San Bernardino, California —— At the top of this post, watch our scouting video of Los Angeles Angels right-handed pitching prospect Grayson Long, taken from his final start in High-A on April 18, 2017 for the Inland Empire 66ers against the San Diego Padres affiliate Lake Elsinore Storm.
In this start, Long threw five scoreless innings, allowing just two hits and one walk, while striking out seven Storm hitters. Immediately after this start, he was promoted to the Double-A Mobile BayBears — where he threw six scoreless innings on just one hit and one walk with four strikeouts in his first game in the Southern League.
Grayson Long scouting report notes
Grayson Long threw so well in his April 18 start at Inland Empire that it earned him a promotion to Double-A Mobile—where he promptly turned around and rewarded the Los Angeles Angels’ belief in him by tossing six more shutout innings in his debut at the level. A big, strong kid from Texas A&M, early this year now Long has only improved his status as one of the best pitching prospects in the entire Los Angeles Angels’ organization, and a big summer here in his second full pro season will only go further to solidify that.
The righty does it all off a fastball that sits between 89-92 mph, though he can rear back and run it up to as high as 95 mph when he needs it. His fastball is pretty straight, and when it’s up in the zone it’s flat and can be hittable, but he also shows some ability to cut the pitch and create a little bit of late glove-side movement. He couples it with a slider in the low- to mid-80s that is extremely tight with late break. The pitch is inconsistent right now; Long will throw some that look a lot like a cutter, with only horizontal movement, and then he’ll throw a few with great depth that draw swings and misses, as well. It has the makings of a power pitch, though, and with better feel and more consistent downward break it could become above-average in the next year or two.
Long’s third pitch is a changeup, and its development point right now is similar to the slider; one or two changeups will come out with great arm action and tumble down and arm-side very late to the plate, creating swings and misses and weak ground balls. Other changeups fall flat with no tumble or sink, and sometimes don’t show enough velocity differential (anywhere from 4-10 mph) so as to allow hitters to adjust well enough to make contact. When Grayson Long throws a good changeup, it’s pretty damn good, but just like the slider, the pitch will need to improve if Long is to remain a starter.
Long term, Grayson Long’s future is probably somewhere in the back end of a bullpen. He’s still relatively inexperienced for a third-year pro (just 102 innings pitched to date), and so for now it makes sense the Los Angeles Angels would give him as many innings as possible to work things out. His stuff should play up in short spurts, though, and it’s easy to imagine him as a power reliever with a mid-90s fastball and a hard slider in another year or two. It’ll behoove him to work out the feel for that slider, but the arm strength is there, he already has the ability to miss bats, and a future as a seventh- or eight-inning type of set-up man may just be the most realistic role moving forward for Grayson Long with the Los Angeles Angels.
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To visit Grayson Long’s player page, please click here.
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Grayson Long scouting report: 140 characters or less
A big righty with a hard slider, Grayson Long is in the rotation now but will likely end up in the back end of the Angels’ bullpen.
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Grayson Long scouting report video
We’ve got quite a bit of Grayson Long video from his April 18 start, all taken from behind the plate to get a sense of some of his pitch movement, mechanics works, release points, etc. First, here are our full Grayson Long video clips, covering every single at-bat of his entire outing, his last in Inland Empire:
For more Grayson Long video, we’ve broken out a few of his at-bats against several notable Padres prospects.
That includes two at-bats against Padres super utility infielder Ty France:
Two more at-bats against Padres outfielder Michael Gettys:
And two final at-bats against Padres infielder Ruddy Giron:
Grayson Long scouting report GIFs
Plus, in addition to all the Grayson Long baseball video, we’ve got more Grayson Long baseball multimedia stuff: GIFs!
Check out a couple nasty pitches here:
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In this Los Angeles Angels / Grayson Long baseball scouting report:
Los Angeles Angels | Grayson Long | Inland Empire 66ers | San Diego Padres | Lake Elsinore Storm | Mobile BayBears
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