Carlos Perez Report

Physicality: Perez is tall and very skinny. Being just 19 years old he has a lot of growing and filling out to do which is very exciting as a Braves fan.

Delivery: Perez has a really easy and smooth delivery. He doesn't look like he is trying to throw that hard - at least he didn't for most of the game. He was just going nice and easy. He falls way back creating good deception on his pitches and has a full body follow through that doesn't appear to much stress on his arm. I'm not a master of pitching mechanics and in my opinion any pitcher can get hurt any time, but for what its worth I like Perez'z delivery a lot. In fact it was so smooth that I thought he was really just soft tossing the ball most of the game because the stadium gun was reading 82 on almost every fastball. I finally cross checked with a scout gun and realized the stadium gun was off by about 7 MPH.

Pitches:

•Fastball - coupled with his delivery his fastball was a plus pitch. Once I figured out the stadium gun was off I knew he wast throwing 89-90 most of the game and he touched 92 a couple of times. He could reach back to get a little more when he needed it but most of the time he sat right at 89 with very little variation. His command on the pitch wasn't always precise and he is going to need to work on command within the zone, but that will come with time
•Changeup - this pitch was filthy pretty much all night. He had a 7-8 MPH split with the fastball and it was a swing and miss pitch all night long. His arm action was almost identical to the fastball and it just drops down at the end. Very impressed with this pitch
•Curve - he has 11-5 break on his curve but almost no control over the pitch. Even in warmups he couldn't keep it out of the dirt. He had 3 WP on the night plus one passed ball and I would say all but one was on a curve. He got his first K on a lefty with the curve going away and he hung one later that got hammered to CF but was caught. As he went farther into the game he abandoned the curve for the change and had more success.

I came away pretty impressed with Perez tonight. If he fills out more and adds a little more velocity he is going to be pretty special. His command needs a bit more work as well. He is getting Ks and not walking a ton but more experienced batters are going to work him into deeper counts.

Full Story at:http://www.talkingchop.com/2011/5/9/2163052/scouting-report-carlos-perez-lhp-rome-braves