Atlanta Braves Top 100 Prospect – #7 Lucas Sims Scouting Report
Lucas Sims Scouting Report
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To get an idea of both Sims struggles and what he did different in his successes in 2015, I chose two games against Winston-Salem with Carolina, one on April 22nd, and the second his last game with Carolina on July 16th. I then selected his first AA start and his last two AA starts to watch. In those 5 starts, he totaled a 2-1 record, 2.00 ERA, 1.22 WHIP, and a 14/29 BB/K ratio over 27 innings.
Sims is listed at 6’2 and 225 pounds. He looks like those are fairly accurate numbers, and he’s certainly physically mature in his 21 year-old body. His motion can be fairly easy, but one quick thing you notice in his struggles is that he has to be consistent in his wind up to have success. Sims has a pretty standard step back as he works from the first-base side of the pitching rubber, then he brings his knee up to his glove at the peak of his wind up. When he’s going well, that knee is consistently around letter height. When he struggled with his location, his knee would sometimes not even get as high as his belly button. When the knee didn’t get high, he lands his leg early and ends up throwing across his body. His trail leg is also notable when he is off as his right leg will lift up and quickly back down in his follow through when he’s struggling and making cross-body throws, leaving Sims in bad fielding position. However, when he can get his trail leg up and rotating over his right hip, he ends up in great fielding position at the bottom of the mound in his follow through. He also seems to add to his pitch location with that last bit of leg torque that “forces” the higher leg lift.
Sims comes from a 3/4 arm slot that can appear more over-the-top when he’s really going well, which does add to a bit of deception. He uses a four pitch mix, led by a fastball that sits 91-94 and topping out at 96. The fastball has some good late horizontal movement, moving arm side more strongly at the lower end of the velocity, and picking up some sink along with the arm-side run at the 93-94 range.
Sims uses three off speed pitches. His headliner since his draft has been a curve that baffles hitters due to his ability to throw it seemingly with the same arm motion as his fastball. It is a “hard” curveball, running up to 82, but usually sitting more around 80. It doesn’t have a big, looping motion, but instead has a more sharp, late break that really gets hitters off-base. The pitch that really made huge strides as the season went on, especially as he worked more with Matt Kennelly in Mississippi, was the change up. He runs his change up in the 81-83 range, and it seemingly mirrors the movement of the fastball, getting a bit of arm side run. He has become pinpoint in his control on his change, and he’s seen a huge uptick in strikeouts on his change up as he puts it exactly where he wants it. Lastly, Sims uses a slider rarely now, but it’s a pitch that has drastically improved in its effectiveness since his draft. He runs the slider in a wide variety of velocity. When he’s not doing well, it varies from 77-82, but when he’s going well, the slider has a velocity more stable in the 79-81 range. It has a hard, late break, with just a hair of movement glove side along with the great drop. When he’s off in his motion, the pitch can get quite slurvy, and he struggles to get the pitch in the strike zone.
Next: 2016 outlook
I mentioned it previously, but it was quite notable the difference in watching Sims work with Joseph Odom and Jose Briceno versus how he worked with Matt Kennelly. Kennelly frequently would make hand motions to reassure Sims when a call didn’t go right or an error put a guy on base, and it kept Sims focused on just staying within himself. When he really tries too hard to reach back and create more velocity or more movement that he doesn’t normally have, he tends to get out of sorts in his arm slot and his leg kick.