his arm slot was all over the place from just below 3/4 to nearly pure overhand.

One thing notable from a right handed pitcher is that Ellis has an incredible pick off move to first base. It was called a balk once, but it’s frequently been said that the best pick off moves from the right hand side are borderline balks.

Next: 2016 outlook

Feb 23, 2015; Lake Buena Vista, FL, USA; Atlanta Braves bullpen coach

(12) watches stretching exercises during spring training workouts at Champion Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Reinhold Matay-USA TODAY Sports

Chris Ellis 2016 Outlook

As much “negative” as was in the scouting report section, there’s a very good reason that Ellis has moved quickly through the system. He has a great frame for pitching, maintains his velocity throughout the game, and is a tremendous competitor on the mound. He profiles as a guy who will hopefully someday eat up a ton of innings in the middle of a rotation, not as a team’s ace, but as a guy that saves the bullpen a lot of innings, akin to a guy like Bronson Arroyo or Dan Haren.

I’ve seen a lot of push to rank Ellis very highly in the Braves system, and I don’t think I’d follow suit. While Newcomb would rank #2 for me behind only Ozhaino Albies, I’d probably have Ellis around #30-35 in the system for me, and a lot of that is because he’s already got 78 innings at AA going for him.

I would wager Ellis will either be the anchor of the Mississippi rotation or part of the Gwinnett rotation to start the season, depending on how the spring turns out. The recent signing of Bud Norris muddies up the waters for the glut of young pitchers the Braves have that would be on track to be at AA or higher in a starting rotation. If he’s started in AA, it won’t be for long, and I expect he’ll see a September call up to Atlanta.

The biggest things for Ellis this season will be consistency and command, and I think the former will help bring about the latter. In 2015, he had 2 starts in which he did not walk a batter in his 26 starts. Extra base runners simply lead to more chances for those little things that happen in baseball to hurt a pitcher, so it’s always best to avoid giving the opposition extra guys on base. If Ellis can make strides in that area while maintaining the exceptional movement he’s able to generate with his various grips, he’s got a chance to become much more than a mid-rotation guy.

Next: Home Run King Retires