Drake Fellows making most of opportunity in Altoona
Righty putting up solid numbers in early goings with Altoona.
It’s been a long, tough road for Drake Fellows. Despite being drafted in 2019 out of Vanderbilt, Fellows has logged just 45 innings in his professional career—nearly half of them have come this season.
He allowed nine walks and 11 earned runs in 11 innings pitched last year with Bradenton but got the push-up to Greensboro to begin 2024.
Injuries gave him an opportunity to pitch in Double-A despite his not-so-great numbers in Greensboro (5.23 ERA in 10.1 IP), and he has been taking advantage of the opportunity since then.
Fellows has posted a 1.64 ERA in 11 innings pitched in three games with the Altoona Curve since the promotion.
The walks have been a little high (13%), but the 13 strikeouts in 11 innings pitched have been good for a 28.2% rate.
While there isn’t pitch-by-pitch tracking, looking through Gameday has Fellows at an overall 38.3% whiff rate and 33.1 CSW%.
In his latest outing against the Akron RubberDucks, Fellows struck out seven batters over four one-hit innings while showing great progress with the control and only walking one.
It’s easy to forget about Fellows being a part of the Joe Musgrove trade since it also netted the Pirates David Bednar and Endy Rodriguez (through the Mets).
Without actual pitch tracking, it’s hard to know for sure what pitch is actually working for him, but he did post a 55% whiff rate with his slider last year in Bradenton.
There are some organizations where you could argue that Fellows could still be an intriguing option as a starting pitcher, but right now, with the Pirates, there isn’t much space.
Regardless, with everything that Fellows has had to overcome, it’s still good to see him having some success despite not being a traditional prospect anymore.
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It's baseball - get healthy, get strong, and hope for an opportunity. As you pointed out, he is doing much better for AA than he was at A+, and maybe he can carry that into mid-season, getting a Start or two along the way. Pitching is the Gold Standard, and his having been a successful SP for an SEC school in college is just icing on the cake for him, and the Pirates - if they recognize needs in the lineup and want to use our positional excesses as trade chips!