Live Report: JP Massey strikes out five, Alessandro Ercolani velocity, Ryan Harbin
Live Report: JP Massey strikes out five, Alessandro Ercolani velocity, Ryan Harbin
A look at JP Massey, Alessandro Ercolani, and other from yesterday's Greensboro/Bowling Green game.
GREENSBORO—I’m on location this week, watching the Greensboro Grasshoppers face the Bowling Green Hot Rods (Tampa Bay Rays), so each feature this week will be based on the previous night’s game.
The Grasshoppers dropped the first game of the series 5-4 after a passed ball by Omar Alfonzo allowed the go-ahead run to score.
On the offensive side, they scored four runs on six hits but struck out 16 times. They had four different pitchers throw on the night, including JP Massey starting and Alessandro Ercolani getting bulk work out of the bullpen.
Alfonzo hit his third home run since joining Greensboro, with Josiah Sightler also driving in a pair. Lonnie White Jr. struggled, striking out four times in four at-bats.
Most of these reports will be heavily pitching-based, and I will do more hitter-oriented observations once I get more videos and a larger sample of watching them in person.
Any daily thoughts based on a singular game will be directed to the weekly 10 Observations feature.
JP Massey
I saw Massey last year while in Greensboro, and it didn’t go well. He allowed four runs on five hits in 2.2 innings.
The stat line wasn’t overly good, but the eye test put him closer to the Massey we saw pitch his way into the Future’s Game.
Massey struck out five over 4.1 innings, and although it was three runs in the box score when he left the game, it was just one, with Ryan Harbin allowing the final two.
The standout thing with Massey in last year’s report was the lack of control. He struggled with that down the stretch and didn’t pitch for some time this season after fighting it earlier in the year.
He got wilder towards the end but still didn’t walk anyone. He generated 13 whiffs while throwing 77 pitches, good for a Swinging Strike rate (SwStr%) of 16.8%.
The slider caused most of the damage, as it has a sharp, breaking movement away from righties.
There’s a curveball that he mixes in, but it was mostly thrown against lefties as a ‘get-me-over’ pitch that he threw for strikes. He got a strikeout looking with the pitch but didn’t throw it too much.
His fastball velocity topped at 94 mph but sat around 91-92 most of the night. He gets pretty good extension (measured out at 6.6 in Bradenton last year) but throws from a higher arm slot and doesn’t have the best characteristics on the fastball.
Thanks to his higher arm slot, it's a steeper approach, which would allow it to play down in the zone more.
There’s still a scenario to dream of as a potential reliever, the slider seems to be that good of a pitch when it’s working.
Alessandro Ercolani
This is the pitcher I wanted to see this week, as anyone who has read the site long enough knows we are fairly high on him in general.
The biggest thing was getting consistent velocity readings from him, as High-A has little-to-none radar displayed on their broadcast.
Ercolani, 20, has pitched well as of late, so this is one of his ‘worst’ outings recently. He allowed two earned runs on three hits and a walk while striking out two in 2.2 innings pitched.
The second earned run was scored on a passed ball by the catcher.
When it came to the fastball velocity, Ercolani topped out at 95 mph, which he did a couple of times, including for a strikeout. In his first inning of work, he averaged 93.6 mph with the fastball, with it dipping a tick in each of his next two frames.
His cutter has a sharp, late break to it, using it to induce weak contact and throw it for strikes. The slider he also threw for strikes, and it also looked like there was another slower breaking ball that he struggled to locate and was hit a couple of times. That pitch was thrown in the upper 70s.
Being just 20 years old, it looks like the Pirates pumped the breaks on him, letting him work in shorter outings as a ‘reliever’ instead of pitching out the rotation.
There still seems to be some reliever risk, but the data likes him, and he’s still super young (he won’t turn 21 until the 2025 season starts).
The biggest key remains to find a way to make that velocity stick throughout longer outings, but we saw the potential in that first inning.
Ryan Harbin
Another pitcher I saw last year here with the Grasshoppers, I like Harbin’s stuff, he’s just struggled with control.
He came into the game with multiple runners on base and allowed a single that scored both on the first pitch he threw.
His fastball averaged 95.1 mph, and he threw a couple of sliders, one of which got his only whiff. Watching him in person only reaffirmed my thoughts on him as a reliever. You are kind of just hoping something clicks for him control-wise because the stuff can be really good.
Here’s a look at the Alfonzo home run. I also got a side-view video from Alfonzo, Mitch Jebb, Duce Gourson, and other lefty hitters. Those will go up next week when I can throw them all together.
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Never know with young talented arms. You let them break out when ready like Jones.
It’s the lack of hitting talent and failure to see breakouts there like with White jr which hurt more. He was a real necessity for the development team and it hasn’t been great
It's a funny game. We can do all the analyzing of metrics and player development you want, and a game is still won and lost on a passed ball in the 9th inning. Throw the ball, catch the ball......it's still the overlooked basics that can't be ignored.