Two of the top 2019 arms came off the board yesterday only a few hours apart from each other. To make things more interesting, they will not only be staying on Long Island, but will be in the same conference.
Here’s my thoughts on both:
Michael Storms (Smithtown East 2019) to LIU Post
The hard-throwing southpaw Michael Storms warming up looking to keep Smithtown East’s undefeated season going pic.twitter.com/FhMCDM7xYE
— Axcess Baseball LI (@axcessbaseball) April 24, 2018
Storms is a prototypical left-handed pitcher, who relies primarily on his fastball-change up combo. He sits 80-82 MPH, but gets a lot more swings-and-misses than you’d expect with that velocity mainly because there’s enough of a difference between his FB and CH velocity that his FB plays harder than 82 MPH. Additionally, he hides the ball well. I’ve compared his delivery to that of Billy Wagner and I feel that similarity means he won’t have a discernible difference between facing lefties and righties. He profiles similar to Antonio Deodato, who sat out in 2018 recovering from Tommy John Surgery and will likely contribute to the Pioneers next season. Storms has no nerves on the mound, he is not easy to get off his game. As we saw this season, he was a huge reason Smithtown East got off to an 11-0 start this season. If his velocity was in that 85-87 MPH range I think all the Div-I schools would’ve been all over him. As it stands, his velocity puts him in that Div-II territory but a spike in velocity could easily put him in another realm. As it stands, it’s a huge pickup for Post because James Varela will be graduated by the time Storms makes it on campus so they will be looking for their next workhorse. As for 2019, I don’t expect Storms to lose more than 1 game next season, he’s one of the early favorites for the Paul Gibson Award.
Charlie Cucchiara (East Meadow 2019) to Molloy College
Stats: 5-3 record, 1.29 ERA, 9 ER IN 49 IP, 80 K, 5 BB, 22 H, 0.76 WHIP
It was a pretty terrific season for Cucchiara, who ran into some tough luck which caused a couple more losses than he deserved. Like Storms, his velocity (80-83 MPH) sort of pigeonholed him into being a Division-II pitcher, which is the state of amateur baseball right now. If you threw away the radar guns, however, it’s a different story. He has command of four pitches, he is always around the strike zone, but he also has that unique ability to command the ball outside of the strike zone. I’ve heard commentators like Ron Darling discuss this concept at length. Basically, good pitchers throw strikes and command the strike zone but great pitchers have control outside of the strike zone as well. This is important because when you begin facing elite competition and you have a situation where you have a runner on third and less than two outs in a one-run ball game you might need a strike out. If you can bounce a curveball on the plate, this is when you do it. Pitchers like Cucchiara have the ability to do that. I saw him at the PBR NY showcase in February and I realized he was a top pitcher. I then watched him against Calhoun in early April. They defeated him, but if you were there you realized how baseball is a funky game. Not one ball was hit hard–just a couple bloops that couldn’t have been placed in any better spots caused the runs. He was handed with one of his three losses, but he also struck out 10 and impressed me how well he pitched after those runs came in. I think he’s the type of kid that will step in from Day 1 and compete for a spot in the rotation.
Now that these two are off the board, teams will shift their focus to some of the other top arms. Obviously, Roman Dorosh is the top available, but there’s only one local school in the mix for him and two out-of-state. My top choices if I’m a local school are Rob Milopsky, Chandler Giovinco and Cameron Mayer.
