Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
We’ve reached the first pitcher in this MLB Draft Profile series. He’s from a budding baseball prospect producer in Campbell University. He’s right-handed pitcher Thomas Harrington.
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Previous Profiles
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Vitals
6’2, 185 pounds
Position: Right-handed pitcher
Bats: Right
Throws: Right
DOB: July 12, 2001
Location
Buies Creek, N.C.
Year: Junior
Rankings
The Athletic: 44
Baseball America: 48
CBS Sports: 22
ESPN: 57
MLB Pipeline: 43
Prospects Live: 38
Slot recommended bonus (No. 29): $1,950,900
Note: All information of draft prospects compiled from Internet sources, scouting reports and videos.
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Campbell is quickly becoming a solid baseball program for churning out MLB prospects. Harrington’s teammate, shortstop Zach Neto, is a projected Top 15 pick, right-hander Seth Johnson was the 40th overall selection in 2019 (Rays) and center fielder Cedric Mullins is coming off a 30-30 season with the Orioles. Harrington may not have the ceiling of all these guys, but if any team is going to get the most out of his ability, it’s the Dodgers.
The common refrain about Campbell is while he has solid stuff, he lacks premium velocity and a true knockout pitch. His fastball sits in the 90-93 MPH range and has touched as high as 96. It lacks premium movement (but isn’t Hunter Greene-straight) and doesn’t jump off the charts when it comes to spin, but that’s something the Dodgers’ player developmental department excels at when it comes to their pitchers. Harrington backs it up with the traditional starter’s repertoire — a mid-80s slider with some depth, a mid-80s changeup that is his best pitch and a work-in-progress curveball in the mid-to-high-70s. The Dodgers have not been shy about taking chances on guys with plus-changeups — hi, Ryan Pepiot — and while Harrington’s may not be that good, the fact that he’s already as comfortable with it as he is, that’s a good building block.
He’s athletic and has a clean, loose delivery that he repeats well. That helps scouts to throw above-average-to-plus future command/control grades on him. His listed build is exactly the same as Walker Buehler‘s — 6-foot-2, 185 pounds — but, Harrington probably isn’t going to be the top-of-the-rotation guy Buheler has developed into at this stage of his career. Still, he’s a solid starting pitching prospect who could thrive in the right system.
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Video
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Because his floor is lower than his ceiling is high, Harrington has a real chance to make it to the 40th selection of this draft. If the Dodgers were to pop him there, he’d be plenty signable. At present, he looks like a solid No. 3/4 starter. If the Dodgers are successful in getting more out of him than he has displayed in college, he could be more like a No. 2/3 starter.
