The Craig Yoho "prototype"

[liveforoctober]

So what happened and how can we identify his type again moving forward?

Mid round college arm. His peripheral '23 college stats at IU were good but not special (his K% was great). Injury filled career in college. He lasted 8 rounds in the draft ... now here we are less than 24 months later and he is poised to be working high leverage innings for us soon. What home run value at that draft slot.

I've seen the Curt Hogg article from spring about his wrist flexibility ... but other than that has there been any front office chatter about why this transformation happened? Is it truly just about one pitch being that special or can we identify other arms who have the makeup to create such contrasts in movement if we can develop a counter pitch with them?

The fast start from Tyson Hardin this year with Wisconsin has me wanting to dive into mid grades on college pitchers and find the guys who have + arms but are at treading programs... 

What great value to the organization if you can find middle round arms and develop them into trade pieces... the Yoho thing on top of it is just a wild outcome.

[Spencer Michaelis]

Kevin Mannell is my Yoho for this draft. Was hoping they’d take him out of his Juco last year. He’s at Mississippi State now. He’s got that type of changeup movement, though not quite to the extent that Yoho does. But I think he’s just a perfect fit for what the Brewers like.

[liveforoctober]

Interesting, Mississippi State is where we just got Hardin from. 

I've read that from release, Yoho's changeup and curve will end up nearly 2 ft from each other on opposite sides. 

I don't know Mannell, but I guess this formula is exactly what I'm pondering, so great pull. If he were to have one plus pitch with movement but nothing to counter it .. is that more moldable than just grabbing every guy that throws 97/98 and hoping they can develop a 2nd pitch?

[Spencer Michaelis]

On 4/19/2025 at 6:31 PM, liveforoctober said:

Interesting, Mississippi State is where we just got Hardin from. 

I've read that from release, Yoho's changeup and curve will end up nearly 2 ft from each other on opposite sides. 

I don't know Mannell, but I guess this formula is exactly what I'm pondering, so great pull. If he were to have one plus pitch with movement but nothing to counter it .. is that more moldable than just grabbing every guy that throws 97/98 and hoping they can develop a 2nd pitch?

Yoho can even end up with around 40" in separation between the change and curve. Both get 20" of movement at times. Changeup arm-side, curve glove-side of course.

Limited data out there for him, but Mannell is a bit different, as his changeup gets around 13-15" of horizontal movement instead of 20". It's also not a high-spin changeup like Yoho's, though it does have good depth. However, he has a sweeper that gets 20" of glove-side movement and a curve that has more vertical movement. It's not quite the same as Yoho, but there are similarities here. His two-seam does get around 17-20" of run on it, like Yoho's.

[liveforoctober]

46 minutes ago, Spencer Michaelis said:

Yoho can even end up with around 40" in separation between the change and curve. Both get 20" of movement at times. Changeup arm-side, curve glove-side of course.

Limited data out there for him, but Mannell is a bit different, as his changeup gets around 13-15" of horizontal movement instead of 20". It's also not a high-spin changeup like Yoho's, though it does have good depth. However, he has a sweeper that gets 20" of glove-side movement and a curve that has more vertical movement. It's not quite the same as Yoho, but there are similarities here. His two-seam does get around 17-20" of run on it, like Yoho's.

...and I know any scout reading me asking these elementary questions would roll their eyes. But selfishly I am curious what their scouting process is in more detail. When I hear someone say a draft pick "has a live arm" .. ok. Does that just mean he throws 96? Or does it mean we think he has the ability to manipulate a baseball in 3 separate directions? What kind of arm is most worthy of a mid round pick?

[Spencer Michaelis]

7 minutes ago, liveforoctober said:

...and I know any scout reading me asking these elementary questions would roll their eyes. But selfishly I am curious what their scouting process is in more detail. When I hear someone say a draft pick "has a live arm" .. ok. Does that just mean he throws 96? Or does it mean we think he has the ability to manipulate a baseball in 3 separate directions? 

"Live arm" is usually related to velocity, but sometimes it also relates to the way the fastball plays, or even just arm speed in general. 

9 minutes ago, liveforoctober said:

What kind of arm is most worthy of a mid round pick?

This one is tougher, as it's pretty organization dependent. The Brewers seem to like fastballs with carry, and people who can spin the ball well in a lot of different directions. They also seem to like under the radar HS arms that have a lot of physical development left (Letson, Renz, Vire, etc). 

[nate82]

Live arm just means it is an easy velocity coming out of the hand/arm.  Though that is the more traditional definition.  It could be used differently now but I doubt it.  It isn’t really tied to a velocity reading more of how the body looks when it is coming out.  Is it easy or is it a max effort coming out.

A mid round pick regardless of if it is a pitcher or a positional player you are looking at projection.  Where are they now and could they add more in the future.  For a pitcher that could be velocity, control, length, movement or durability.  By length we are talking about stamina.  If they were exclusively a RP in college could they transition into a starter or a multi inning reliever.

I don’t believe there is a specific thing scouts are looking for but a combination of things based on projections.

[liveforoctober]

5 hours ago, nate82 said:

Live arm just means it is an easy velocity coming out of the hand/arm.  Though that is the more traditional definition.  It could be used differently now but I doubt it.  It isn’t really tied to a velocity reading more of how the body looks when it is coming out.  Is it easy or is it a max effort coming out.

A mid round pick regardless of if it is a pitcher or a positional player you are looking at projection.  Where are they now and could they add more in the future.  For a pitcher that could be velocity, control, length, movement or durability.  By length we are talking about stamina.  If they were exclusively a RP in college could they transition into a starter or a multi inning reliever.

I don’t believe there is a specific thing scouts are looking for but a combination of things based on projections.

..and I guess that is my question. Relative projection vs. Specific projection. If we are just looking at college pitchers in the middle rounds and saying "I think Player A could add some command, I think Player B could minimize the noise in his wind up and increase length, etc" that is very case by case specific.

Is it plausible that a better strategy to maximize value in those rounds COULD be looking at the Craig Yoho prototype and saying "we need to find every guy that throws at least xx mph that has glove side spin rates at xxx and, after reasonable scouting, he has never tried/we think he can develop a counter pitch with similar spin rates... and just draft that same guy 4 times in the draft?

I'm just thinking out loud, if it is a crap shoot as much as it is already ... Yoho makes me stop in my tracks and say "well what happened here and how can we do that again?"

[jay87shot]

In order to find guys like Yoho I think alot is looking at pitch metrics, finding unique pitches with lots of spin (maybe in some cases not a lot of spin). Every year we draft guys with 3,000 rpm breaking pitches and other unique pitch mechanics like extension or movement. We also do a pretty good job of finding college pitchers who were inquired and make improvements in rehab for example Jason Woodward through lower 90's in college and had TJ before we drafted him, when he was healthy last year he was up to 97/98 I believe. That is a big difference in prospect value just based on velo.

[MilwaukeeBeers]

On 4/21/2025 at 3:42 PM, liveforoctober said:

...and I know any scout reading me asking these elementary questions would roll their eyes. But selfishly I am curious what their scouting process is in more detail. When I hear someone say a draft pick "has a live arm" .. ok. Does that just mean he throws 96? Or does it mean we think he has the ability to manipulate a baseball in 3 separate directions? What kind of arm is most worthy of a mid round pick?

Brewers seem to believe that those worthy are guys with very unique traits. Letson for example gets the most extension off the mound out of anyone in the minors. They also really like guys with unique vertical approach angles (stuff that makes an average fastball sneaky good with unique shape) and of course high spin rate outliers. The lab thrives with that kind of clay to work with. 

[liveforoctober]

2 minutes ago, MilwaukeeBeers said:

Brewers seem to believe that those worthy are guys with very unique traits. Letson for example gets the most extension off the mound out of anyone in the minors. They also really like guys with unique vertical approach angles (stuff that makes an average fastball sneaky good with unique shape) and of course high spin rate outliers. The lab thrives with that kind of clay to work with. 

I love that puzzle part of it. The Brewers need a "fan suggestion" email box. If I knew I could help the team by reading scouting reports of D3 submarine arms in Vancouver .. I would probably do it.

[snoogans8056]

I don't think Craig Yoho is the prototype that we really should be looking at from the past couple drafts. He's an outlier due to injuries and never actually being able to be seen. Marco Dinges probably falls into this category from last draft.

Josh Adamczewski (Letson for the pitching version) is the prototype for current Brewers drafts. Round 11-20 high schoolers who are under the radar and underrated.

We drafted a right handed clone of him this past year in Cooper Malamazian. He didn't sign, but he's been awesome at Indiana as a Freshman.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=malama000joh