Player Name: Josh Outsen
School: St. Joseph’s
Position: RHP
Josh is a 2017 graduate of St. Joseph’s College and 2013 graduate of Copiague HS. He is a 6’1″ RHP. He was named to Baseball on the Island’s 2015 All-Long Island team after compiling a 1.32 ERA.
From the windup he takes a small step back with his glove at belt height as he enters his delivery. At his balance point, he has a firm back leg, a high leg kick with his front foot parallel to the ground and his eyes on the ground as a timing mechanism. He doesn’t get much drive from his back side. He hunches his back to generate his low 3/4 arm angle, which creates a lot of deception on right handed batters. He has a good stride and lands with his front foot pointing towards home plate. He gets good extension and finishes in good fielding position.
He had an uneven start on March 26 against a good hitting team, but he has enough of a track record to suggest it was an anomaly and he is certainly capable of beating any team with his skillset.
Her worked primarily in the 85-87 MPH range with his two-seam fastball which is what he predominantly used. He also throws a very sharp 11-5 breaking ball which is a real weapon. He mixes in a change up but did not throw that very often in this outing.
He threw many first pitch curves, he is not afraid to work backwards due to his command.
When he spots his two-seamer on the inside corner to righties he is at his best. It has tremendous tail and in a wood bat league, he would break dozens of bats per season. Then he can expand the strike zone with his breaking ball.
One of the issues in this start was that he missed with his curve low on a high percentage. This put him in position to throw fastballs in favorable counts which resulted in him allowing 10 hits over 4 innings. To his credit, he did not issue a walk and struck out four batters. He is always around the strike zone, which only becomes a bad thing when working behind in the count.
Outsen has two career no-hitters to this point.
He did display some poor body language on the mound–not towards his teammates but himself. He was visibly frustrated when batters fouled off tough pitches. While this does not directly correlate to anything in terms of results, hitters can feed off of that negative energy knowing that he is getting irritated.
Outsen is a terrific fielding pitcher. He made a very nice play on a bunt. He lost his footing and threw from an awkward position, yet still fired a strike to first base. His pickoff throws are always good. His foot work was solid, he made strong accurate throws to the bag.
If the Golden Eagles are to take the jump to the top of the conference this season, it will be because Outsen pitched like the ace he can be and threw up zeros against the top teams. This is the type of pitcher he is.
