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College  | Story  | 5/3/2017

College Spotlight: Week 11

Jheremy Brown      Matt Arvin      Vincent Cervino      David Rawnsley     
Photo: Tim Casey
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Perfect Game College Player Database

Every week during the 2017 college baseball season we will be pulling at least one report, and corresponding video when available, of a player entered into the College Player Database. This week we will share five reports on pitchers captured from our scouts from four different locations. All of the reports entered into the database can be found in one, easy-to-find place as linked above, and can also be accessed off of the individual PG player profile pages.

To access all of the reports you will need a College Baseball Ticket (CBT) subscription. To learn more about the CBT and to sign up today please visit this link.




Alex Faedo, RHP, Florida

Alex Faedo had another quality outing against Georgia in the opening game of a three-game set. Faedo, a possible top-15 pick for this year's draft, struggled in two of his innings but showed off his potential throughout the game. The build is extra-large with a ton of present physicality and strength throughout his lower half. The concern with the body is that Faedo had two knee surgeries heading into this season but he has not been hampered by problems with either of the knees.

The delivery is multi-faceted and the arm is loose and whippy, and he showed excellent arm speed. There is some concern with his arm action as the back elbow is high and cocked upon foot strike. Faedo got downhill consistently and used his hips well throughout the delivery. He repeated his delivery very well and the amount of effort is pretty low which profiles well for a starting pitcher at the next level. 

Faedo showed a combination of fastball, changeup and slider that he used effectively. The fastball worked in the 90-94 mph range and had late life to the arm side on occasion. He would mix in a two-seam fastball that dove down and to the arm side as well. The fastball is typically thought of as the primary pitch but Faedo has shown all season that he is more than happy to go to his plus slider often. His changeup showed potential to be average at the next level and worked in the high-80s with down action. The slider is easily a plus pitch and showed heavy tilt in the 83-85 mph range. The pitch was used often and he showed the ability to throw it for both strikes and whiffs. The pitch garnered 11 swings and misses and he was able to use it to effectively to make hitters look foolish. 

Faedo has struggled a bit with command over this season but there were no real command issues short of the first inning in this game. He looked a bit rusty and labored throughout a 20-pitch first but settled into a groove nicely as the outing went on. Faedo’s stuff started to wear down in the seventh inning when he neared around 100 pitches. The majority of the hard hits against him came in the seventh and he departed before the bullpen gave up two more runs. 

As a whole, Faedo showed off a lot of what makes him a candidate to go so early in June’s draft. Faedo has a proven track record at the collegiate level while showing three average or better pitches which are headlined by his plus slider.




Mason Feole, LHP, UConn

To be able to land a lefthanded ace one every couple of years is nice, to do it twice in three years is excellent, but to strike gold for a third time in the span of four recruiting classes is like hitting the lottery, but better. But yet that’s exactly what Head Coach Jim Penders and his staff at Connecticut have been able to do, first with the duo of Anthony Kay and Tim Cate and now with Cate and freshman lefthander Mason Feole. And it’s fitting that Feole comes third in the trio as you can see bits of both Kay and Cate in the Rhode Island native as he progresses through his start; perhaps it’s some that pitching coach Josh MacDonald brings to the table.

Undrafted out of The Prout School last June, Feole was on scouts' radars and will very much be a big priority come the 2019 season as he’s established himself in the weekend rotation and has performed as well as you could have hoped for as a freshman this spring. Standing at 6-foot-2, 187-pounds, Feole is the most physical of the previously mentioned lefthanded trio but still offers future projection, much like Cate, with room to fill throughout his lower half. And while Cate shows a very direct and simple set of mechanics, Feole can generate some deception which certainly doesn’t detract from his quality arsenal. 

Employing one of the higher leg kicks that I’ve seen this spring, Feole shows his athleticism as he repeated it regularly over his six-plus innings of work, all the while showing both balance and extension as well as a quick left arm. The arm quickness is key for Feole as he does a nice job of staying compact through the back while working to a near over-the-top release point with which he can work to the lower third of the strike zone.

Remaining on top of the ball more often than not once he settled in, Feole did a nice job of powering the ball downhill and created some tough angle when working to his glove side. Though mostly true in life and only showing occasional running life to his arm side, Feole showed a very crisp, late-hopping fastball through the zone and sat very comfortably within the 89-92 mph range over the outing and even popped his only 93 in his sixth inning of work. He didn’t challenge lefthanded hitters on the inner half of the plate very often but when he did the results were impressive as Cincinnati hitters were tied up and simply looked to fight the pitch off. 

A good portion the hits Feole gave up were in the early going with a couple of hard, barreled pieces, but that could be a result of him working almost exclusively off his fastball well into his second time through the lineup. Once Feole began mixing in both his slider and changeup he was able to keep hitters honest and off balance in the box. The cleanliness of the arm action and extension out front reminded me of Cate while the changeup he flashed had similarities to what Kay threw in his junior year, not only with the life but the confidence in the pitch as well. 

With a mimicked arm speed that hitters would read as a fastball out of his hand, Feole found frequent success with the 82-85 mph changeup whenever he was down in the zone. Naturally, when he was up or worked the middle of the plate, the pitch found some barrels but the overall feel is one you don’t typically find on freshman hurlers. Whether it be a 3-0 count or a 2-1 count, Feole had the ability to go to his changeup this outing while showing nice fading life away from opposing hitters.

His slider is yet another quality pitch that flashed the potential to develop into an above average offering as he snapped off a couple of tight ones up to 80 mph early in the game that featured nice, sharp bite. Towards the end of the outing he was getting under the pitch and seeing more curveball finish and depth to the pitch but there’s very little doubt that Feole is a three-pitch arm who needs to be on any type of 2019 draft watch list.

The string of lefthanded talent continues to run through the Connecticut campus and with Wills Montgomery establishing himself as one of the top arms in New England this spring, Cate and Feole will form one of, if not the best, lefthanded duos in all of college baseball in 2018.

Other UConn players added to College Player Database:

• John Russell
• Zac Susi
• Anthony Prato
• Willy Yahn


A.J. Kullman, RHP, Cincinnati

Aside from one fastball that stayed up in the zone, and was aided by the wind to scrape over the right field wall, A.J. Kullman put together a quality start (his first of the year) for the Bearcats and kept the UConn Huskies hitters off balance over his four innings of work. Quick math, but four innings means 12 outs, and of those 12, the 6-foot-8 righthander managed to punch out eight and appeared to be in control. And when you consider his three-pitch arsenal, Kellman could very well be a rotation piece for Head Coach Ty Neal moving forward and into 2018.

Though he wasn’t overpowering with his fastball, as he sat in the 84-87 mph range and bumped an 88 early, Kullman did an excellent job of living down in the zone and showed heavy sinking life when down. The Ohio native did a nice job of living low and working ahead in the count which helped unlock the ability to use his secondary pitches at will, and as you’d imagine, was able to induce weak groundball contact. 

Just like he did with the fastball, Kullman threw both his low-80s changeup and low-70s curveball for strikes, showing nice shape to both with equal amounts of feel. The curveball showed short 11-to-5 shape and he had the confidence to triple up on the pitch at one point while flashing life to his arm side on his changeup.

Other Cincinnati players added to College Player Database:

• A.J. Bumpass
• Ryan Noda
• Jace Mercer


Bailey Ober, RHP, College of Charleston

The first thing that stands out about Ober is his obvious size. Ober is listed at 6-foot-9, 250-pounds and looks every inch of it, with long arms and legs. In NBA parlance, Ober would likely have a well above average wing span for his height. His arms look longer the College of Charleston second baseman DuPree Hart's legs.

After being one of the top freshman pitchers in the country in 2014, Ober underwent Tommy John surgery and missed the entire 2015 season recovering. He enjoyed a strong 2016 season and entered his redshirt junior season with a chance to be a Top 100 draft. Unfortunately, Ober missed five starts earlier this spring with an undisclosed injury and based on his late April outing against Elon he is still recovering his arm strength.

Ober's delivery is a model of simplicity and enables him to control his height well and repeat his mechanics with little effort and admirable consistency. His arm action is smooth and loose from a high three-quarters arm slot that creates huge downhill angle to the plate. In this outing, Ober started off throwing 89-91 mph with his fastball and got occasional hard diving action down in the strike zone. After about 50 pitches, the fastball backed off to 86-88 mph and Ober started working his off-speed pitches in more.

Ober's changeup was his pitch over his five innings, thrown at 80-82 mph with very good arm speed and big sink and run at the plate. He seemed comfortable throwing it to righthanded hitters and lefthanded hitters alike and probably utilized it about 40 percent of the time.  Ober threw two types of breaking balls, a 75 mph slurve and a 84 mph cutter but both lacked snap and conviction, and he also had difficulty commanding his breaking ball as well as his fastball or changeup.


Zach Linginfelter, RHP, Tennessee

Linginfelter, a promising freshman who was ranked 60th in the high school class of 2016, looks the part as he is a physically imposing 6-foot-5, 225-pounds on the mound. He came into the second game of Tennessee’s series against Vanderbilt in relief and dominated the Commodores by throwing nothing but fastballs that sat at 92-94 mph and touched as high as 96. He didn’t allow a hit and struck out a pair in 1 2/3 innings to record the first save of his college career, and has been used as both a starter and as a reliever thus far.

There are a lot of moving parts to Linginfelter’s delivery, and while it causes some deception, it creates more parts for him to control and keep in sync. After about 20 pitches he became significantly more wild in the outing (walking two in the ninth inning of a 9-3 win), but his low three-quarters arm slot and crossfire delivery causes his fastball to have premium movement and is extremely hard to square up.

Linginfelter uses his legs well as part of his delivery and is a prototypical down-and-drive pitcher. He has good hip rotation and he gets the most out of his arm as he scapular loads his shoulders before his body rotation. The arm is very loose and the ball comes out extremely easy.

Due to his size, lower three-quarters arm slot that creates deception and ability to dominate hitters at times with his fastball, Linginfelter is somewhat similar to Lance Lynn. Linginfelter may have the best fastball out of any freshman in the country and he will be one of the more interesting arms to watch develop over the next two years.

Other Tennessee players added to College Player Database:

• Justin Ammons
• Max Bartlett
• Hunter Martin
• Jeff Moberg
• Jordan Rodgers
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