For most players in the Nationals organization, the season is over. However, there are still prospects competing in the Arizona Fall League. The most notable one is Jarlin Susana, the giant right hander with triple digit velocity. After missing most of the season recovering from Lat Surgery, the AFL is a good opportunity for Susana to pitch more before the offseason.
In his first two outings, Susana has lit up the Arizona Fall League with his heat. Susana was actually the AFL pitcher of the week.
The right hander tossed 5.2 innings across two outings. In those appearances, Susana struck out 8 hitters while only walking 2. Susana also threw the hardest pitch in AFL history at 103.8 MPH.
In fact, Susana broke a record that he had set two innings prior. When it comes to pure velocity, Susana has few peers. Plenty of pitchers throw hard these days, but sitting between 101-103 is unusual. That is what Susana has been doing in the AFL.
He does this with two different fastballs as well. Susana throws a 4-seamer and a sinker. The 4-seamer does not have great shape and he does not get a lot of extension. That means Susana relies heavily on that elite velocity to make up for those shortcomings. His sinker shape is better, but like most sinkers, it is not really a swing and miss pitch.
Despite all that velocity, Susana’s fastballs are better at generating weak contact than missing bats. Even AFL hitters did not have much trouble making contact. However, as this fangraphs article notes, none of them found the barrel. Limiting hard contact will be a theme for Susana as he reaches the big leagues.
The real bat misser for Susana is his slider. Susana generates a ton of spin on his breaking ball, which gives the pitch crazy movement. Fangraphs noted that Susana was throwing two distinct breaking balls, with a slider and a sweeper. However, most pitch tracking sites I see only show one slider shape. Here is a look at some of the nasty breaking balls Susana was throwing.
Throughout his minor league career, Susana has turned to his slider to get whiffs. It is a true two plane breaking ball which gets sweep as well as drop. Combining his killer velocity with that nasty breaking ball is what makes Susana so hard to hit.
I think Susana is a safe bet to be a good big league pitcher, the question is what role will he be in. As a reliever, Susana actually reminds me a bit of Edgardo Henriquez on the Dodgers. He is not the biggest name, but Henriquez has nasty stuff and had a great year.
Like Susana, Henriquez has two fastballs that are in the triple digits and a nasty breaking ball. We should see quite a bit of Henriquez in the playoffs this year. However, I still think there is a path to start for Susana.
His command has never been stellar, but the Fangraphs article points out that Susana’s low effort delivery should be conducive to future strike-throwing. I also think there is plenty of room to add to his arsenal as well.
I have always thought that Susana should throw one of those “splinker” pitches that Jhoan Duran and Paul Skenes throw. The splinker is somewhere between a sinker and a splitter. It has downward movement, but is also thrown very hard. This new regime has given other guys new pitches, and I would be curious to see if they do anything with Susana’s arsenal this offseason.
Overall, Susana has looked great so far in the AFL. His velocity is as elite as ever and his strike throwing has looked solid in an admittedly small sample size. I am curious to see what Susana can do for the rest of the AFL season and it will be something to monitor moving forward.
