charliezink16 wrote:

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Conor Glassey: Kelly's an interesting player and I think the .227/.306/.351 line he's put up over 154 at-bats might put an end to the two-way experiment because he gets great reviews off the mound. I did the Carolina League Best Tools list and Kelly was just edged for best pitcher by Brian Matusz. Uber-intern Matt Forman is sitting here with me while I'm answering questions and he's currently working on the Sally League Top Prospect list and said Kelly has gotten some great praise from league managers. One manager called his delivery "poetry in motion," and the stuff is good too. With a four-seam fastball in the 93-94 mph range and a 90-91 groundball-inducing two-seamer as well as a changeup and curveball, Kelly profiles as a definite top of the rotation guy, probably a No. 2.

http://www.baseballameric...ts/chat/2009/268837.html

That is the first time I have seen his fastball broken out like that and his velocity reported in that way. I find that piece of the write-up most interesting. I had gotten a couple of reports from his time in Salem and his fastball was reported as 88-91, touching 92 a couple of times. I'm not questioning the validity of that as I am more intrigued with the categorizing of his fastball because until that report, I had never seen the distinction made between a 2-seamer and 4-seamer in any of the reports while he was pitching.

TheGoldenGreek33 wrote:

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I'm beginning to question the reports on him early in the year. Or, maybe it's the stadium gun I'm questioning more, not the actual people who gave the reports. Pitch f/x had Kelly sitting at 93 and topping 94 at the Futures Game, and the Busch Stadium gun was lagging at least 2-3 mph. Could he have been throwing 93-94 all year?

Really, the information we have gotten on his velocity has been spotty this season. We had a couple of first hands and some other info from some sources passed which has been great as usual, but these snippet reports have been short on numbers. One of these reports earlier in this thread classified his fastball as "plus." Going on pure velocity and taking the 88-91 we have been using as our consensus base, that would put him at a 50 or average on velocity alone. Command is a factor in the grade so you'd be adding 10 to that based on command for a 60 or "plus" grade if you go by the report of him having a plus fastball. Is it realistic that his command would bump an average velocity fastball into the plus category? It is possible, but that is also grading his fastball command pretty high, which we have heard is a strength for him so it could be realistic.

The Futures Game inning has to be put into context as a pitcher is going to air it out in that situation with the adrenalin pumping and knowing he's throwing 15 pitches or so most likely in a relief spot. We've routinely seen guys add some zip when moving into 'pen roles so I don't think you can hang everything on it, but it does show he has the ability/arm speed to touch those numbers and it is a question of whether he can consistently operate there through arm conditioning and repetition of his mechanics.

I've suspected that he has two distinct variations of his fastball and that report was the first time I have seen that assumption semi-verified so that is where I was coming from in the first post. The worst kept secret of the off-season will be how I am counting the days till he reaches AA and pitches at home.