THT: Zach McAllister Might Be a Keeper

Written by Greg Fertel | 05 January 2010

Pitch F/X guru Harry Pavlidis comes up with a list of 29 pitchers who fit his criteria. Since there is no Pitch F/X in minor league ballparks, he decided to use strikeouts per 100 PA, walks per 100 PA, groundball rate, and home runs per fly ball + line drives to find some good pitching prospects. I like his methodology, but as he says, he's just exploring his own bias. There is no proven correlation between this combination of minor league numbers and major league success. I suspect that there would be some correlation, but not necessarily a significant amount.

The only Yankees pitching prospect to make the list was right-handed starter Zach McAllister. Here's what Harry has to say about him:

K100    102
BH100   143
GB      108
HRFL    126


Marc Hulet ranks McAllister third in the Yankees system. I can't argue that. 
He's [22] and just turned in an impressive 22-start campaign in Double-A. 
Like Pineda, he's not a big-time worm killer, but he doesn't walk a lot 
of guys. 

After the trade of Arodys Vizcaino, I'd say that McAllister is the top pitching prospect in the Yankees farm system. While his stuff leaves a little to be desired, his results are too good to be ignored. This little study backs that up further. Go ahead and read through the entire article, former Yankee prospect Eric Hacker makes an appearance as well.

Picture courtesy of Mike Ashmore