Atlanta Braves Top 100 Prospects: #99 Evan Phillips

Scouting Report

Phillips is listed by Baseball Reference at 6’2 and 215 pounds. He’s got a big, sturdy build to him, looking like a guy who could put on some pads and play some football just as quickly as he could throw pitches. He pitches exclusively out of the stretch, starting his move to the plate with a very slight leg pickup, then a huge lunge forward with his front leg. He has a very solid over-the-top motion with a big leg kick.

Phillips works with a three-pitch mix, featuring a fastball in the 91-94 range, touching as high as 96 in his time in the pen for Rome. He also features a hard slider and a hard curve, both in the mid-80s in velocity. The fastball has some good arm side fade when he can keep it from the knees on down, but he struggles with the pitch straightening out when he throws it up in the zone, especially arm side up in the zone. The curve doesn’t have a ton of depth to it, but it’s typically the third pitch. When it’s on, it’s a strikeout pitch, and you can track his game logs and pretty much tell when the curve was really snapping well.

More from Tomahawk Take

• Braves News: Braves sign Fuentes, Andruw’s HOF candidacy, more
• The Weakest Braves Homers Since 2015
• Atlanta Braves Sign Joshua Fuentes to Minor League Deal
• Braves News: New Year’s Eve comes with several questions about the 2023 Braves
• Braves News: How the Braves got their name, mailbag, more

The combination of the curve snapping well and his high-velocity fastball leads to a ton of strikeouts. Add in the slider, which has very good arm side tumble, nearly hitting a batter’s shoelaces on one particularly biting slider. The slider is what he seems to have the most control issues with, however, and he can have issues hanging the pitch in the zone when he gets off as we’ll discuss below.

The big troubles you see with Phillips have been with his control, which leads to his ball being off the catcher’s target, not necessarily out of the zone. He had a reputation for issues with his control in college, but moving to the bullpen seems to have sharpened the control, allowing Phillips to keep the ball in the zone, but his fast lunge forward with the minimal leg kick sometimes leads to his foot seemingly landing early, which then throws off his command, meaning he doesn’t hit his catcher’s spot. When the landing spot gets REALLY off, he will lose control on top of the command, but from the reports of his college performance, he was drastically more in control during his relief appearances I was able to view.

Next: 2016 outlook