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Atlanta Braves Top 100 Prospects: #66 Kyle Kinman

By Benjamin Chase

Mar 16, 2016; Lake Buena Vista, FL, USA; The shadow of Atlanta Braves relief pitcher Kyle Kinman on the mound as he pitches against the St. Louis Cardinals during the seventh inning at Champion Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Butch Dill-USA TODAY Sports
Mar 16, 2016; Lake Buena Vista, FL, USA; The shadow of Atlanta Braves relief pitcher Kyle Kinman on the mound as he pitches against the St. Louis Cardinals during the seventh inning at Champion Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Butch Dill-USA TODAY Sports /
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Aug 11, 2015; St. Petersburg, FL, USA; Atlanta Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez (33) looks on while calling the bullpen in the dugout at Tropicana Field. Mandatory Credit: Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports
Aug 11, 2015; St. Petersburg, FL, USA; Atlanta Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez (33) looks on while calling the bullpen in the dugout at Tropicana Field. Mandatory Credit: Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports /

Scouting Report

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I reviewed two appearances of Kinman’s at each level this season. Overall in those six appearances, Kinman hurled 9 1/3 innings with a 2.97 ERA and 0.86 WHIP and 6/17 BB/K ratio.

Kinman is listed at 5’11 and 185 pounds. That looks about right, as he’s really not a very large guy on the mound. He works both in wind up and out of the stretch, using a high straight leg movement with his lead leg before moving toward the plate. Kinman uses a release point just above shoulder height, which gives the appearance of slinging the ball to hitters, and it makes him especially effective on lefties.

Kinman has struggled with location at times, and in watching some games where he struggled, it appeared to me that he struggled with that high leg kick moving so fast through his motion and losing his balance somewhat, which led to him having a double tap on his lead foot a couple of times and have an inconsistent landing spot with his lead leg quite a few times due to seemingly rushing through his motion even faster as he struggled with location, basically digging the hole even further.

Kinman relies on primarily a two-pitch mix with a four-seam fastball that sits 91-94, topping out at 96 in the games I viewed. He also throws a slider that has good movement with his unique arm angle. In the games I watched, he got movement in a slurve movement down and glove side, and across the zone horizontally while maintaining the same vertical plane, simply wicked movement to deal with as a lefty hitter.

The fastball has minimal vertical movement, but when he’s steady in his pacing through his motion, Kinman has excellent location of the pitch, which allows him to get some great strikeouts looking due to Kinman painting the corner just perfectly. He does get good movement across the zone with the pitch. The slider also seemed to have two “styles” to it. He threw the pitch hard, running it as high as the mid-80s with hard break, but there were also numerous sliders I tracked with significant break that were low- to mid-70s in velocity, and that really gives Kinman the look of a three-pitch mix instead of a two-pitch mix, though both pitches are sliders.

Next: 2016 outlook

Kinman’s unique motion and arm location makes him incredibly effective against lefties, but what does seem to happen is that his side-arming motion exposes the ball for a long time to right handed hitters, and that led to Kinman having a very high BABIP overall with righties having a very high level of luck against him, but also being able to drive the ball well when they did get ahold of it.

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