The Cincinnati Reds made an fascinating acquisition this week after they signed Irvin Machuca out of Mexico to a minor league contract. The 24-year-old right-handed reliever has spent his complete profession pitching in Mexico, collaborating in each the Mexican League and the Mexican Pacific League (the winter league).
Irvin Machuca made his skilled debut as a 19-year-old for Campeche within the Mexican League. He pitched in 36 video games that yr and threw 37.2 innings with a 4.54 ERA. To offer that extra context, the league’s ERA was 5.79 and his workforce’s ERA was 6.26. And the common age of a pitcher within the league was 29.5. That winter me made one other 31 appearances for Los Mochis and threw 25.0 innings with a 3.96 ERA, however the league’s ERA right here was 3.60.
Since then he’s continued to pitch for Campeche throughout the spring and summer season, whereas becoming a member of Los Mochis every winter. He did miss the entire 2021 season. Over the past two winters he’s been dominant for Los Mochis, throwing 55.0 innings with a 1.15 ERA. Throughout that point he’s walked 18 batters and racked up 64 strikeouts.
Now, the extent of competitors in Mexico’s two leagues isn’t large league caliber. There are guys with large league expertise that play in each leagues, however whereas the league is a top quality league it’s most likely nearer to Double-A degree than MLB degree.
Whereas it’s powerful to place a precise translation on what his numbers imply, we’ve obtained the power to look at him pitch and get a have a look at his stuff. The Mexican Pacific League broadcasts all of their video games on Youtube. I’ve gone again and watched his 4 most up-to-date appearances and charted all of them out so that you don’t should (until you wish to!).
Just a few issues had been apparent. First is that he’s obtained fastball. It’s obtained good velocity, but in addition has good motion. He was 94-97 in each outing. The pitch strikes properly on each planes. His slider works within the mid-80’s and has 12-6 biting motion to it.
The one factor that was apparent over these 4 video games, too, although, was that he struggled to throw strikes together with his slider, and his fastball management wasn’t precisely good. Over the course of those 4 video games (small pattern dimension alert!) he threw strikes 62% of the time. That doesn’t actually line up with what you’ll anticipate provided that this winter he walked simply seven of the 106 hitters he confronted – and a kind of was an intentional stroll. Maybe this simply occurred to be just a little little bit of a rougher stretch for him although he didn’t stroll anybody and had seven strikeouts throughout this time.
It could appear most unlikely that Irvin Machuca goes to compete for a giant league job this spring. However he’s obtained the stuff to be a giant leaguer. The speed and motion are there on the fastball. His slider is sweet by way of velocity and motion, too – however not like the fastball he merely struggled to find it close to the zone sufficient throughout the time that I watched (12 of the 23 sliders he threw had been balls) and he’ll have to enhance there if it’s going to be a profitable pitch towards large league caliber hitters.
You possibly can see his profession stats right here – however as a word, in some locations he’s listed as Irving Machuca.
