Logan Stoelke

WTM’s PLAYER PROFILE

Baseball America described Stoelke as throwing 92-95 MPH, with an average changeup and a fringy breaking ball.  With the Pirates, he’s relied mostly on a cutter that comes in at 90-92 mph.  He’s also thrown the occasional slider.  He had shoulder and groin injuries in 2018, but they didn’t cause him to miss much time.  Baseball America rated him as the 416th best prospect in the draft.  As a college senior, he signed quickly and for just over $100,000 less than the slot amount.

2018
A-:  0-1-6, 1.77 ERA, 0.79 WHIP, 20.1 IP, 3.5 BB/9, 13.7 K/9
A:  0-0-1, 0.00 ERA, 0.43 WHIP, 2.1 IP, 3.9 BB/9, 15.4 K/9

Stoelke shared the closer duties at Morgantown and had a very strong debut.  He also got into three games at West Virginia at the end of the season.  Stoelke put up extremely high K rates and held opposing batters to a .105 average.  Left-handed batters managed just a .451 OPS against him, but right-handed batters put up a pitiful .293 figure.

2019
A:  0-2-4, 5.25 ERA, 1.00 WHIP, 12.0 IP, 3.0 BB/9, 9.8 K/9
A+:  0-2-3, 10.31 ERA, 1.96 WHIP, 18.1 IP, 6.4 BB/9, 5.9 K/9

Despite his dominant debut, the Pirates sent Stoelke to Greensboro rather than Bradenton to open the season.  He mostly pitched well through 11 outings, although he had some trouble with HRs, giving up one every four innings.  The Pirates promoted him in May, but Stoelke’s time in Bradenton obviously didn’t go well at all.  In 13 appearances for Bradenton, opponents batted .315 against him and he also had trouble with walks and gopher balls, allowing one of the latter every three innings.  After a control meltdown in early July, he went out with an unknown injury and didn’t return.

It seems likely that Stoelke’s problems at Bradenton resulted from health issues.  Hopefully he’ll be at full strength in 2020.