Atlanta Braves Scouting Report on LHP Luiz Gohara

Scouting Report

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Size/Delivery

Gohara is listed at 6’2 and 210 pounds. He’s likely close to that 210 at this point, but that is after losing roughly 60 pounds in the last year, so weight and conditioning is an effort he is making currently that could even make further strides.

Gohara has increased his athleticism significantly in his weight loss, and it changed teams’ approach against him, as they often would lay down 2-3 bunts per game at him, knowing he would struggle to move well enough to make the plays.

That has not been the case now.

Gohara comes to the plate out of his delivery with a high knee lift, up to the letters. Out of his stretch, he uses more of an adjusted slide step, with his foot only reaching about mid-calf in height before he moves home.

He comes from a low 3/4 arm slot in his delivery. His tuck on his lead shoulder allows for a bit of deception in making it more difficult for hitters to see the ball out of his hand.

Gohara does have an excellent pick off move, and that has improved significantly as he’s lost weight as well and has more body control.

Pitches

Gohara’s fastball is his primary pitch of note in many circles as he can run the pitch up to triple digits, though he sits more in the 94-97 range.

He uses his deception in his delivery to attack lefty hitters in the middle and upper part of the zone with his hard stuff and more down and low on righty hitters.

His slider has incredible break, working in the 82-84 range, topping out at 86. What was notable to me was his ability to adjust the pitch from a more hard-breaking slider to a sweeping slider. He throws the sweeper mroe to righties, burying it low and middle. The more hard-breaking slider is used down and in on lefty hitters.

His change is something that most in the AFL didn’t see much of, but he does have solid arm deception in the pitch and shows solid ability to take away from that pitch and add to it as needed. The movement on the pitch is not great, but he works well with his arm deception, and if the pitch is even average, the elite level his fastball and slider play will allow him to use that change very seldom with having tremendous success.

Next: Future outlook