Player Name: Thomas Riley
Position: LHP
School: St. Anthony’s
Riley is a 6’1″ LHP that is a 2016 graduate of St. Anthony’s. He was named to the National Honor Society during his junior year and possessed a perfect 4.0 GPA.
From the windup, he steps to the side and brings his hands down to the belt as he gets into his balance point. He brings the hands back up to shoulder height and his leg kick is about letter high, foot pointing down and his back leg firm. He gets decent drive from the back leg. His arm circle is very long, which appeared to effect the release point of his slider at times. His stride was very good for his height. He lands with his foot slightly closed towards the first base side. Many lefties do this in order to create deception at the big league level, not as common in high school ball. His arm angle is high 3/4. He gets good extension on his pitches, but falls off to the third base side like many lefties tend to do.
He had a quick 1-2-3 inning in his outing. He worked in the 78-80 MPH range with the fastball and 67 with the curveball.
The first batter struck out looking on a tight curveball. What made it effective was that there was no difference in his delivery, arm angle or arm speed than the fastball and had very good break. He fell behind 1-0 on the next batter on a fastball down, got even with fastball, missed away with another fastball before getting a loud out to CF on a fastball up. The next better took a curve for strike one, watched two fastballs miss away as the count moved to 2-1, watched strike 2 on a fastball in and then swung through a slider on the inside corner. It had some terrific bite.
Since Riley is such a good student, he will have the opportunity to attend some terrific schools. From a baseball perspective, he has a good idea how to attack hitters, he throws strikes and he has three pitches. If he fills out, he can probably add some significant velocity on his fastball and boost his value to Div-I programs.
