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College  | Story  | 3/2/2020

College Notebook: March 1

Patrick Ebert     
Photo: Austin Becker (Mitchell Martin/Texas Tech Athletics)

College Notebooks: Feb. 28 | Feb. 29 | College Player Database | College Player Rankings

Players covered: Austin Becker (Texas Tech), Ryan Sublette (Texas Tech), Conor Grady (Florida State), Bo Hofstra (Purdue), Jack Carey (Duke), Duncan Davitt (Iowa).



Austin Becker, RHP, Texas Tech
Former PG All-American Austin Becker transferred into Texas Tech coming from Vanderbilt a season ago and he has already solidified himself as the Sunday starter ona team loaded with pitching. Becker has always had an electric arm and after making it to college, he is going to be a touted prospect for the 2021 draft coming out of school.

Becker has great size with easy plus arm speed on the bump and at a listed 6-foot-5, 205-pounds there’s still room left for additional projection. The operation is fairly simple, with a bit of a longer stride toward the plate in terms of a hanging front leg which can lead to some inconsistencies with the release point and overcompensation on the arm speed’s end.

These inconsistencies were evident in terms of Becker’s command on Sunday afternoon. The righthander has, at times, explosive stuff but the command eluded him during this look as he did not make it out of the fifth inning and departed with four walks, three hit-by-pitches, and nearly double-digit three-ball counts.

The aforementioned stuff has potential to be frontline when it’s all said and done for Becker. The fastball worked up to 96 mph with some hair on it and sat in the 93-95 mph range for the early portion of this outing. The riding life made it explosive when up in the zone and could attract some empty swings and he would also sink it when working on top of the ball and leveraging to the lower third of the strike zone.

Becker showed a couple different off-speed pitches in a curveball, changeup and slider. The slider was the one most rarely used in the 84-88 mph range as it looked like a cutter with the action it got and instead he used mostly changeups and curveballs. The curveball has been a plus pitch in the past for Becker and it shows the makings and ingredients to once again be that with big, downer shape in the 78-81 mph range, but Becker just didn’t have the feel for it during this look. His changeup was a good neutralizer against lefthanded hitters in the 85-87 mph range but this was also mired by inconsistencies.

There’s no questioning the explosiveness and talent in Becker’s right arm, however, the command will have to improve if he wants to succeed as a starter at the college level, let alone at the professional level in that capacity. He’s obviously only a sophomore, and one of the more touted ones in the country at that, but harnessing his pure stuff looks to be the next step of his development.


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