Nicholas
Fraze

3/1/19: Impressive first look at another interesting draft arm from Texas State. Fraze stands 6-foot-3, 180 pounds with long legs and a lean, athletic build. Compact arm action. Gets a bit high with the elbow in back (inverted W), but connects well to the front and has good layback. Repeats his delivery well. He overwhelmed the Rice lineup on Friday, striking out 12 while allowing one walk and one hit in seven innings. Most of the strikeouts were with his plus, late action 79-82 mph slider. He repeatedly induced swing/miss, expanded to his gloveside and backdoored lefthanded hitters with the pitch. The slider played up even further due to his ability to locate his 87-90 mph fastball inside to righthanded batters. His fastball also played up with the extension he created from his delivery. He lands online and works down the hill, leading with his front hip to the plate in a balanced and powerful position. Breaks his hands really late, causing his arm path to be very compact in order to catch up to his lower half. With better timing and an earlier break of his hands, Fraze potentially has some more velocity in the tank. If he's able to find the velo, he could find himself being selected in the middle of Day Two. Otherwise, his two-pitch mix and current velocity project as a Day Three pick and a future ML bullpen role. (Seifert)