Indians Top 100 Prospects: #43 Josh Judy

43. Josh Judy - Right-handed Pitcher
Born: 02/09/1986 - Height: 6'4" - Weight: 200 - Bats: Right - Throws: Right

Year	Age	Team	Lvl	W	L	ERA	G	GS	SV	IP	H	ER	HR	BB	K	BB/9	K/9	WHIP
2007	21	GCL Indians	R	1	2	0.63	9	0	0	14.1	11	1	0	8	14	5.0	8.8	1.33
	21	Mahoning Vy	A-	0	0	0.00	4	1	1	11.0	7	0	0	3	7	2.5	5.7	0.91
2008	22	Lake County	A	12	1	3.51	35	0	1	74.1	60	29	6	25	80	3.0	9.7	1.14
		Kinston	A+	0	0	1.93	7	0	0	14.0	12	3	0	1	17	0.6	10.9	0.93
		Career		13	3	2.61	55	1	2	113.2	90	33	6	37	118	2.9	9.4	1.12

History: Judy was a 34th round pick in the 2007 Draft out of the Indiana Institute of Technology. During his two year professional career, Judy has exclusively pitched out of the bullpen and put up some impressive numbers.

Strengths & Opportunities: The 6'4" 200-pound Judy throws a fastball with great life that consistently sits at 92-94 MPH topping out as high as 96 MPH when he was in college. He complements his plus fastball with a slider and changeup. The slider is very good and has a nice sharp break to it and late movement. Hitters have a real hard time picking it up, and it is a swing-and-miss pitch for him. He used to throw a curveball as his third pitch, but it was tabled for the changeup. He did not use the changeup much in game situations last year, and instead mostly worked on it in bullpen sessions between games since he was still learning to throw it seeing that he never threw one before. In addition to his outstanding fastball-slider two pitch mix, he displays very good composure on the mound by being a bulldog in tight situations. He is aggressive on the mound and goes right after hitters.

Judy needs more work on getting more sink on his pitches, which down the road is really going to help him attack left-handed hitters and get easier outs. He also needs to tighten up his slider as it has a tendency at times to flatten out. This year the development of the changeup will be of high priority since the development of the pitch sort of took a backseat last year since the Indians first wanted him to solidify his slider before moving forward with the changeup. He needs to work on his pickoff moves and changing the running game up as well. One of the main focuses for him next season will be getting better attacking left-handers and also pitching inside more to right-handers in order to setup his offspeed stuff on the outside.

Outlook: Judy is one of the top right-handed relief prospects in the system and has loads of potential. This upcoming season could be a big year for him to solidify his standing as a big time relief prospect, and he will open the season in the advanced Single-A Kinston bullpen.

Photo courtesy of Ken Carr

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