Player Name: Nick Dorcean
School: Old Westbury
Position: RHP
Nick is a 5’8″ 175 lb sophomore pitcher that is a graduate of Archbishop Molloy HS. He threw 11.2 innings last season and allowed eight ER, but struck out 16.
He takes a slight step back in his delivery with his hands waist high. He brings his hands up high as he enters his balance position. His leg kick is slightly above waist level. He looks down at his feet just prior to his leg kick. He begins the falling action as his leg approaches the balance position. Shorter pitchers, such as Roy Oswalt and Tim Hudson do this to generate more velocity. There are a couple flaws in his delivery: One is that he does not drive enough with his back leg. Especially for a 5’8″ pitcher, he should really drop it lower to use every bit of force. The stride is long and his front leg lands on line with home plate but he does not get enough extension on his pitches. Also, when he lands with his front leg bent, it does not straighten out as it should, that sacrifices velocity. He also has an inconsistent falloff after his pitches, which affects command.
In his March 17 start, he did manage to get through six innings while allowing three ER, but the opposition was very aggressive and bailed him out when he fell behind in the count. He was mainly working at 80-81 MPH with an incredibly slow curveball that was 60 MPH. Against an aggressive offense, that can be effective but elite hitting teams can learn to sit on that pitch and either spit on it in the dirt or mash it if it’s hung.
Dorcean ran into control problems in the third inning when he walked the first two batters and the pitches were not close. He figured it out, but it will be hard to put him into crucial situations if he is bouncing pitches.
