Nov 7, 2015; Phoenix, AZ, USA; Atlanta Braves pitcher Lucas Sims during the Arizona Fall League Fall Stars game at Salt River Fields. Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports
Nov 7, 2015; Phoenix, AZ, USA; Atlanta Braves pitcher Lucas Sims during the Arizona Fall League Fall Stars game at Salt River Fields. Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports /
Lucas Sims may have had the largest split in the Atlanta Braves system between his high end and low end of 2016. Can he be more consistent in 2017?
Player Profile
The Atlanta Braves drafted Sims 21st overall out of high school in Georgia in 2012.
He opened his 2012 season with the Gulf Coast League affiliate of the Braves, but it didn’t take long to show he was ready for the next level, which earned him a promotion to advanced rookie Danville in the Appalachian League.
Combined between the two leagues in 2012, he made 11 appearances, throwing 34 innings with a 3.71 ERA, 1.21 WHIP, 8.84% walk rate, and a 26.53% strikeout rate.
Sims spent the entire 2013 season with low-A Rome in the South Atlantic League. He posted one of the best seasons in the league that season, making 28 appearances (18 of them starts), throwing 116 2/3 innings with a 2.62 ERA, 1.11 WHIP, 9.56% walk rate, and a 27.86% strikeout rate.
His excellent performance drew notice from major prospect lists as well. Baseball America ranked him as the #57 overall prospect, MLB.com had him as the #60 prospect, and Baseball Prospectus ranked him #40 overall.
His 2014 season didn’t go nearly as well as he moved up to high-A Lynchburg in the Carolina League. He spent the entire season there, making 28 starts and throwing 156 1/3 innings with a 4.20 ERA, 1.30 WHIP, 8.43% walk rate, but a 15.83% strikeout rate, which was nearly half his previous rate.
Due to the worse performance, he fell off the Baseball America list completely, but he was still ranked #94 overall by MLB.com and #54 by Baseball Prospectus.
Still just 20 years old to open the 2015 season, Sims opened with the Braves’ new affiliate in Carolina, repeating high-A, and his initial starts were brutal to say the least. In his first 4 starts, he only threw 14 2/3 innings, with a brutal 8.59 ERA, 1.98 WHIP, 18.06% walk rate, and 20.83% strikeout rate.
He worked with Carolina’s pitching coach to get his mechanics ironed out, and had began to show life again before the Carolina bus crash, making two starts where he threw 13 innings, allowing just 2 earned runs and combining to walk 2 and strike out 10 in those two starts.
Sims didn’t return to Carolina for nearly two months after the crash, and when he did, the Braves promoted him to AA after just his first positive start with high-A, something I honestly wasn’t a big fan of.
Instead, he went to AA and, while his first couple starts were certainly rough, he finished the season on a tear before going to the Arizona Fall League and being one of the most talked-about pitchers in the entire AFL in 2015 with his excellent performance.
Overall, his regular season performance in 2015 was 20 games started, 92 2/3 innings thrown, a 4.37 ERA, 1.39 WHIP, 13.37% walk rate, and a 24.75% strikeout rate. In the AFL, he made 6 appearances, throwing 17 innings with a 2.12 ERA, 0.94 WHIP, and a 3/17 BB/K ratio.
Sims had the ultimate in roller coaster seasons in 2016. Few pitchers in the Braves systems were as high as he got nor as low. He opened the season with AA Mississippi. After just 3 AA starts, he was bumped up to AAA, and he finished April having made 5 starts, throwing 26 2/3 innings, with a 2.03 ERA, 1.16 WHIP, a 14.29% walk rate, and a 37.5% strikeout rate.
His walk rate was concerning, but he was so dominant that it was seemingly ignored, but it came home to roost in force starting with his first May start, where he ironically did not walk anyone, but his command was completely off and he hung a number of pitches dead in the zone, leading to 3 home runs and 8 runs given up in 4 innings.
By the time Sims was demoted back to AA Mississippi, from May 1 to the demotion after his June 15th start, he had tallied up 9 starts, 38 innings, a 9.24 ERA, 2.08 WHIP, 16.06% walk rate, and a 21.76% strikeout rate.
It took some time under the tutelage of noted pitching guru Dennis Lewalyn, but Sims got his feel back with Mississippi, and his second tour with Mississippi on the season was 14 starts, 76 1/3 innings, a 2.83 ERA, 1.34 WHIP, 13.76% walk rate, and a 22.94% strikeout rate.
Overall, Sims made 28 appearances, throwing 141 innings with a 4.40 ERA, 1.50 WHIP, 14.56% walk rate, and a 25.16% strikeout rate.
Sims did make one postseason start for Mississippi, going 5 innings, allowing 2 runs on two hits and two walks, striking out 6.
Size – Sims is listed at 6’2″ and 220 pounds, and he’s certainly an athletic pitcher on the mound.
Delivery – Sims in his best delivery has a concerning delivery, let alone when he struggles some.
Sims moves quickly through his delivery, starting with a knee lift to his waist where he begins leaning toward the plate hard from that point, which is where the issues begin.
Sims often leans too hard on his right leg, causing him to fall heavy toward the plate, leading to an inconsistent landing spot on his lead leg.
I noted in watching his time with Gwinnett that he may have had an injury or something going on in his midsection as he was favoring his right side in his delivery, stepping toward third base and going with a cross fire delivery across his body.
Sims typically releases from a 3/4 arm slot, but when he gets off in his delivery, his release point often moves higher or lower based on whether his foot landed more toward the plate or farther back from it.
Control (40) – With his variance in his delivery, Sims’ control was all over in 2016. With Mississippi, he got back to at least stepping straight toward the plate.
With that, at least he was more in line with the plate and coming in a closer to consistent arm slot, but he still had issues repeating that slot for sure.
Pitches
Fastball (60) – Sims can run his fastball up to 97-98 MPH at its top end, though it sits more in the 93-95 range typically.
He gets solid arm side run on the pitch and some wicked break on the pitch as it approaches the plate, making it near impossible to square up when it’s going well.
In his AFL time, Sims was noted for hitting 99 with excellent movement up in the zone and solid sink lower in the zone, but he struggled to locate the pitch.
Change Up (45) – Sims’ change has tremendous movement as well, but his arm slot issues led to plenty of “give away” to the change this year. His change became obvious in his arm movement as he would slow his arm in his delivery on a change noticeably.
The pitch does have excellent movement and good velocity separation if he can get the arm deception on the pitch to keep hitters off of the pitch.
Curve Ball (60) – The curve is a tremendous pitch that when it’s really going right could rate even higher than this. When he’s struggling, it’s a pitch that is simply in the dirt.
When it’s on, though, it’s a pitch without a ton of loop on the front end, but a hard 12-6 break on the back end that generates plenty of swing and miss.
Early in the season, that was the pitch that was creating plenty of strikeout numbers for Sims.
MLB Player Comp
While Sims has not made it to the big leagues yet, there are two young pitchers in the majors right now who are examples of just the type of question that Sims’ future is going forward.
Taijuan Walker was one of the most heralded young pitching prospects as he came up in the Mariners system. Physically, he and Sims have similar builds, though Walker stands about 2″ taller.
Walker came up using a variety of pitches, with a fastball, cut fastball, curve, change, and slider. However, he’s now basically all variations of the fastball plus his curve ball, as his PitchF/X data recorded four-seam fastballs, split-finger fastballs, cut fastballs, and two-seam fastballs along with his curve. There’s a reason that hitters hit a tremendous amount of home runs off of Walker, in spit of drastically improving his command over his 2014 debut.
Lance McCullers, Jr. has the bloodlines of a former MLB pitcher as a father and plenty of the same questions of his future role when he came up with the Astros as well. However, he has also been one who has struggled with health and command in his approach, using a similar limited offering base to hitters.
In 2016, McCullers actually used his curve MORE than any other pitch he offered hitters, throwing it 664 times, compared to a combined 674 times for his fastball and change. While his curve is a harder knuckle-curve rather than Sims’ more traditional break, McCullers has had to face the same questions about his future role due to really being a two-pitch pitcher and struggling with health to remain in the rotation.
This really could be a “make or break” year for Sims. He had to be added to the 40-man roster this season to avoid Rule 5, but if he struggles with AAA, it may be time to move him to the bullpen as he will only have two more option seasons after 2017 to perfect his role in the bullpen before the Braves run out of options on him.
The stuff when he’s right is the sort of stuff that makes you think he could be a solid mid-rotation starter with upside of even better, but Sims has just had so much trouble maintaining his mechanics that you almost wonder if the bullpen is an inevitability at this point.
