Atlanta Braves Scouting Report on Reliever Taylor Lewis

Scouting Report

More from Tomahawk Take

• Braves News: Atlanta makes a pair of trades, prospect debuts, more
• Atlanta Braves History: How the Red Stockings became the Braves
• Braves News: Atlanta Braves acquire Eli White from the Texas Rangers
• Atlanta Braves Swing Trade with the New York Yankees for Lucas Luetge
• Atlanta Braves 2012 Top Prospects Review: Zeke Spruill

Size/Delivery

Lewis is listed as a 6’1, 170-pound right-hander. He is certainly lean. I could argue for another 10-15 pounds on that frame, but not a whole lot more.

Lewis works out of the stretch exclusively as a reliever. He brings his knee up to about waist-high and twists his left hip back toward the shortstop before coming hard toward home plate. As he kicks toward the plate, he extends his lead foot seemingly “pointing” at home before placing it down. How intentional that move is, I do not know, but I do know that it allowed him to maintain his landing spot much better than most guys who have an exaggerated hip tuck like he utilizes.

The big thing for Lewis is his arm slot. It’s not a 3/4 slot, but it’s not a true side arm either. He releases from side arm height on the shoulder, but he has his hand on the top of the ball rather than slinging the ball as most side arm throwers do. He disguises the slot well with his hip tuck, which adds to the effectiveness of the position.

Pitches

Lewis works with primarily a two-pitch mix. His fastball works in the low-90s, but can touch as high as 95-96, depending on the report you read. I saw 94 max in the games I viewed. It’s not a terribly “active” pitch, but he spots it very well, which helps it to play better than a straight low-90s fastball typically would. His biggest issues with hittability and control were when he lost just a hair of location on the fastball because spotting it precise is a big thing for his success. Even so, when he misses a spot, he frequently doesn’t get completely smoked by hitters because the arm angle and hip tuck give enough deception that hitters aren’t perfectly squaring up his pitch, which is why you see only 3 home runs in nearly 90 minor league innings thus far.

His second pitch is a slider with solid bite that gets extra play due to his arm slot. It runs in the mid-80s with good depth. The slider has more vertical action than horizontal, sometimes having enough depth that one could even mistake it for a curve, but it does not have the loop on the front end, just the drop on the back end. Coming from the arm angle he has, the pitch worked best when he left it arm side to both hitters as lefties seemed to flail at the pitch outside and righties couldn’t pick it up in time to get good wood on it.

Lewis has worked multiple innings at times out of the bullpen, and when he knows he’s headed out for multiple innings, you will see a change mixed in, but otherwise, it’s a rare sight in his pitching out of the pen. In the spot start he made this year, I counted 7, and I don’t know if I saw seven the entire rest of the games I looked at of Lewis on the season. The change works in the low-80s, but does run up to mid-80s, and it has some arm-side run, but it seems to be run that Lewis struggles to control as he threw the pitch off the plate multiple times due to that horizontal movement of the pitch to arm side. If he wanted to work at the pitch, it could possibly be an average offering, but with how well the fastball/slider combo works for him, I’m not sure why you’d want to mess too much with that.

Next: Future outlook

Future Outlook

I was not sure who to include as a comp for Lewis when I started looking. His pitch mix and arm angle make it fairly difficult to find a perfect match. I found an excellent website that helped steer me to a few options, sidearmnation.com, and I took a look at a few of the guys mentioned who were more upper-sidearm than submarine. Two guys stuck out, so I looked them up both. Honestly, both would fit here, so I’m going to include them both.

Coming up, Scott Feldman was primarily a reliever with a fastball/slider combination in the same velocity area as Lewis, and he throws from a very similar arm angle. Interestingly, as Feldman was moved to the rotation, he scrapped the slider in favor of a cutter and also added a curve and split finger to his arsenal. While he’s not a dominating pitcher in the minds of many, to me, he’s an example of how a guy with Lewis’ arm slot could be successful throwing as more than just a deception-based reliever type.

The guy who has had some dominance as a bullpen guy with a very similar arm angle and fastball velocity is Danny Farquhar, the reliever currently with the Rays. Farquhar throws a fastball/change mix primarily, mixing in a curve rarely. That is a different pitch mix than Lewis offers, but he has a similar arm angle in the bullpen, and I was interested that his curve really is not a looping curve, but just a touch of loop on the way to the plate and similar break downward near the plate as Lewis’ slider. There has been precedent for Lewis’ velocity and pitch type succeeding in the bullpen, even as a closer, in the majors, so there’s no reason to doubt his ability to make it as a reliever in the bigs.

Next: Braves Minor League Database

Lewis has an excellent ability to pitch to a hitter’s stance and attack. He does very well working fast so as to not give hitters a chance to really get used to his different arm angle and hip tuck. As he likely starts in Mississippi next season with a quick track toward Gwinnett, his ability to continue keeping hitters on their heels will determine how quickly he can move up to Atlanta and find a role in the big league bullpen.