Scouting the Draft: Comping Kyle Harrison

There has been some disappointment among Giants fans, including me, that they did not get more out of their two compensation picks in the draft.  If you look at them in isolation and who the compensation was for, it's not a good look.  I mean, Madison Bumgarner and Will Smith for Nick Swiney and Jimmy Glowenke?  Yeah, not a good look.  But let's shuffle things up a bit and look at the draft as a whole.  What if those two picks are what gave the Giants enough bonus pool room to land Kyle Harrison in Round 3?  Then it becomes Bumgarner for Harrison or Bumgarner and Smith for Harrison and Swiney with Glowenke as the equivalent of their 3'rd round pick.  Those comps don't look so bad.  You can even squint hard and see Glowenke as being a not half-bad third rounder.  You could take it a step further and move Harrison up to the second round and bump Casey Schmitt down to one of the comp picks. Now you have a late first round talent(who got paid like one) in round two and a couple of second round talents in the comp slots with Glowenke being not a terrible 3'rd rounder.  Got all that?  Good! If not, maybe this helps:

Giant Alternate Universe Draft:

Round 1 #13:  Patrick Bailey C, College(NC State).

Round 2 #49:  Kyle Harrison LHP, HS.

Compensation Round #67:  Nick Swiney LHP, College(NC State).

Compensation Round #68:  Casey Schmitt 3B, College(SDSU).

Round 3 #85:  Jimmy Glowenke IF, College(Dallas Baptist).

Round 4 #114:  R. J. Dabovich RHP, College(Arizona St).

Round 5 #144:  Ryan Murphy RHP, College(Le Moyne(Div III).

Just saying I feel like if that was the order of the Giants draft there would have been a lot less complaining about it.  At least that's how I'm rolling with it.

Which brings us to finding comps for Kyle Harrison.  With all this in mind, we are going to look for lefty high school pitchers of similar size and stuff who were considered first round talents and have found success at the professional level.  First, let's review Harrison's scouting report:

Kyle Harrison LHP, HS.  6'2", 200 lbs.

PG:  "Electric performance at PG National running his FB up to 93 MPH in two dominant innings."  "Solid, athletic build with long arms and legs for his height and some room to fill out.  Easy and fluid delivery....mid to low 3/4 arm slot....loose and clean arm action...low effort.  Tight slurve type breaking ball that is tunneled well with his fastball and resulted in weak swings.  Nice change up with some sink to it...Spotted just about every pitch where he wanted for two innings."

Another scouting report talked about him having both a curveball and slider and how he uses the curveball as a fallback pitch which seems to help him get the slider back if it's off early in the game.

Yet another scouting report talked about his big game mentality and how De LaSalle HS is an elite program with a lot of pressure in HS playoffs and how well Kyle handled that pressure.

Now the comps.  Let's start with the Big Kahuna himself, the guy Harrison is "replacing".  What did his scouting reports look like back in 2007?

Madison Bumgarner LHP, HS.  6'5", 220 lbs. Drafted 2007 #10 overall.

So, Bummy was a physical monster even in HS so the comp maybe should end right there.  If you compare videos, there are similarities in the delivery.  Both have mid-low 3/4 arm angles with very natural and easy arm action.  To my eye, Harrison does not get quite the extension on the backswing and cocks his elbow which Bummy does not.  Whether this increases risk of elbow injury I can't say for sure, but I feel like it does.  One he gets going forward though, Harrison quickly gets the arm extended and into that easy, natural looking plane that is Bummy's trademark.  Bummy is described as having "Mid-90's FB and a cutter with a sweeping curve and changeup mentioned as afterthoughts.  That's basically what he was in the majors too, maybe a little less velocity.

Mackenzie Gore LHP, HS.  6'2", 197 lbs.  Drafted 2017 #3 overall.

Same size.  The thing about MacKenzie Gore that stands out for me is he was always less about velocity than pitchability.  PG:  "94 MPH LHP and can really pitch. Good breaking ball."  Available pre-draft scouting videos of Gore have him more in the low 90's with an advance 4-pitch mix of FB, slider, curveball and changeup.  He has a much higher leg kick than Harrison and a more of a high 3/4 arm slot which may help him get more depth on the breaking stuff.  Still, the overall scouting profile seems remarkably similar except Gore was a #3 overall pick while Harrison was both ranked and drafted lower.  Was that strength of draft class or is there something I'm missing here?

Brett Anderson LHP, HS.  6'4", 210 lbs.  Drafted Round 2 by D'Backs.

Remember when Brett Anderson was a prospect?  Definitely bigger in size(appears much heavier than 210 lbs in videos), but the rest of his PG scouting report sounds very familiar:  FB 93 MPH.  "...very smooth pitching mechanics with clean arm action....command of all three of his pitches and an advance knowledge of pitching.  consistently seen in the low 90's this summer and has pitched at the highest levels with great success."  On video, Brett Anderson looks a lot heavier than Harrison or Gore and I would say has a little less arm extension and fluidity to his delivery than Harrison, definitely a lot less than Bumgarner. I am thinking Anderson's weight may have gotten in the way some and contributed to his injuries over the years.

There you have it.  I think Kyle Harrison compares favorably to these 3 pitchers with MacKenzie Gore coming the closest to a comp out of HS with the caveat that there was/is clearly something about Gore that makes scouts rank consistently rank him higher that is not apparent to me.