2 weeks Ago
On April 18, three pitchers finished their outings with 20 swings and misses. The first was Yoshinobu Yamamoto, the Dodgers phenom who two years ago signed the biggest contract of any pitcher in history. The second was Phillies ace Zack Wheeler, a two-time runner-up for the Cy Young award.
The third? That would be Sean Linan, a 20-year-old Dodgers righthander who signed out of Colombia in 2022 as part of the same class as burgeoning slugger Josue De Paula. In the four seasons that followed, he’s quietly but consistently gotten hitters to swing and miss..
. and miss..
. and miss. Among teenage pitchers who finished the year with 70 or more innings in 2024, Linan’s 31.
3% strikeout rate ranked third, just behind the Braves’ Didier Fuentes and the Nationals’ Alex Clemmey and a few clicks in front of Marlins lefty Thomas White and Rays fireballer Trevor Harrison. This year, Linan has upped his game even further. Through April 21, he had punched out an MiLB-best 29 hitters.
His 24.5% swinging strike rate is atop the leaderboard, too, while his 51.8% strikeout rate ranked third behind only Oakland’s Wei-En Lin and Boston’s Connelly Early.
Linan’s fastball won’t sizzle a Stalker’s circuits—the pitch sits in the low 90s—but his changeup has properties that help it stymie righties and lefties alike. “It comes in around 82-84 mph, and it’s a really, really high-spin changeup,” Dodgers director of pitching Rob Hill said. “ It’s like 2,700-2,800 rpm.
usually, and about one inch (of induced vertical break) and 17 inches of horizontal break and has the exact same release traits as all of his other pitches.“It’s kind of like a Devin Williams-style (changeup), like a screwball, almost, the way he releases it. So it’s just a super unique offering, and, because of how high the spin is, it’s almost impossible to tell that it’s anything other than a fastball.
And that’s why I assume people swing at it so much.”Do they ever.When Linan throws his changeup in the zone, hitters miss it 55% of the time.
They chase it 60% of the time, and he’s used it to finish 19 of his 29 strikeouts this season. The remainder of his punchouts have been punctuated by his fastball. The third pitch in Linan’s mix is a breaking ball that rides the line between slider and cutter and comes in around 86 mph.
The pitch replaced a slower curveball and—coupled with a delivery that starts from the third-base side of the rubber—gives him a pitch that presents hitters with tricky angles. The entire arsenal has helped Linan rack up whiffs in chart-topping numbers. He’s gotten 58 swings and misses through three starts, including two outings apiece with 19 in addition to the one with 20.
Each night he’s pitched, his whiff total has either led or tied for the lead in all of baseball—including the big leagues. Like any other pitching prospect in the low minors, Linan has plenty of work to do before he can even think about getting to the big leagues. He’s made plenty of headway over the past two years, however, including tweaks to his body and delivery that have helped him unlock more velocity across the scope of his pitch mix.
“As he’s grown more and matured and developed some things of his delivery and his body, the velocity has come up on this fastball, and it’s made the changeup just that much better,” Hill said. “He used to throw the changeup around 80-81—it’s still roughly like 81-84—but when the fastball is 93-95, having to deal with that changeup is just a terrible time for the hitters.”The post Dodgers RHP Sean Linan Riding High-Spin Changeup To Huge K, Whiff Numbers appeared first on College Baseball, MLB Draft, Prospects - Baseball America.
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