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Pirates Are Trying to Get More Velocity Out of Sixth Round LHP Cam Vieaux

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MORGANTOWN, WV – Last year during the early rounds of the draft, the Pirates selected Brandon Waddell — a left-handed pitcher out of college who was more of a finesse guy than a power pitcher. They went a similar path this year in the early rounds, drafting Cam Vieaux out of Michigan State, and getting another lefty who is more of a finesse guy.

On the surface, the two pitchers are the same in the sense that they’re both left-handed, and both rely a bit more on location and command, rather than overpowering hitters with their fastballs. But digging deeper, they are different pitchers.

“I think Waddell can run it up there a little bit better,” Black Bears Manager Wyatt Toregas said about the velocity, when comparing the two pitchers. “Waddell is really good away, whereas Vieaux is really good in. His lower velocity really plays up because he pitches in so well, gets on hitters faster. It also forces them to make decisions faster with changeups and sliders. He can get them out in front looking for the heater, and get swings over top of the off-speed stuff. I think it’s a different style. Waddell likes to go away, and Vieaux likes to go in, but both effective.”

Waddell has the ability to get his four-seam fastball up to 92-93 MPH, showing off some good velocity for a lefty. When I saw Vieaux last week, he was mostly sitting 88-91 MPH, and hit 92 twice. Talking with Vieaux after the start, he said that he was mostly 90-93 MPH in college, using the fastball to set up his slider. But he hasn’t shown that velocity much in pro ball, which might be due to fatigue pitching this late in the season.

“I went through a couple weeks where my arm was hanging, velocity is down, pitches were kind of flat, and I just kind of kept throwing through that,” Vieaux said. “My arm feels great now. I haven’t really been doing much other than baseball, so no weight lifting or anything like that kind of helps, and getting adjusted to this.”

Toregas noted that the velocity last week was an increase over where he was earlier, but said that they’re trying to get more velocity out of him.

“We’ve been doing a lot of work with him to try and stay back so he can use his lower half to generate more power,” Toregas said. “Getting up to 92 is good, because we’ve seen him around 88, 89. We got a pretty good jump in a short period of time, just by using the legs a little better.”

Vieaux does have a low effort delivery, as you can see in the video below, so getting his velocity back up should be easier with the right mechanics, or if he adds some muscle to his frame. He uses the fastball often, so added velocity, especially when he’s pitching inside so much, can really help.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1-a6i9iKNk&feature=youtu.be

“I like to live off the fastball, and get guys out early. That’s going to help me go deeper in the game,” Vieaux said. “I just made a little mechanical error. I had my weight shifting forward a little bit.”

The fastball that Vieaux relies on is a four-seamer, with his two-seamer being more a situational pitch, and the four-seamer working toward his game.

“I’ve got the best control with it,” Vieaux said of the pitch. “I like to pitch inside, and I’m able to get inside better with that. I don’t have as much control with the two-seam. The two-seam is kind of to set up other pitches.”

The other pitches he throws are a slider and a changeup. He used to throw a curveball, and it was widely reported around draft time that he still had one. However, he hasn’t thrown that pitch since college, relying on the slider as his primary breaking pitch.

“It just wasn’t a very good pitch,” Vieaux said of the curve. “It was loopy, slow, and it wasn’t very effective. It was a good high school pitch, good college pitch, but I figured to be effective at this level, it would be better to focus on other things.”

He did start throwing the changeup more often in college, and it quickly improved to being a good offering. However, more focus on the slider allowed that pitch to pass the changeup, which led to decreased usage of the change. Obviously, if he wants to be a starter in the long-term, he’ll have to bring that back.

“I’ve been throwing that since I got to college,” Vieaux said of the changeup. “It’s just kind of been a work in progress. My sophomore year it was much better. It was one of my better pitches. And then the slider got a lot better, and I didn’t really need to use it at the college level. We’ve kind of gone back to it this year.”

Less than a year after the Pirates drafted Waddell, he was moved to Altoona. The Pirates might have to take a similar aggressive approach with Vieaux due to his age. He was older as a college junior, and will turn 23 years old this off-season. By comparison, Waddell turned 22 at the start of June, and fellow lefty Steven Brault turned 24 at the start of this year in Triple-A. Vieaux would be older for Low-A, which would make a push to Bradenton important, putting him at the same stage that Brault was at in 2015. A second half promotion to Altoona would take him from the older side of things to more age appropriate for his age. (UPDATE: I previously wrote that Vieaux turned 24 in February. This was based on MLB’s listing of his birthdate of 2/5/93. I was informed that his actual birthdate is 12/5/93, which is a pretty big error on the MLB site. It takes Vieaux from turning 24 in February, to turning 23 in December. Looks like someone didn’t type the “1” in the month when adding his data. The article has been updated to reflect that Vieaux is still older for Low-A, but not to an extreme extent.)

I could see the Pirates going the aggressive route. Vieaux shares a lot of similar qualities with Waddell, and even with Brault. They’re much different pitchers, and at much different stages in their development, with no guarantees that Vieaux would make it to Brault’s level, or even to Waddell’s level. One thing that could definitely help, and which the other two lefties benefit from, is that added velocity. That would make Vieaux’s fastball all the more effective, setting up his other pitches, and maybe allowing him to reach Double-A by mid-season in 2017, just like we saw with Brault and Waddell.

Tim Williams
Tim Williams
Tim is the owner, producer, editor, and lead writer of PiratesProspects.com. He has been running Pirates Prospects since 2009, becoming the first new media reporter and outlet covering the Pirates at the MLB level in 2011 and 2012. His work can also be found in Baseball America, where he has been a contributor since 2014 and the Pirates' correspondent since 2019.

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