ORGANIZATION REPORTS

● Meet the Diamondbacks’ 14th-round steal. PAGE 51
● A late scouting swing through SoCal in 2017 helped the Phillies score a late-blooming Cal Poly arm. PAGE 54
● Led by an unexpected source, the Pirates’ big investment in high school pitchers in 2017 has paid dividends. PAGE 54

ARIZONA DIAMONDBACKS

Area scout Rusty Pendergrass can’t say for certain how righthander Josh Green lasted until the 14th round of the 2018 draft. He’s just glad it worked out the way it did.

“I don’t know why (other teams) didn’t like him,” Pendergrass said. “I’m glad they didn’t so I could get him.”

Five starts into his first full pro season, Green owned a 2.25 ERA and a near 70 percent groundball rate at high Class A Visalia, largely the product of a lively and heavy two-seam fastball. He has used the pitch—which he throws in the 90-94 mph range—to quickly put himself on the prospect landscape.

As for how the D-backs got him so late, Pendergrass has some theories. For one, Green was a senior at Southeastern Louisiana. Some clubs, Pendergrass said, don’t pay much attention to seniors in the Southland Conference.

“Some guys don’t like seniors,” Pendergrass said. “I like players. I don’t care how they’re classified.”

Another possibility is how Green looked after moving from the bullpen as a junior to the rotation as a senior. Pendergrass said Green, “wasn’t quite the same guy with velocity and stuff.”

But Pendergrass still saw plenty to like. Green is 6-foot-3 and physical with a clean delivery, and after seeing him throw mostly sinkers and sliders out of the bullpen, Pendergrass saw him use a changeup as a starter. But it was the sinker that stood out.

“He can be a groundball machine,” Pendergrass said. “Even base hits are ground balls. He’s got a hard sinker. He’s got the slider. He’s got pitches that go two different directions. And the change is a real good pitch, too.”

Green’s pitch repertoire harkens back to a different era—a time when sinker-ballers Brandon Webb and Derek Lowe were dominant, a time before hitters had changed their swings to elevate pitches down in the zone.

“The game is always changing and evolving,” farm director Mike Bell said. “But the elite sinker is still a very productive pitch. When we recognize that somebody has something like that, we’re going to do everything we can to highlight that strength and allow them to throw these pitches.”

—NICK PIECORO

ATLANTA BRAVES

The Braves’ system is stacked with pedigreed draft arms, a by product of rebuilding years and taking advantage of other organizations’ win-now hankering.

Most of their contributors were rated highly from day one, though as relievers Wes Parsons and Chad Sobotka showed in the majors, that doesn’t necessarily matter. Surrounded by the heap of top prospects, Thomas Burrows could be the Braves’ gem.

The 24-year-old lefthander was the “other” piece of a January 2017 trade with the Mariners that brought over the now-underwhelming for and . Gohara has fizzled, but Burrows may be able to make that trade worthy