Atlanta Braves Scouting Report on Pitcher Caleb Dirks

Future Outlook

Due to his jerky delivery that provides deception for him, many Braves fans will immediately see who I did in Dirks, and that’s former Braves reliever Jordan Walden. Walden is quite a bit bigger at 6’5 and 250 pounds, and his jump stop in his pitching motion is not the same as Dirks’ delivery quirks, but there are a lot of similarities in how they use the deception that odd motion provides to allow their pitching to play up.

Walden also utilizes a primarily fastball arsenal, with a slider and change that he uses infrequently. Walden has thrown 72% fastballs in his career, 20% sliders, and 7% change ups. That is a very similar ratio to what Dirks throws currently, and while Walden has more velocity on his fastball, I’d say that Dirks has infinitely more command and control of his fastball, so there’s some “six of one, half dozen of another” in their differences.

Walden has been a guy who has closed in his career, and he’s struck out 10.78 batters per 9 in his major league career, so there is a path to success for Dirks that’s been laid out there, but Walden and Carter Capps, another guy who has a delay/stop in his motion, both have experienced arm issues, and the instability of that lunge forward and the position it can put the arm in when not done correctly could put Dirks’ arm on a time limit.

Next: Braves Minor League Database

Dirks will be likely started at AAA Gwinnett next season to start the season, and he’ll turn 24 in June of next season, so it’d be advantageous for him to push forward to the bigs in 2017. With his excellent control of his fastball and a tick up on his change effectiveness along with the slider, he could be a very solid middle relief option for the Braves going forward, but he really doesn’t have a pure strikeout pitch that would indicate a future as a back-end guy.