Without the Minor League season I’ll periodically be going back in time to watch starts from last year to bring video and my thoughts on what the pitcher presents. Welcome to Pitcher Rewind.
One of the more intriguing pitching prospects to me is Toronto Blue Jays RHP Eric Pardinho. He pitched in the Midwest League last year as an 18 year old, where the average age is 21. Based on his age and league averages he would be projected to the DSL, maybe the other Rookie Leagues where he would still be young. At 18 he was one of, if not the, youngest pitcher in the Midwest League in 2019.
Since this is a rewind, I have the benefit of selecting a game where Pardinho shined. I chose his July 26th start against the West Michigan Whitecaps.
Parinho’s line: 5 IP, 2 H, 1 ER, 6 K, 5 BB
Before diving into this, it’s important to take note of what to expect. Pardinho was ranked 9th among Blue Jays prospects in our rankings. While he does have three pitches, he’ll live mostly with his fastball that generally sits int he low 90s. According to Ralph Lifshitz in his writeup, “His curveball is his strongest secondary and will flash plus, but he needs to work on the consistency of its shape.”
Pardinho will also show a changeup, although it’s his third pitch and likely won’t make much of an appearance.
When talking about a guy this young, there’s a reason he’s able to succeed against competition that is more experienced. Ralph says “A smart pitcher often credited with advanced sequencing, Pardinho has also discussed his usage of trackman data. In an August [2019] interview with Sportsnet, he discussed analyzing his spin rates and extension data to measure his success from start to start.”
When it’s all said and done, Ralph gave Pardinho a backend profile with a ceiling in the middle of a rotation.
Repertoire
Fastball
It took Pardinho a little bit to settle in to start out, almost sailing his first two pitches. In fact, he first inning looked to be all fastballs, though he was able to freeze a pair of batters for a looking strike three. That started happening when he started working east west. After missing up twice to start the inning, he settled into the middle of the zone. Then, like the flip of a switch, he started dotting up the corners. What is even more encouraging is that he spotted low and out to both a right and lefty, commanding both sides of the dish.
One of the common themes during this particular start was the use of that fastball as a strikeout pitch. In fact, all of his strikeouts came via the fastball. Sometimes he went low and away, but more often than not the initial plan was to elevate it, as seen here.
Curveball
As I watched this start, this pitch became the focal point for me. It’s clearly his best secondary, and if it can flash plus I wanted to see that. It seemed like Pardinho struggled a bit with it in this start.
The hope is that it wouldn’t take him too long to pull out a secondary pitch. It didn’t, fairly early in the second inning he threw a breaking ball, in fact it was the second pitch of the inning. It wasn’t the best location, but it got a whiff to bring the count to 0-2.
He threw a couple others, but they all found the exact same spot. Each one seemed to be destined to break right to the middle of the plate, which is not the optimal location. Here’s one Pardinho threw in an 0-2 count to Ulrich Bojarski after a fouled off elevated fastball.
Ideally his curveball would follow suit of the fastball and start to find better location as Pardinho settled in and got comfortable on the release point. No such luck.
When a walk put Pardinho in the stretch for the first time things started to go downhill rather quickly. He finally was snake bitten by the curveball location as Daniel Reyes knocked a single.
The jam turned bases loaded and Pardinho escaped without giving up a run. Perhaps more exciting though, he threw a curve to the outside part of the plate. The ump didn’t give him the call, but it was good to see the breaking ball anywhere but down the middle.
That curveball location was a big thing I was watching. After the above curveball, I counted two more. One that was released early and was no where near the zone, and one that showed good life, but didn’t quite make it 60 feet 6 inches.
Oddly enough that was the curve I liked the most from Pardinho in this start. It showed what the pitch looked like when it was down in the zone and not belt level or higher. Overall in the start, he was only in a couple jams.
Changeup
This is the pitch that is undergoing the most development. Ralph noted that Pardinho wants to throw his changeup more, It was tough to tell, and it’s possible my eyes classified some changeups as fastballs. However, by my count he threw three of them. Two were not great pitches, and miss up. He did have one that was still a little up, but it caused Rey Rivera to ground out.
The commonality here is that his offspeed pitches are missing too high. If he can get more confidence in the changeup, it can be a good enough offering to compliment the curve and fastball. It won’t necessarily become a pitch that creates whiffs, but it can compliment a curveball that can create swing and miss when thrown well.
Final Thoughts
This start was very good and extremely encouraging. Remember at the time of this start, Pardinho was an 18 year old in the Midwest League. He showed impeccable command of his fastball by working east/west as well as north/south. It kept the Whitecaps off balance the entire game and allowed him to all but exclusively live and die with one pitch for five innings.
For the most part it was cruise control with some help from his catcher picking off two runners in tight spots. In both cases, the jams started with Pardinho losing the zone and walking a batter. He was pretty unhittable out of the windup, despite throwing mostly fastballs.
As Ralph pointed out in his report of Pardinho, he’s wanting to use his changeup more. That’s good. The hope is that more consistency in his good curveball, both in location and shape, and more confidence in his changeup will mean his low 90’s fastball isn’t relied on as his swing and miss offering. Every one of his six strikeouts in this Whitecaps game came from his fastball.
For a lot of that start I was waiting on the curveball to present as a plus pitch. Even if it didn’t, this is one start and it’d be worth chalking it up to struggling with release point for a day. It happens. But that last curveball in the dirt, while not the best pitch, showed the movement he can get when he gets that pitch low in the zone. He can’t live with that breaking ball being center cut.
From the start of Pardinho’s windup to delivery, there’s time to take a short nap. And that’s on the quick release. He’s not afraid to mess with timing during his leg kick, or even varying the time it takes from him to go from the rocker step to the leg kick. Though the delivery starts slow, his tempo wasn’t egregiously slow. He found his rhythm.
Pardinho has had his arm troubles, but he shows super advanced for his age. That says a lot about his IQ, and that makes him fun to watch. Not to beat a dead horse here, but he’ll need to find more consistency in that breaking ball, but there’s a lot to like here and he showed it in this game against the Whitecaps.