Another pop-up prospect, Zach McCambley has roared through the High-A Central league as if he were a man on a mission. What is his mission? Read on…
- Born: May 4, 1999
- B/T: Left/Right
- 6’2″, 220-lbs
- Drafted by the Miami Marlins in the 2020 MLB June Amateur Draft
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:
That’s so much green, we can stomp on the accelerator and trust nothing is going to get in our way. It’s so dominant, I’m confident McCambley will get promoted soon. High-A Central batters are certainly hoping for that!
Righties have hit more home runs against him, thus more earned runs, but when a pitcher strikes out 19 RHB and only walks one, he’s dominating them.
And, uh, that’s about it. None of the other metrics I use have information on McCambley. Savant does not have their usual spray charts on him, and, well, we can see the K%-BB% above so there’s not need to make batters ashamed by charting it.
Since we have so little to go on, let’s read what a scout says about him:
So Eric Longenhagen sees a pitcher with relief risk unless he develops a usable third pitch (that up until now he has not needed to develop). But with his good feel for spin, Eric thinks it’s quite possible for McCambley to develop a decent slider.
While the obvious relief role is there for the taking, the Marlins certainly want to develop him as a starter until he shows he cannot handle that. My guess is they push him to Double-A and start working on that third pitch. But his FB is fine, and his curve is among the best in the game, so we are working with quality stuff here.
The Scouts
- Rotowire: #335 on their Top 400.
- BaseballHQ: Not on their Top 100.
- Fangraphs: Not on their Top 133.
- Fantasy Six Pack: Not on their dynasty list.
- Imaginary Brick Wall: Not on the Top 473.
- Fantrax: Not on the Top 250.
Warnings
He’s only just now starting to appear on the scout’s lists.
He needs that third pitch to become a starter.
Conclusion
He’s a 22-year-old beating up on low-level batters. Let’s not draw any solid conclusions until we see him do well at Double-A. But in dynasty leagues, this is the kind of arm you speculate on before the scouts start reporting it all over the place.