Luke
Szymanski

The medium statured righthander took the bump for the Coyotes and from pitch one of the game showcases a strong feel for control of his arsenal, deception with his delivery and competitiveness. Szymanski uses a clean arm path out of the glove while staying behind his body with the path to hide the baseball effectively from hitters with the ball almost popping out of his shoulder in a lower ¾ arm slot which makes his 80-84 MPH FB play above the present velocity because of how late the hitter sees the ball out of the hand. His FB shape features running life to the arm side which plays both down in the zone or up in the zone while when he is attacking down (his predominant pattern) the shape features sink underneath the barrel of hitters. While Szymanski attacks the bottom of the zone with frequency he displayed the present ability to elevate his FB above the belt for soft contact in the air or inducing whiff from hitters (both RH and LH). His breaking ball is a short tight offering which features 70-73 MPH range which when tunneled off his FB induced chase/soft contact from RHH and locked up LHH. He mixed in the occasional CHG at 76-77 MPH with a similar movement pattern to his FB and is thrown with quality arm speed. While the stuff for the Coyotes righthander is not going to jump off the page his feel to utilize his arsenal, attack all four quadrants of the strike zone and the edges with his FB, command of the breaking ball, deceptive delivery and competitive nature allows him to effectively navigate a starting role with strong performance levels over the course of this outing and the 2025 spring. With another year to continue adding strength to his frame and polishing his presently strong pitching profile should make Szymanski a solid follow for college programs looking for starter potential arms who have a strong foundation of pitchability, but flashes potential to tick up across the board as he matures.