Player Name: Jake DeCarli
School: LIU Post
Position: RHP
Jake is a 6’0″ sophomore pitcher from Connecticut. He finished second in the ECC with a 1.03 ERA in 2014.
He begins his windup by stepping to the side as he prepares to begin his delivery. He hesitates slightly before the leg kick. His leg kick is very high and his knee is bent and his leg is nearly parallel to the ground. The foot is relaxed and facing down, while his back leg is locked. His eyes are locked on the target throughout the delivery. As he begins his falling action, it appears that he is about to drop down sidearm but he adjust his body to throw from a low 3/4 arm angle. His front foot lands slight open and his stride is about normal or his height. When he is delivering the ball, he is standing nearly straight up–very peculiar for a pitcher. For that reason, he doesn’t get very good extension. He does finish square to home plate.
In his April 2 start, he was dominant for seven innings, allowing one run, walking two and allowing six hits. He was throwing in the low 80s in the early innings, but ended up throwing mainly in the 84-85 range later in the game. He threw a knee-buckling slider at 71 MPH.
He struggled with his command in the early going–throwing 25 pitches (12 strikes) in the first inning. He had some long at bats but benefited from a caught stealing to sidestep trouble. In the 2nd inning, he settled down to throw nine of 14 pitches for strikes. Each inning after that was very efficent–he threw nine of 12 pitches for strikes in the third, eight of 11 in the fourth and eight of 10 in the fifth. He threw 12 of 18 for strikes in the sixth and seven of 10 in the seventh for a total of 65 strikes out of 100 pitches–well above-average for a collegiate pitcher.
What separates him from most pitchers is two things–his ability to throw the slider for strikes in hitters counts, and his ability to spot his two-seam fastball on the outside corner, a la Bartolo Colon. Division-II hitters will give up on pitches that come out of the hand as a ball, but his pitch will creep over the outside corner. The slider was absolutely devastating–he threw it for strikes on a better ratio than fastballs.
DeCarli has very quick feet on pickoff moves, but his throws were often low and gave the first baseman no chance to convert an out. He was much more accurate on his bunt throws, and he has very quick reaction times to get to the ball.
He will be difficult to hit for any opponent, especially teams that give up on his slider and get into 0-2 counts.
