Nick Hagadone - Left-handed Pitcher
Born: 01/01/1986 – Height: 6’5” – Weight: 230 – Bats: Left – Throws: Left
(Photo: Ken Carr) |
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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4 comments:
Tony, if the Indians keep Hagadone as a starter, I couldn't see him increasing his 2010 Inning by more than 30% or 110 innnigs pitched. In Hagadone's world that would be around 20 starts.
I understand the temptation to put this guy in the pen and get him up to the bigs as soon as possible, but if I'm the Indians, I give him 12 starts (maybe 6 in AA and 6 in AAA) and if he does well, I take that road.
If he is still struggling to get through 6 innings and we assume he's around 60 innings pitched at this point, then switch him the pen.
I believe it would be negligence on the Indians part to make the change to start the 2011 season.
How would you play it?
It remains to be seen what exactly the Indians do with Hagadone to start the season. I'll know more once I get out there late this week. But I believe he is going to be in a piggbyback role where he splits with someone like McFarland or Adams in the rotation where one starts and goes 4-5 innings and the other finishes the last 4-5 innings and then vice versa next time out. You hate to abandon him as a starter, so it would be best of both worlds as it allows him to have a routine, bullpen sessions, get 4-5 innings an outing to work on his stuff, etc. He's likely heading to the bullpen at some point, but I agree, leave him a starter at the outset and then transition him to the pen later in the season if he continues to struggle with his command and third pitch.
Tony,
I was surprised at the FB velocity you attribute to Hagadone. While I know that he used to throw 95-97 mph, it was my understanding that last year his velocity was down around 93-95 mph.
Is my information wrong? Or was it down the 1st half of the year but improved later on? If the latter, could that be due to it playing up in short stint situations that might not be maintained as a starter?
Yes, he was up to 97-98 MPH. Note he was not sitting there as the average velocity was below that, but he was topping out up there many times.
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