Atlanta Braves Scouting Report on Pitcher Caleb Dirks
The Atlanta Braves re-acquired righty Caleb Dirks from the Los Angeles Dodgers in the middle of the season and he dominated in Mississippi. Could he be a future impact reliever?
Who Is He?
The Braves originally drafted Dirks out of California Baptist University in the 15th round of the 2014 draft. They sent him to Danville originally, and he put up a sub-1.00 ERA before being promoted to Rome to finish out the year, and he pitched very well there as well. In total, Dirks made 21 appearances in his first pro season, throwing 32 1/3 innings, with a 2.23 ERA, 1.42 WHIP, and a 13/37 BB/K ratio.
The Braves returned Dirks to Rome to start the 2015 season, and he quickly earned a promotion to Carolina. He had yet to allow a single run at Carolina when the Braves made the decision to trade Dirks to the Los Angeles Dodgers in a move to acquire international spending money to sign guys like Cristian Pache and Derian Cruz that summer. He was assigned to Rancho Cucamonga in the high-A Cal League, and he threw very well there before being bumped up to Tulsa to finish the year. In all, he’d moved from low-A to AA on the season, never posting even a 2.00 ERA in any stop. His total numbers were 40 appearances, 50 innings, a 0.90 ERA, 1.14 WHIP, and an impressive 22/64 BB/K ratio.
The Dodgers sent him back to Tulsa to start the 2016 season, and he was nothing short of dominating in his time there in a hitters’ league before the Braves acquired him back from the Dodgers along with Philip Pfeifer in the deal that sent Bud Norris and Dian Toscano to the Dodgers. Dirks finished out his season in the power-laden Mississippi bullpen, and his overall numbers between Tulsa and Mississippi were 49 appearances, 61 innings, a 1.18 ERA, 1.00 WHIP, and an 18/67 BB/K ratio.
Next: Dirks' scouting report
Scouting Report
More from Tomahawk Take
- Atlanta Braves 2023 Preseason Top 30 Prospects List: 1-5
- Braves News: Braves acquire Diaz, moves around the division, more
- Atlanta Braves 2012 Top Prospects Review: J.R. Graham
- Atlanta Braves Acquire Lewin Diaz from the Orioles
- Atlanta Braves 2023 Preseason Top 30 Prospects List: 6-10
Size/Delivery
Dirks is not incredibly tall, but at 6’3 and 220 pounds, he does pose an imposing figure on the mound. Dirks has an interesting motion that leads to some deception in his delivery. He works out of the stretch exclusively, but he picks up his left leg to about his chest, but then he kicks it out in front of him straight and brings it around slowly toward the plate, and just as it gets in front of him, he lunges forward with a pitch.
The delivery adds a ton of timing deception for Dirks, and while it isn’t an abrupt stop to the motion or something like that, it’s still a definite distraction into the rhythm of his delivery from a hitter’s angle. He curves in his glove hand until the last moment when he lunges forward as well, which adds a bit of deception in that the batter sees nothing of what Dirks is doing behind that glove with his throwing arm and how quickly it’s moving until all of the sudden, he is in full motion.
Dirks releases all of his pitches from a 3/4 delivery. The heavy lunge forward does not seem to affect his delivery point, in spite of noticing that he did miss his landing spot a few times. I noted that when he missed that landing spot, he tended to lengthen his arm swing, which typically has a bit of a “punch” effect to it, to make up for the missed spot.
Pitches
Dirks predominantly throws a fastball that works in the 90-94 range, topping out around 96. He doesn’t get a lot of movement on the pitch, but he pounds the zone with it. His command of the pitch sometimes will waver, but he does have excellent control on the pitch. I noted that he seemed to have more of an issue with command to his glove side than arm side with the fastball and almost always when he was trying to hit above the knees to that side. When he was working low to the glove side to the plate with his fastball, his command was typically quite good as well.
The slider is his primary off speed pitch, but even so, he uses it roughly 15-20% of the time. His slider has good tilt to it, but it is certainly his most inconsistent pitch he throws. With the lunge forward in his delivery, if he misses his spot and elongates his arm action, he tends to hang the slider or leave it high in the zone, neither of which are good results. The crazy thing to me is that with most pitchers, a slider hanging or holding high in the zone is frequently a ball that leaves the park, yet Dirks has allowed all of 6 home runs in his 143 1/3 minor league innings. It is a very effective pitch to righties, but lefties did seem to get some wood on the ball better.
His change wasn’t even mentioned in his draft write-up from two years ago, which tells you how little he used it at that time. He’s worked on the pitch, and paired with the slider, he makes up about 25% of his pitches between the slider and change up, with the change up usually going between 5-10% of the time as his third pitch. I was actually a bit more impressed with the change than the slider in my viewings as the pitch has some excellent cut action to it and could be a good weapon against left-handed hitters whereas the slider seems to be a pitch that lefties pick up from Dirks better.
Video
Next: Future outlook