Mound Talk

Power lefties don’t come around too often. Even rarer is the power lefty with incredible stuff. That’s Scott Elbert in a nutshell. At 6’2” he’s not overwhelmingly tall but he’s able to generate enough gas that makes him a feared pitcher.

After being drafted in 2004 out of high school by the LA Dodgers, Elbert went to Rookie ball in Ogden. After an initial struggle there, he was promoted to Single-A Columbus. Here, Elbert showed the potential he was drafted on by striking out over 10 batters per nine, reducing his walk rate and hit rate. In 2006 Elbert threw 146 innings between A+ and AA. At each level he managed to improve his strikeout rate and decrease his hit rate. He struggled a bit in AA with home runs and walks but at the time he was just 20 years old so it isn’t a devastating concern.

Elbert boasts a low 90s fastball that tends to sink late. He works off the fastball which has very good life. He mixes his fastball with a changeup he commands well.

His most impressive pitches are his slider and curveball. He’ll throw a mid 80s hard breaking slider that is absolutely filthy at times. It comes in so hard to right-handed batters that it seems he’s breaking a bat every other inning or so. Not surprisingly he throws a hard curve with some success.

Elbert has a good plus fastball with great movement. He sports a plus slider and pretty good curve. He’s got great stuff, especially for a lefty.

Elbert has always been a very aggressive pitcher and that has continued at every level he’s been at in the Dodgers’ organization. He is constantly challenging hitters and is not afraid to throw any pitch at any point. This is only complimented by his incredible poise on the mound. He seems to always be aware of the mission with each batter and is generally aware of each hitter’s ability.

Elbert has pretty good mechanics which leads to a pretty good outlook health-wise.

Certainly his biggest strength is his potential. He has a good frame and a good track record for improvement. With two above average pitches and fairly good velocity, combined with his mound presence, there has been quiet discussion that his future might be as a relief ace, but for the moment, he’ll continue to work on improving his curve and change and work his way to becoming a major league starter. Elbert still has quite a gap between what he could be and what he is, but every year that gap seems to get smaller and smaller incrementally.

For all the positives about Elbert, the one glaring weakness is his issue with control. While he does show the ability to command some pitches well, he struggles overall. He walked 5.19 batters per nine innings in 2006.

Elbert has shown a slight propensity toward yielding the long ball throughout his career. He’s particularly susceptible to giving up long fly balls which indicates that against advanced hitting he will allow more home runs. This is likely related to his lack of control and once he squares that away the home runs allowed rate will begin to decline.

Elbert is on pace to become a front-line caliber major league pitcher but might end up pitching third in a rotation that features Chad Billingsley and Clayton Kershaw ahead of him. If Elbert improves his control he could be looking at a summer call-up in 2007 or a job in Spring Training for the 2008 season. He has the capability of posting a sub-3.50 ERA and if he trims some walks off his total he can hover around 1.10 WHIP. Elbert has some improvement to do before he is ready to be anointed as a major league pitcher, but most of his troubles are fixable. When they are fixed, Elbert will be an All-Star caliber pitcher for the Dodgers.