2011 Indians Top 50 Prospects: #13 Nick Hagadone

Nick Hagadone - Left-handed Pitcher
Born: 01/01/1986 – Height: 6’5” – Weight: 230 – Bats: Left – Throws: Left

(Photo: Ken Carr)

History: Hagadone was selected by the Boston Red Sox in the 1st round of the 2007 Draft out of the University of Washington. He signed with the Red Sox for $575,000. The Indians acquired him as part of a three player package they received from the Red Sox in the Victor Martinez trade. He tore the UCL ligament in his left elbow in a game on April 16, 2008 and ended up having Tommy John surgery on June 10, 2008.

Strengths: Hagadone is a very big, physical left-handed pitcher who features a plus-plus fastball that sits at 95-97 MPH and has topped out at 99 MPH in the past. There are some who believe that as he gets further away from Tommy John surgery, gets stronger, and works out his mechanical issues that he has the arm strength where he could someday hit 100 MPH. He uses his height to his advantage well and gets his fastball on a nice downward plane with some good natural sink to it. He shows solid average command of his fastball and has no fear of putting it on the plate. He gets a good amount of groundballs and really limits home runs because hitters have a hard time getting under his fastball to lift the ball against him. He throws two secondary offerings, a slider and changeup, with the slider being the better offering of the two. His plus slider has lots of depth and tilt and is an out pitch that he just dominates left-handers with. His changeup is a below average offering that is a work in progress and has the potential to be an average offering. While it has shown improvement and at times gets nice downward movement, it is an inconsistent pitch.

Most importantly, Hagadone’s surgically repaired elbow is feeling great as he is 100% healthy and has not had any setbacks with the elbow and his velocity returned last year as he was up to 97-98 MPH several times. His walk rate will always be high, but he is also always going to be a high strikeout guy because he has natural stuff and is not going to give up very many hits. He sets the benchmark very high when it comes to maturity, work ethic, discipline, intelligence, and the passion to play the game of baseball. When he is on the mound he oozes confidence and is always sure of himself. Even last season through all of his struggles he never lost faith in himself and remained extremely positive and confident he can work through the issues he was having. He has a presence about him on the mound where he is very intimidating to opposing hitters by throwing his pitches with conviction and without fear. He is an intense competitor who is tenacious and goes right after hitters, and because of all these intangibles and his stuff he projects as a dominant late innings reliever or possible top shelf closer.

When Hagadone was acquired from the Red Sox in July of 2009 he was in the middle of a rehab program from Tommy John surgery. He remained on a restricted 50 pitch count or three inning limit (whichever came first) for every outing for the remainder of that season. Last year he opened the season on a 60-65 pitch count before being allowed to throw 80-85 pitches in mid-May in order to control his workload as the Indians did not want to jump his innings total too much from 2009 to last year. While he was hard to hit (.226 BAA) and averaged more than a strikeout an inning (9.4 K/9) last year, he had a sub par season because he gave up way too many walks (6.6 K/9).

Hagadone’s command problems plagued him all year, so to help counteract the problem the Indians completed a pre-planned move to the bullpen with about six weeks left in the season. After moving to the bullpen, he finished the year going 1-1 with a 3.68 ERA and .229 BAA in 12 relief appearances (22.0 IP, 19 H, 16 BB, 18 K). The walks were still there, but the quality of his stuff improved. The move to the bullpen was something the Indians told him about back before the season started. Prior to turning pro he was a college reliever who only made seven starts in 55 career college games, but like most priority relief prospects he initially pitched out of the starting rotation to start his pro career in order to help him develop a routine, work on his pitches, expose him to as many game situations as possible, and flipping a lineup two to three times help teach him to pitch rather than throw.

The Indians feel Hagadone is best suited in the bullpen because of his command issues, lack of a quality third pitch, and because he is such a highly intense competitor. By having him pitch in short stints they feel it will better maintain his focus letting him air it all out over two innings versus the mindset as a starter having to go five innings and pitching deep into games. As a starter his consistency with repeating his delivery for five to six innings and 80-90 pitches is a constant battle and results in a lot of effort in his delivery where as a reliever the need to consistently repeat his delivery is less important. His changeup had been inconsistent and a work in progress, but in the bullpen that pitch can be shelved to where he can almost exclusively rely on his fastball-slider combination to get hitters out. He also has had inconsistent command, which is typically easier to cover up in the bullpen over one or two innings rather than as a starter going five to seven innings. His stuff is still not all the way back to where it was prior to Tommy John surgery in June of 2008, and the command is usually the last thing to come. His stuff and command may start to play up in the bullpen, and not having to worry about flipping a lineup two to three times a game he can show everything and go after hitters more aggressively. The Indians have not ruled him out as a starter in the future and he likely will pitch in a piggyback role again this year, but his major league future is almost certainly in the bullpen.

Opportunities: Developing Hagadone’s secondary pitches and command is the main focus right now. He showed improved confidence in both his slider and changeup last year, but both still need a lot of work. The Indians have challenged him to throw his slider for strikes early in the count and to refine and tighten up his slider, and they have challenged him to get a better feel for his changeup and to use it more to right-handed hitters. His command was consistent all last season and he never really got into a rhythm. He was leaving his fastball up in the zone a lot, and the command of his offspeed pitches was erratic. To combat his command issues he needs to work on staying in a good rhythm with his delivery and better repeat it. They have challenged him to work on pounding the strike zone more consistently with strikes and eliminating the big misses. The Indians are also working to control his emotions on the mound because he is so intense and competitive that at times he is his own worst enemy as he has a tendency to get too amped up and it works against him. He needs to get better at reading swings and just needs mound time to gain more experience. He had to endure a lot of high pitch and high stress outings in almost every appearance last season, which was likely the byproduct of still finding his way back to complete health. He did go on the disabled list with some mild shoulder soreness in the summer, but returned after a short amount of time away and was fine the rest of the season.

Outlook: At some point or another in a pro career, an athlete will face adversity with a season that is not up to their standard. Most of the greats have had that one clunker of a season, just ask Cliff Lee if he remembers 2007. With that in mind, a clean slate this year may be just what the doctor ordered for Hagadone as he has a chance to start anew and right the ship. The kid gloves should be off this year as the Indians should not worry too much about maintaining his health as much as they did last year, so he has a chance to make a ton of strides this year with his command and stuff. At the moment, the Indians lack any real left-handed relief pitching depth in the upper levels of their farm system, so they are hoping he can fill that void this year and become a legit big league reliever and cornerstone to their bullpen for many years. He should open the 2011 season with a return trip to Double-A Akron, but should spend a considerable amount of time at Triple-A Columbus and may be called up to Cleveland for his big league debut in September when rosters expand.

Year	Age	Team	Lvl	W	L	ERA	G	GS	IP	H	ER	HR	BB	SO	AVG	BB/9	K/9	WHIP
2007	21	Lowell	A-	0	1	1.85	10	10	24.1	14	5	1	8	33	.163	3.0	12.2	0.90
2008	22	Greenville	A	1	1	0.00	3	3	10.0	5	0	0	6	12	.135	5.4	10.8	1.10
2009	23	Greenville	A	0	2	2.52	10	10	25.0	13	7	0	14	32	.149	5.0	11.5	1.08
2009	23	Lake County	A	0	1	2.45	5	5	14.2	8	4	0	5	21	.163	3.1	12.9	0.89
2009	23	Kinston	A+	0	0	5.06	2	2	5.1	5	3	0	5	6	.250	8.4	10.1	1.88
2010	24	Kinston	A+	1	3	2.39	10	10	37.2	28	10	2	29	45	.206	6.9	10.8	1.51
2010	24	Akron	AA	2	2	4.50	19	7	48.0	44	24	5	34	44	.242	6.4	8.2	1.63
		MiLB Totals		4	10	2.89	59	47	165.0	117	53	8	101	193	.196	5.5	10.5	1.32

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Posted in: Nick Hagadone