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College | Story | 2/29/2020

Shriners Classic: Day 1 Notebook

Brian Sakowski

Photo: Cade Cavalli (OU Athletics)

College Player Database | College Player Rankings

Players covered: Cade Cavalli (Oklahoma), Wyatt Olds (Oklahoma), Ian Bedell (Missouri), Bryce Elder (Texas), Cole Henry (LSU), Jaden Hill (LSU), Connor Noland (Arkansas).

Cade Cavalli, RHP, Oklahoma
Oklahoma's ace and a potential first round draft choice, righthander Cade Cavalli, entered 2020 coming off of a very good summer where he was chosen for the Collegiate National Team and a fall where his hype exploded with reports of triple-digit heat and improved overall pitchability. He ended up not factoring into the decision in Oklahoma's 6-3 win over Arkansas on Friday night of the Shriners College Classic, but with the exception of two pitches, he was tremendous, striking out 11 over five innings, allowing three runs on six hits with no walks. Arkansas essentially ended his day in the fifth inning when Robert Moore and Jacob Nesbit went back-to-back to give Arkansas a 3-2 lead, which they'd eventually relinquish.

Extremely physical at 6-foot-4, 218-pounds, Cavalli has a plus-plus body and looks the part of a durable, flamethrowing righthanded starting pitcher. The stuff is overwhelming at times, and while he's always had velocity, Cavalli has really taken the steps towards become a complete pitcher rather than just a thrower, and the results are outstanding. He gets inline downhill with his hips through his delivery, getting cleanly over a stiffer front side and working downhill. The arm is clean through the stroke, up on time at foot-strike with a near vertical release slot. The fastball operated in the 94-97 mph range to start, holding 94-95 and still grabbing 6s late in his outing, and the physicality makes it easy to see how he's able to hold that velocity. He throws strikes and is around the zone constantly, though the fastball command was more fringe average to average in this look. He shows good ability to work east-west with the fastball, though he does leave his share of heaters over the plate, and while the pure velocity can bail him out of those mistakes pretty often at the collegiate level, he'll need finer command as he continues moving up the chain.

The slider was the equalizer in this outing, thrown anywhere from 84-89 mph with purpose, showing the ability to change speeds with the pitch and vary the look ever so slightly at times. He was most comfortable in the 85-87 mph range with the offering, tunneling it extremely well out of the hand with the same release as his fastball. It's a plus pitch consistently with a few of them flashing better, getting whiffs with ease against both righthanded and lefthanded hitters. It's got a bit more vertical break against righthanded hitters, diving down out of the zone viciously, while he gets a bit more horizontal action on it against lefthanded hitters, getting several back-foot swings-and-misses on sliders that may have otherwise hit the batter. His changeup is a quality offering as well, thrown more vs. lefthanded hitters and thrown firmly in the 88-90 range for the most part, with good fading life and showing above average a good amount of the time.

The ingredients to the profile here are extremely attractive, as Cavalli has the size, stuff, and strikes necessary to rightfully earn first round hype. With a pair of plus pitches in the fastball and slider to go along with a third pitch that could end up above-average consistently to go along with that starter's build and durability, Cavalli has the ingredients of a potential No. 2 or 3 starter at the MLB level. In some ways he's actually relatively reminiscent of (slightly) smaller Jackson Rutledge, Washington's first rounder in 2019 out of San Jacinto (JC).

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