Indiana righty McCade Brown has been one of the bigger surprises of 2021, up there with GameStop investors’ suddenly thick pockets, high-def video from Mars, and Ted Cruz flying to Cancun. There were hints of his emergence, but certainly more questions than real answers. He is a secret no longer. This kid is the real deal, and he’s here to stay. Indeed, McCade Brown may be one of the best pitchers in college baseball.
Brown has never been the guy. He was recruited to Indiana in 2018, but according to Perfect Game, wasn’t even one of the five best arms committed to play for the Hoosiers. Just 18-years-old, he was a gangly 6-foot-6, 175 pounds when he set foot on campus.
Two-and-a-half years later, the product of Normal, Illinois has tacked on 50 pounds and looks every bit that of a big league arm.
It’s never come easy for Brown. In 2019, he made two starts in midweek games as a true freshman. He walked eight batters, allowed two hits and surrendered five earned runs in just 2.2 innings of work. On April 10, he got the nod against Purdue. Brown didn’t record an out. It would be his last appearance of the year.
He went to work, adding some of the aforementioned weight while focusing on his control and command. He was up to 93 with a good slider as a freshman. The stuff was never in question.
Brown was ready to rock and roll in 2020, but still wasn’t quite polished enough to earn a spot in the Indiana rotation. Still, even in relief, some of the warts from 2019 came back to bite him. In four games over four innings, Brown walked five more batters, allowing four hits and five earned runs. But nine of the twelve outs he recorded were punch outs. The stuff was getting louder.
Then, COVID shut down the season.
Brown decided to take his unused bullets to the Kernels Collegiate League this past summer where he hoped to sharpen his arsenal. He dominated the opposition to the tune of a 0.93 ERA, allowing just five hits, walking 11 and striking out an astonishing 50 batters in just 22.1 innings. Brown recorded 67 outs this summer. 75 percent of them were strikeouts. And yeah, sure, walking eleven batters in 22+ innings still isn’t great, but it’s marked progress.
Not only were the results encouraging, the stuff was peaking too. Brown was up to 97, and his good slider was now being complimented with a very good 12-6 curveball. The latter comfortably a plus offering. Brown already had a changeup in his back pocket too.
In the 24 months since graduating high school as a relative unknown, Brown had developed a 4-pitch arsenal working into the upper-90s and built his body into his now big, tall, broad, pro stature.
Enter 2021. The concerns were still there. After all, regardless of his summer accolades, Brown was still just a guy who’d worked 6.2 innings in his entire collegiate career. He was a guy who averaged two walks per inning as a Hoosier. He owned a 14.85 ERA for his career. Let’s pump the brakes, right?
Well, through his first two starts this season, both against Big Ten opponents, Brown looks like a first round talent. He’s thrown 14 innings, punched out 28 batters, allowed just three hits and walked two. His ERA sits at 0.64. His WHIP, and even more impressive 0.36. The command is there. The stuff is there. The results are there.
Brown’s fastball is again up to 95 and the curveball has been an absolute haymaker, one scout throwing a 70 grade on it following last weekend’s start against Minnesota.
Brown is flying up boards as scouts have been flocking to his starts. It’s not just that Brown is a prototypical 6-foot-6 righty. He works really well down the mound and has a clean operation featuring a desirable shorter arm action. Analytically-driven teams will love what they see as well. The TrackMan data is just as special as his boxscores.
Brown’s fastball sits comfortably 94-95, touching 97 with well above average spin rates in the 2450-2500 range. For reference, the MLB-average is just 2200 RPM. Brown averages over 18-inches of induced vertical break (IVB) on his fastball. That’s well above average “ride” for a big league heater.
The curveball is even more impressive with spin rates sitting in the 2900 RPM range. It’s more than 400 RPMs over MLB-average. It’s comfortably elite spin. It’s also a really firm offering running up there at 80-82 mph, touching 83. The curveball has been his primary breaking ball this year as it mirrors the shape of his fastball really well.
Brown still has the slider from early in his career and its got plenty of strong characteristics too. It’s a sweeping slider that really runs away from righty-bats. Spin rates exceed 2800 RPMs on most offerings. Brown hasn’t broken the slider out too much this season, but maybe it gets worked into the arsenal as Indiana pushes deeper into their season.
The changeup is probably his least effective pitch. It’s probably a 40-grade cambio right now, lacking command and feel. It’s also a high-spin off-speed pitch, generally not a good thing when trying to kill lift and create separation off the fastball. That said, the extra spin does create a good bit of arm-side fading action for Brown. He could potentially use it to induce ground balls against lefty bats. Still, he’ll need to locate the pitch in competitive locations should it become and integral part of his repertoire.
As it stands, you’re looking at a 6-foot-6 big league body with high-90s gas in the tank and two distinct high-spin breaking balls that can both be deployed to get swing-and-miss. Scouts drool over that type of clay and projection.
If Brown pours over strikes for the remainder of this season, he’s a slam dunk day-one selection come July. He’s exactly how you draw em’ up.