Prospects good in Sox’ Houck
FORT MYERS — His mid-90s two-seam fastball from a low arm slot — not unlike Chris Sale’s, except from the right side — was widely considered one of the best in the 2017 MLB draft.
And then Tanner Houck decided to change it.
At the Red Sox’ request, the club’s first-round pick a year ago went home over the winter and tested his well-regarded two-seam fastball against a brandnew four-seamer. With the help of a Rapsodo, a machine designed to read velocity and spin rates, Houck couldn’t believe the results.
“It was night and day,” he said yesterday morning before a workout at JetBlue Park. “The four-seam had so much more life to it. I was surprised. I was like ‘Well, I’ve been doing this wrong for so long and have had some good success, so what happens when I start throwing the right pitch?’
“It’s fun to see now. I’m kind of re-learning it.”
The Red Sox farm system has been picked over in exchange for important big-league players since Dave Dombrowski arrived as president of baseball operations in 2015, but the Sox are slowly rebuilding, and Houck is one of their prized prospects.
He originally was selected by the Toronto Blue Jays in the 12th round out of Collinsville High School in Illinois back in 2014, but he never gave any consideration to the late-round selection except to tattoo the selection number on the inside of his wrist as motivation.
“I said to myself, ‘All right, I have three years there to come out a first-rounder,’” he said. “I told myself that. I told my mom that. I said, ‘Mom, I’m going to the University of Missouri and I’m going to be a first-rounder out of there,’ and I said it all within one breath. She was like, ‘OK, go and do it.’ ”
His first year at Missouri, he ranked 13th nationally with a 7.70 strike-out-to-walk ratio, a number just ahead of Sale’s 7.16 mark in the majors last year (Sale ranks first in baseball history with a 5.12 career strikeout-to-walk rate).
Houck’s two-seamer was “my bread and butter,” he said, and he commanded it sharply with sinking movement, despite throwing from a funky angle. With a loopy slider that missed bats and a decent changeup, Houck put together three strong seasons at Missouri and two stints with Team USA over the summers.
The Sox took him No. 24 overall last June.
He’s now considered the club’s third-best prospect by Baseball America, but he was left outside the top100 on MLB.com’s prospect sheets. After getting passed over by 30 teams 11 times in 2014, none of this bothers him.
“I’ve never been a fan of top-100 or top-this, it’s just a list that’s all opinion-based,” he said. “Whatever you want to say, I know what I can do. I’ve put in the work this offseason. I know that you can’t label another person and label their work ethic and heart. You can grade a pitch all you want but you can’t grade how much a guy competes. I’ve never been a fan of those kind of lists because no matter what I’m going to prove you wrong.”
He made 10 abbreviated starts with Lowell and compiled 25 strikeouts, eight walks and a 3.63 ERA in 221⁄3 innings.
That was before he tinkered with a new fastball, which he’s said to have touched 98 mph with.
“I think if you have a fastball to base everything off of, I think that’s a better starting point than, let’s start with a changeup,” he said. “You have to have some natural ability to throw the ball 95 wherever you want.”
Former MLB pitcher Dave Bush, hired last year to help minor leaguers use analytics to develop, likes what he’s seen of Houck.
“He’s interesting,” Bush said over the offseason. “A really big body at 6-foot5, a very live arm, throws hard with a ton of movement on the ball. His thing is he’s going to be refining his mechanics and keeping himself under control.
“I know he’s young and inexperienced, so it’ll be adding small things one at a time and making small changes so he can keep competing.”
Houck doesn’t turn 22 until June 29, but if it was up to him, he’d already be in big-league camp.
“That’s just my mindset. I can’t help it,” he said.
Had the Red Sox moved him to the bullpen, that might be realistic. But they see him as a starter, and so does he, even if it takes time to get there.
“A year ago at this time, I would probably be in class or doing homework and getting ready to pitch on a Friday night at the University of Missouri,” he said. “Probably just hanging out with the dog. Nothing much. But it’s definitely a little different scenario now.
“I like having the challenge.”