Atlanta Braves Top 100 Prospects – #21 Andrew Thurman Scouting Report

Andrew Thurman Scouting Report

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I watched six of Thurman’s starts to get a good view of his before and after crash results. Over those starts, Thurman put up a 4-2 record, 2.60 ERA, 0.98 WHIP, and a 6/24 BB/K ratio over 34 2/3 innings.

Thurman is listed as 6’3 and 225 pounds, and that looks accurate. He’s stocky, but in a muscular way, not in bad weight. His motion has a bit on oddity that could lead some hitters to struggle with their timing. When he brings his left leg up to his letters in his motion, rather than going directly to home plate with it, he moves his lead leg more slowly to the landing point before then quickly firing toward home plate. As a former power lifter, this motion quickly struck me as something very inspired in power lifting where a lifter will move the weight properly and carefully through the motion of a lift until the point of explosion, where the finish of the lift comes very quickly. Anyone who’s seen a video of one of those high-level power lifters squatter in excess of 700 pounds will notice this slow-down, explode-up motion.

Even with his timing quirk, Thurman has a very repeatable and easy motion that leaves his arm slot between 3/4 and over-the-top. There were reports that Thurman experienced a spike in velocity due to power lifting, and you can see this in his motion, as he is very focused in utilizing his legs in his motion to generate both velocity and movement. He does end up in very good position to field at the end of every pitch.

Thurman features a four-pitch mix with a fastball that sits 91-94 and can touch as high as 96. He sat more frequently in the 92-94 range before the crash, but by the time he finished his season in the AFL, his peak was that same 94 rather than the top of his typical range. He works with a change up that sits in the 80-83 mph range, a slider that can range from 78-84, and a curve that sits 76-78 when it’s working best, but more in the 73-76 range by the end of the 2015 season when he was visibly exhausted.

Thurman’s fastball has some natural glove-side movement, and it’s definitely most effective when thrown in the lower third of the zone. He does get a number of swinging strikes with the pitch to righties by throwing it up on the outside edge of the zone, though. The change is definitely Thurman’s most frequently used off-speed pitch, and he gets some interesting movement with it. While he gets similar glove side run to his fastball, he also gets some late sink on the pitch. The slider is his most utilized breaking ball, and it has very good dual-plane movement when he’s on, dropping down and in on a right-handed batter. The curve is more of a hard breaker, not a big slow curve. It has a quick loop to it, but it’s definitely much more effective between the belt and knees.

Next: 2016 outlook

Late in the season, it was obvious the exhaustion the year had brought to Thurman. His delivery lost some of that consistency. He (to me, at least) very noticeably moved quicker toward the plate. That slow-then-fast delivery seen early in the season that was so successful was simply not there, and it seemed the more steady the speed of his delivery, the more erratic his pitching got, as he hung sliders and missed frequently with his bread and butter pitch, his change up. I was highly questionable of the decision to send Thurman to Arizona as I’d seen a couple late starts and he looked gassed then, but the Braves organization felt differently.