Riley Ferrell is a college closer from TCU who is slated to move into their rotation this spring. At 6'1", 200 lbs, he joins a long list of relatively short-statured but hard-throwing college pitchers in the 2015 draft class. Here are his stat lines for this freshman and sophomore seasons:
2013: 0-2, 2.20, 32.2 IP, 11 BB, 39 K, 3 Saves.
2014: 3-1, 0.79, 45.1 IP, 14 BB, 70 K, 15 Saves.
His scouting report says he throws 93-97 MPH with the FB. He also has a slider and an improving changeup. On one video I watched, he sat 93-94 MPH with his final pitch of the inning going 96. He also had a slider that went about 84 MPH. It had more of a downward break than lateral making me wonder if it was more of a splitter or spike curveball. One scouting report did say he had a curveball. He has a compact delivery with an almost straight over-the-top release point, creating an impressive downward plane despite his relative lack of height. There is moderate effort in his delivery.
BA has him as the #18 draft prospect for 2015 while Kiley McDaniel of Fangraphs has him at #35. If he makes a successful transition to starting on the college season, I could see him being taken closer to #18. If he goes back to closing, he could fall into the supplemental first round. There are pluses and minuses to college closers. They usually have a limited repertoire and often do not have stuff that translates well to the pros. On the other hand, they often throw hard and don't already have a lot of mileage on the arm. The Giants like hard throwing college closers, but tend to draft them from the 4'th round on. The last college closer they took in round 1 was David Aardsma.
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