Player Name: Pat McCabe
School: North Babylon
Position: RHP
Pat is a 2016 graduate of North Babylon HS. He is committed to playing at LIU Post. He is an undersized pitcher, but as we have seen from a local pitcher in the past, that is not the end-all, be-all.
He begins his delivery with a generic slight step back with his hands held letter high. At balance point, he is in an ideal position. He has a firm back leg, with a leg kick above the belt and his front foot pointed down. He gets his momentum going towards home plate, gets great drive from his back leg and has a good stride length. He has a long arm circle, but his body all moves in synergy and the timing of his front foot landing on the mound is perfect. His arm cirlce is directly over-the-top. He doesn’t get great extension on his pitches and he falls off to the first base side at times, but generally he finishes facing home plate. From a mechanical standpoint, he is reminiscent of former MLB pitcher Jon Lieber.
In his outing on April 5, it was abnormally cold which generally bodes will in the pitcher’s favor. It was also very windy, however, which makes it difficult for pitcher’s who rely on offspeed pitches, as McCabe can.
He started out the game by increasing the velocity on his fastball on the first four pitches. After a 79 MPH pitch, it climbed to 80, 81 then 82. He saw a lot more readings in the low 80s from that point on. He has hit the mid 80s in the past. He also threw a curveball, change up and splitter. The change up was 67-69 MPH. The curveball was slow but had tremendous two-plane break and he threw it for strikes.
McCabe allowed a leaoff triple on a 3-1 fastball in the first. It appeared he grooved simply to throw a strike. The batter made him pay by smacking a triple. The next batter drove him in with a ground out to second base. It was well struck and the second baseman made a nice grab to get the out. He struck out the next batter on a two-seamer that he painted on the outside corner. After an error, he allowed a walk and a hit to score an unearned run. He struck out the next batter on another two-seamer on the outside corner.
He breezed through the second, third and fourth innings. In these innings, he allowed only one single. He began painting the outside corner with his fastball and mixing in his change up and curve more effectively. The downside is that he did give away his change by slowing down his arm speed. Good hitters can recognize that. It is a quick fix, and the pitch has enough downward action that it could be effective but before getting to the next level that needs to be rectified.
In the third inning, he struck out two batters on curves. He did display the impressive ability to throw his curve for strikes early in the count and in the dirt with two strikes. Just as important as it is to locate pitches inside the strike zone is to have command of pitches outside the strike zone. This is something that Zack Greinke does exceptionally well–expand with two strikes and essentially eliminate the chance that he’ll run into a mistake.
He did run into trouble in the fifth inning after he retired the first two batters on two pitches. He allowed six consecutive hits. Frankly, it was freezing and it was after his team batted around so it was probably a situation where you bring in another pitcher, but McCabe is the ace and it was a big game so it was probably not a consideration. The decision cost them and it allowed four runs to score and the opposition to creep back in the game.
To his credit, McCabe did go back out for the sixth inning as well and he worked around an error to retire the next three hitters and put himself in position to win the game–which he did.
He mixed his pitches very well–that is a sign of an advanced pitcher. He also threw strikes with all his pitches. Despite the rocky results in the box score, he did show that he is a top pitcher in the county.
McCabe was 1.4-1.50 to home plate, middle of the road for a high school pitcher. Has the ability to throw strikes from the stretch position.
He did not attempt many pickoffs and the only ball hit back to him was a dribbler in which the batter did not run down the line, so it’s tough to assess his ability to control the running game and fielding his position.
He’s a tough customer, very fiery individual. He will be a successful pitcher at the next level.
