Thread: Braden Shipley, rhsp, University of Nevada

early runner for college guy bursting from the pack - a lot of uncanny similarities to kyle zimmer a year ago. thre 7ip 6h 1er 7k against a crappy holy cross team over the weekend. from baseball america:

Balance of this post deleted -- it is a violation of Twins Daily rules to post an entire article. You may quote from an article and/or include a link to an article. Please see the sticky thread at the top of the main forum page for the statement of policy that covers this. glunn

Posted the whole article...nice.

Originally Posted by Twins Twerp

Posted the whole article...nice.

He was probably not aware of our policy about this.

UNR is the closest university sports program to me, and I got down there for a double-header their first weekend home, but Shipley was not pitching that day. I don't usually get down there more than one game a year, but he sounds like worth a second trip, so I plan to try sometime. I doubt if I can give a better scouting report than "he looks good" or "had an off day apparently", but I'll report what I can. Nevada's home field being at 4500 feet of elevation or so means that the ball flies out of there pretty good, so one can get a false impression even if a pitcher is basically sound.

Could be possible, fast risers are the type who have put it all together. Program worries me a bit, compitition may be weak most of the time.

Originally Posted by beckmt

Could be possible, fast risers are the type who have put it all together. Program worries me a bit, compitition may be weak most of the time.

their schedule isn't the strongest but i'd put them ahead of the missouri valley competition that manaea will be up against - kansas, san diego st, fresno st, san francisco and new mexico are all solid teams on their schedule.

didn't mean to violate the board policy by posting the bit from the article, but to summarize: shipley has been working at 93-95 and has a very good change-up. curve is developing and can be an out pitch at times. shipley is super athletic - played as a shortstop his freshman year - and repeats his delivery very well and fields his position exceptionally. last year was his first full year as a pitcher and he went 9-4, 2.20 with 88k in 98 ip. cousin of nfl wideout jordan shipley. right now his early returns are good so far this year, but not great. awful lot of potential for improvement. smells like a top ten pick.

rated no. 31 preseason college prospect by baseball america - similar to what zimmer was prior to his junior year iirc.

Originally Posted by beckmt

Could be possible, fast risers are the type who have put it all together. Program worries me a bit, compitition may be weak most of the time.

Nevada being in the WAC hurt them in baseball, they joined the Mountain West this year and once they get past the early-season assortment the competition should be more representative.

Lengthy article on him today in the local fishwrap. Not sure it contains any nuggets deeper than he uses his changeup for his out pitch. And that he was a big-time prospect as a 4-year-old.

Weekend line:
1/1 K/BB, 7 innings, 6 H, 3 ER

From Christopher Crawford on the outing:We noted last week that Shipley was a top ten quality player in this draft, and he did nothing to refute that this week. More strikeouts would be nice but he kept the walks down as well and we have to like that he was removed after 91 pitches. Not a dominant outing, but nothing that should hurt him.

In BA's weekly article Three Strikes they profiled Brandon Shipley. One NL scout had this to say about him:

"He’s got arguably one of the best righthanded changeups in the country—and that’s including the major leagues,” a National League area scout said. “It’s a devastating pitch, a separator. And I think his breaking ball could be a plus pitch in the future. It’s a true curveball, late and hard, and I’ve seen it up to 79-80 (mph), but there are also times you see it floating in at 74-75.”

To read the who article or just the section about Shipley follow the link below:

Three Strikes: Week 12 - BaseballAmerica.com