Mound Talk

Thanks to the miracle of DVR, I was able to catch not one, but two Shooter Hunt appearances over the past couple weeks. I love Dish Network and recommend it to everyone. (I won’t plug anymore products in this scouting report).

Shooter Hunt is a 6-foot-3, 200 pound right handed pitcher at Tulane. He is a junior and slated to be a first round draft pick come June.

Hunt is from Ramapo High School in New Jersey where he excelled as a prep athlete. He was well regarded as a prospect coming out of high school and the Texas Rangers drafted him in the 34th round of the 2005 MLB Draft. He turned down their offer to attend Virginia where he threw 34.1 innings as a freshman. He struck out 33 batters and walked 15. After his freshman year he went to the Cape Cod League before transferring to Tulane.

In the Cape, Hunt posted exceptional statistics in 2006. He struck out 54 batters and was named by Baseball America as the #9 prospect in the CCBL. His 2007 season as a Green Wave pitcher was very good. He posted a team low in ERA (2.62) and struck out 104 batters in 99.2 innings. He walked 30 batters and was named first-team All-Conference USA & second-team All-Louisiana. He followed that up with another great season in the Cape throwing 36.1 innings striking out 48 while allowing 20 walks. To date (4/23), Hunt has a 1.59 ERA in 56.2 innings. He’s struck out 78 and walked 32. Opponents are hitting .126 off of him and he’s allowed just eight extra base hits of the 24 total that he’s allowed.

In his April 11th start against Houston, Hunt gave me mixed impressions. His line on the night was 5.1 innings, seven hits, four walks and eight strikeouts. He threw 116 pitches without much of a drop towards the end.

Hunt’s fastball consistently sat 92-94. He showed a great ability to work the pitch inside on right handed batters and elevate the fastball as well. He has good late movement on the pitch. He showed good command but the announcers commented that he usually doesn’t demonstrate as much command. More on this later.

Hunt’s curveball worked right around 77-79 mph with late 12-6 movement. There isn’t a great amount of vertical movement to the pitch, but it comes in late and is pretty devastating. He primarily throws the pitch when he’s ahead in the count. He’ll throw it for a strike but typically keeps it down enough to induce batters to swing and miss. He works it to all quadrants of the plate but demonstrated very inconsistent command when working inside to batters (both left- and right-handed).

Hunt threw a few changeups in the 86-88 range. He throws a straight change.

Overall, Hunt is a fastball/curveball pitcher who relies fairly heavily on the curve. His command is the major issue. To start with, as you can see from the above video, he has a high leg kick and then a quickened motion from there. This allowed Houston baserunners to get a nice jump off Hunt. As a side note here, Hunt does display a good move to first. The quick motion from the high leg kick position is partially the reason for his inconsistent command. During the game it was easy to note (thanks to the DVR…oops, another plug) the different positions he’d release the ball from. Releasing the ball from a different position lends itself to inconsistent command.

Hunt is a power pitcher with big time potential. However, my opinion is that he will always have a high walk-rate to go along with his high strikeout-rate. For the 2008 MLB Draft, I would imagine him to be in the 10-15 range at the moment but certainly has the potential to play up into the top 10. Hunt is a top talent but it is the command that will keep him from being a true ace.