Prospect Profiles 2009: Travis Schlichting

Overview-Schlichting was a 2003 4th round draft pick of the Rays out of high school. He had pitched before but the Rays preferred him as an infielder. After 4 mediocre years as a position player, he decided to give pitching a try again. Following a stint in the independent league, Schlichting was signed by the Dodgers and quickly showed great promise. He was good enough in 2008 that the Dodgers added him to the 40-man roster and he has the potential to be an impact bullpen arm.

Stuff-Schlichting mainly sticks with a two-pitch arsenal: a sinker and a slider. His sinker sits from 89-91 mph and touches 93. It has solid arm side tail and sink when he's going good, but it can straighten out a bit at times. His slider is thrown hard and it sits at 82-84 mph. It has the necessary bite to eventually evolve into a strikeout pitch for him, but he needs to make sure it doesn't flatten out.

Command-Not surprisingly, Schlichting's consistency and command are lacking at this stage. It's not so much that he walks a lot of batters, it's that he will leave pitches in the zone or won't hit his spots. For example, he'll leave his sinker high and hang a flat slider from time to time. I'm not especially worried at this stage because of his relative inexperience, but he does need to show improvement going forward.

Mechanics-I think I honestly want to see more video before passing judgment. For now, I will just say that nothing looks especially awkward or worrying, but since he's new to pitching, I wanted to see him throw later in the year because lots of adjustments will be made. Unfortunately, I just couldn't get that video. Now that he's at AAA though, I should have lots to work with.

Mental-Scouts say that he's aggressive on the mound and very confident. It doesn't surprise me that he comes off as mature when considering that he is older and has had to go through a lot to get here.

Health-There's nothing of concern in his past, although he did recently get shutdown in Spring Training with a bulging disk in his back.

Performance-It's a small sample size but the results are promising. In only his first full season as a pitcher, he kept the walks remarkably low (2.72 BB/9) and his strikeout rate was quite decent (7.39 K/9). His ERA was a solid 3.77 and that is backed by a 3.64 FIP. He did give up 58 hits in 59 2/3 innings, but that was largely tied to him leaving his pitches all over the zone like I have previously mentioned.

Some of his other splits are very interesting though. He's a sinkerballer, but induces only a slightly above-average amount of groundballs (44.9%). Similarly, he gives up about an average amount of line drives (18.4%). The odd thing is that he allows a well above-average amount of flyballs (34.6%), especially for a sinkerballer. Normally, this would scare the hell out of me, but 61.8% of those flyballs are infield pop-ups. Still, even though infield pop-ups are even more harmless than groundballs, the chances that he can induce 60-70% of flyballs to be pop-ups is very doubtful in the long run, so I would feel much better to see that GB% creep over 50%.

Schlichting still needs to get his hit rate down, his strikeout rate up, and induce more groundballs, but in the context of this being his first full season as a pitcher, it's hard to complain about what he has accomplished.

Other-Nothing interesting of note.

Projection-Schlichting's ceiling isn't much higher than what he is now, but his floor isn't much lower either. He could potentially be a decent setup man, and he's a solid reliever at worst. The most likely outcome is that he becomes an effective 7th inning reliever, maybe a less skilled version of Ramon Troncoso.

Travis will start the season at AAA, but with a solid showing there, he could get a quick call-up to the big leagues. Barring any complications from his back injury, I would expect him to be with the Dodgers sometime in 2009.