Atlanta Braves Scouting Report on LHP Michael Mader

Scouting Report

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Size/Delivery

Mader is listed at 6’2 and 195 pounds. He stays tall in his delivery, which gives him a good downward angle on his pitches. He lifts his leg high and delays just a bit before pushing toward home plate. That hesitation has led him to get off in his landing spot, and that has led to some issues with his control.

Mader releases the ball from a 3/4 arm slot, but his slow motion that explodes once he hits the ground with his lead leg has led to his arm slot getting just a hair off, typically low. When he’s lower than the 3/4 spot, he struggles to get on top of the ball on his breaking pitch and to get the depth he would typically get on that pitch.

His delivery does have a habit of getting off if Mader short-changes his follow-through. Due to his hard snap toward the plate after a slow motion, his back foot is often trailing his hips and the rest of his body. He taps his foot and then plants forward as his full follow through. When he shorts things, he plants the foot where he normally would be tapping and ends up out of good fielding position and doesn’t truly get the last bit of snap in his arm for movement on his pitches.

Pitches

Mader has a three-pitch mix, but it plays as a four-pitch mix. He uses a fastball that sits 89-92 and touches 95-96. The fastball isn’t heavy with movement, having a bit of glove side sink. The fastball has a good downward plane in his motion and gets on hitters in a hurry due to his motion. He works it low in the zone, and hitters tend to have a tough time squaring it up from that position to drive it out of the zone, but it does lead to a lot of pop-ups, something notable in Mader’s GO/AO rate on his milb.com page.

His curve is the pitch that can add a second look. If he can stay on top of the pitch, he has two styles of curves, one that is more loop and has less velocity that he uses more, but also a second curve that is more sharp with less bump before the plate. He tends to work the harder curve more in the mid-thigh range. His looping curve works well either high in the zone with more of its movement being before the plate or low in the zone with 12-6 dive toward the catcher’s toes as it has most of its action late in the movement.

It is notable when he doesn’t follow through that the looping curve really struggles to get good depth, and he also struggles to locate it well.

Last, but not least is his change. The change mimics the arm actions of the fastball, but interestingly, in the games I watched, it has more arm-side sink than glove-side like the fastball does. That certainly threw off hitters, and they were not able to square up the ball well at all. His change tended to generate the most ground balls of his offerings.

Video

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