Going into the season I had Alex White as my #3 Indians prospect, Drew Pomeranz my #4 prospect, Joe Gardner as my #10 prospect, and Matt McBride as my #56 prospect. At the midpoint of the season Pomeranz was the unquestioned #1 prospect, White still #3 or #4, Gardner more #25-30 and McBride lower than his #56 coming into the season. All of these scouting reports and 170+ more on Indians prospects are in my book this year.
I posted the 2011 Top 50 Indians prospects earlier this year, so the 2011 scouting reports for Drew Pomeranz, Alex White, and Joe Gardner are available by clicking on their hyperlinks. The 2011 Matt McBride report was not on-line....until now. I have provided it below (remember, this was written before the season):
56. Matt McBride – First Baseman/Outfielder
Born: 05/23/1985 – Height: 6’2” – Weight: 215 – Bats: Right – Throws: Right
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| Matt McBride |
Strengths: McBride is a big, strong hitter with good power and solid bat-to-ball skills. His strength is to his pull side as he can drive the ball into left field and the left center gap as well as anybody. Even though he is a power hitter he does a good job limiting the strikeouts and consistently puts the ball in play. During his rehab from shoulder surgery he added a lot of strength and improved his physical makeup, and it has shown the past two years with the amount of doubles and home runs he has piled up. As the health of his shoulder has improved it has also allowed him to gain more confidence and be more consistent at the plate, and he showed an improved ability to cover the outer half of the plate last season. He has also adopted a more simple approach where he just tries to be productive every at bat and stick to his plan. He is athletic and runs well for his size. He is a warrior who has excellent work ethic, and is sort of a throwback that hustles on every play and does not showboat.
Last year McBride was only hitting .255 with 4 HR, 32 RBI and a .686 OPS in 68 games at Double-A Akron through June 27th; however, from that point he finished the season hitting .308 with 17 HR, 43 RBI and a .964 OPS in 59 combined games at Akron and Triple-A Columbus. His midseason spike in performance can be attributed to a small change in his swing where he started using his hands much better and was not using so much of his body when he swung which allowed him to see the ball better. In addition to that he was just trusting his abilities, putting up better quality at bats, and was more confident.
Before McBride's shoulder surgery three years ago he was always viewed as one of the top catching prospects in the game because of his good catch-and-throw skills, above average arm, and leadership qualities behind the plate. In his return from surgery he attempted to catch in 2008 and 2009, but the carry on his throws was no longer there and his shoulder was not strong enough to handle the everyday rigors of catching, so to keep him healthy the Indians moved him to first base and left field full time in 2010. His shoulder is fine but just not strong enough to catch. At this point, his future is as a versatile player who can play first base, left field, right field and designated hitter. His days as an everyday catching option are gone as he is now viewed as nothing more than an emergency option there. His conversion to first base and left field started in winter ball in Hawaii in 2008, and in the last two seasons he has shown improvement and has started to settle in at both positions. He continued his development at first base and the outfield in the offseason out in the Dominican Winter League as he split time between first base, left field and right field. He has worked hard on his footwork both at first base and the outfield, and has become a slightly below average defender at both positions. His arm is solid average in the outfield, and by playing a lot of first base it saves some wear and tear on his shoulder.
Opportunities: McBride is about as streaky as a player can get as he follows up long cold spells with extreme hot streaks and vice versa, so he needs to be a more consistent performer where his performance is not so slanted to one extreme or the other. He is also very much a dead-pull hitter as he has a tendency to want to pull everything and has trouble lying off inside pitches. He did a better job last year of handling the outer half of the plate and working up the middle, but he still needs more work there as he still slides back to his tendency of trying to pull everything. While he does a solid job of limiting strikeouts, he could show a little more patience at the plate to help improve his walk rate. Defensively, he still needs to work on becoming more acquainted with first base and the outfield. There is still a lot to learn with getting better reads and jumps in the outfield and with his footwork around the bag at first base, so experience and playing time should help.
Outlook: McBride has now had two very productive seasons in a row, and while the Indians have always known he can hit his power spike is encouraging. The big problem for him is he no longer fits at any one position, which hurts his value as an everyday player. Right now there is a large bottleneck of like players in the outfield and first base between Cleveland, Columbus and Akron, so it appears a long shot for him to get that coveted big league opportunity with the Indians. But, if he continues to produce like he has the last two years and continues to improve defensively and stay healthy, at some point someone is going to give him a shot. He should open the 2011 season at Columbus.
Follow Tony and the Indians Prospect Insider on Twitter @TonyIPI. Also, his latest book the 2011 Cleveland Indians Top 100 Prospects & More is available for purchase for $20.95 to customers in the US (shipping and handling extra).
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