By The Baseball Beginnings Guy
May 3, 2012
I’m pretty sure that the entire baseball world thinks Kyle Zimmer was first discovered in that UCLA Regional last year against Gerrit Cole, but nobody remembers that early February non-conference Saturday start against Trevor Bauer. I love to tell this story, but it was the first time I saw Zimmer, and he was a nobody – a nobody with a great arm, fresh out of the Cal Ripken League, who was a converted third baseman looking like a dart thrower. It was actually his first career college start, which I would have known if I had read the game notes like the good little newspaperman I used to be.
Since then, he’s been seen running up the fastball to the 97-98 range, though I wouldn’t expect to see him pitching there comfortably and consistently in the coming years. Nor would I expect him to be what he was against Loyola Marymount.
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Category: '12 Scouting Updates, '12 Videos |
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Tags: Kyle Zimmer, Kyle Zimmer Update, Kyle Zimmer Video, USF
By The Baseball Beginnings Guy
February 16, 2012
I have Trevor Bauer to thank for Kyle Zimmer. The first time I saw Zimmer was last February at UCLA. Now, this ought to tell you how my mind works: I was there to see Bauer and I had never seen Zimmer. I had never heard of him. Could have been Don Zimmer for all I knew, but he wasn’t as thick. As Bauer did his thing, I had a look at Zimmer and the arm strength just jumped out at me. I mean, he had no idea what he was doing and he was 94 in the first inning. The velocity didn’t hold very long, but I saw it. He was 91 by the third. I’ll always remember how the majority of scouts tuned him out because Zimmer wasn’t in their area or because they were “just there” to see Bauer or they were so “locked in” that they didn’t see the rest of the field. I remember I gave this tip to a guy who said he didn’t have time to go see him. Good luck, that guy is not getting him.
Now, the thing with Zimmer, when I saw him months before he lit up UCLA and Gerrit Cole in that Friday regional, was that I knew he couldn’t have been pitching for very long because I knew he threw like a third baseman. What that means is that he really did not have a feel for extension and mechanics — but you can give those to a guy if the guy is a good student. Uh, I’m pretty sure Zimmer is a good student, and I knew that before the end of the game because I had already done the reporting. What you cannot give him is arm strength. So any time you see mumbo-jumbo out there that a guy is just an “arm strength guy,” beware of the jumbo that mumbo is selling, because it means he’s not a polished thinker and had no worldly clue how to ask the questions real scouts ask.
Now let’s have a raw look at K-Zim and then have a talk.
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Category: '12 Videos |
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Tags: Kyle Zimmer, Kyle Zimmer Video, USF
