Tuesday, September 9, 2008 | By Alex Eisenberg

Helium Watch: Texas Rangers Pitching Prospect Neil Ramirez

Background

The 19 year old Ramirez was drafted in the second round of the 2007 major league draft

Body and Athleticism

Ramirez has a very projectable frame and is regarded as a good athlete.

Stuff

"You know it when you see it". That's sort of the feeling I had watching video of Ramirez. He was very impressive.

His fastball sat anywhere from 91 - 94 and it has been said he is able to get up to 96. However, the key to the pitch was how quickly it got on hitters. The pitch looked as if it picked up an extra two or three gears before reaching home plate. There is potential for more velocity as he matures.

Ramirez has a curveball that is close to a plus pitch when on, but there are consistency problems to be fixed as he can have trouble commanding it. His curveball plays up due to how hard it appears to come out of his hand and how similar the plane can be to his fastball. Below is a Ramirez throwing his fastball (left) and curveball (right):

Neil Ramirez

The third pitch Ramirez features is his change-up. The pitch will go a long way toward determining whether Ramirez ends up in the bullpen or becomes a starter. At this moment, the change-up lags behind the other two pitches but it has the potential to become at least a show me pitch and at best an average pitch.

In addition to needing to hone his third pitch, Ramirez will have to show improved control. We'll get more into that shortly

Mechanics

Neil Ramirez

Aggressive, almost violent, forceful; just a few descriptions that come to mind when watching Ramirez.

To take you through it, the first thing Ramirez does well is drift through the balance point, meaning as his leg rises during his wind-up, the hips start drifting toward home plate before the knee reaches its upper most point. By reaching your balancing point and then falling toward home plate, the pitcher is essentially stopping their delivery in mid-wind-up, which is not something we want to do.

Ramirez then proceeds to load his arm--his elbow gets a little high, which may or may not add to his injury risk. At this point, you really see Ramirez dial it up a couple notches before foot plant as the arm rotates around into release.

You can get an indicator of how much force Ramirez is putting into his throws as he has to readjust his hat after each throw. Watch how his hat is almost jarred loose from his head at release.

Ramirez has a long stride and he appears to be somewhat of a short-armer. Both attributes are factors in Ramirez's deception.

Where Ramirez runs into problems is at finish, which is somewhat abrupt. In addition, he lands somewhat stiffly on his front leg.

There also might be a problem of his delivery being too violent. I love aggressive deliverys and unique mechanics, but not if it has a negative on one's control. Historically, Ramirez has been noted to have pretty good control, especially of his fastball.

My advice would be to let him be for now, but continue looking for ways to make his delivery more efficient and smoother without causing him to lose some of the quality of his stuff.

By the Numbers

Ramirez has displayed an ability to miss bats in his young career thus far (K% of 27.7). Accompanying that K% is poor control (15.4 BB%), but that hasn't prevented Ramirez from putting up a very respectable 2.66 ERA.

Ramirez is able to put up a very solid ERA because he has been extraordinarily difficult to hit. He's given up just 25 hits in 44 innings and has a .213 BABIP against. This is likely due to the deception in Ramirez's delivery and due to the fact he's been effectively wild.

Final Thoughts

Ramirez is an intriguing prospect because he possesses high quality stuff and the metrics back that up. However, Ramirez is not without any red flags. He must become more consistent and he must do a better job keeping his stuff under control. Ramirez also comes out with a higher than normal injury risk because of the violence/aggression in his delivery and other mechanical attributes that are often times associated with injury. However, Ramirez is athletic enough and young enough to make any necessary adjustments. His athleticism will give him a better chance to stay healthy as well.

Ramirez often gets lost in the shuffle of the many pitching prospects in the Texas organization, so he's relatively little talked about. Should Ramirez make progress next year and get more innings under his belt, people should begin to take notice.

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