Hunter Harvey *, RHP, BAL

A right elbow strain kept Hunter Harvey from being on the Orioles Opening Day roster, but he should be back soon. What can we expect from him?

Video courtesy of 2080 Baseball
  • Born: December 9, 1994
  • B/T: Right/Right
  • 6’3″, 210-lbs
  • Drafted by the Baltimore Orioles in the 2013 MLB June Amateur Draft from Bandys HS (Catawba, NC)

The Numbers

His raw numbers are listed above courtesy of baseball-reference.com. Let’s aggregate by year then focus on the important numbers for minor leaguers:

A career starter until 2019 when he was asked to move to the bullpen, and he was in the bullpen for the Orioles later that same year for seven games. Besides a team need, you can sorta see why the team wanted to try him in the pen. His numbers were going backward as he climbed levels as a starter.

Here’s another factor that played into the team’s mind: He does quite well against righties, but lefties hit him hard at both AA and at AAA.

We can see he is a three pitch pitcher, with a fastball, a changeup and a curve.

He does have two plus pitches, but it’s not enough for him to excel as a starter since his third pitch, the changeup, is fringy. He uses it against lefties, and as we see above, it didn’t produce great results.

Ah, but as a bullpen arm, that plus fastball with good extension and late riding action can play. Add his 12-to-6 curve with solid break, and you’ve got a good bullpen arm.

The Scouts

Warnings

The scouts have given up. Between the injuries and his fading effectiveness as a starter, they have moved on to other names.

Conclusion

That’s OK, as a bullpen piece, Harvey can be quite effective. Look at it this way: He faced 26 batters in Baltimore in 2019. He struck out 11 of them while walking four, with a 1.105 WHIP. That can play!