Player Spotlight: 2020 LHP/1B Joseph Vetrano (Lakeland HS)

Joseph Vetrano LHP / 1B / Lakeland, NY / 2020

We first saw Vetrano at our "East vs West Battle," a travel tournament hosted and scouted by PBR New York. He was throwing for a local travel team from his hometown and my phone kept blowing up from one of our area scouts. "You need to see this young lefty" "He's up to 86 and showing command" were the text messages I was getting. After a dominating performance that Saturday in early July, Vetrano had punched his ticket to the biggest event in the country for underclass prospects; the "Future Games."

We started learning more and more about Vetrano as the Future Games inched closer, and one theme stayed consistent - he's an athlete. Oozing athleticism (7.07 60 time) and credited as being a premium slugger as well as pitcher. First thing I noticed, at the plate he doesn't get cheated. There's natural raw bat-speed, (97 mph off a tee) left-side with pull-side juice, and attacks the baseball out in front using a lifted barrel path and extension. Defensively he's active around the first-base bag, light footwork and the arm works. On the mound though is where most scouts see the potential star forming.

Standing 6-foot-2, 180-pounds with a frame suited to hold more positive weight, arms and hands are long, shoulders are thick. Love the hip flexibility, really drives off the rubber with length to his back leg, alignment to home-plate is on target. Arm swing is back and mostly clean, elbow slightly inverts as his hand starts to accelerate forward. Hand-speed and extension are well above-average, fastball hits 85-87 mph with natural tail and life, the curveball has late 2/7 shape, mixes in a developing change-up that will only improve as he matures. Personally I would like to see him more firm on his front side landing leg, and finishing with more direction towards home vs falling hard to the third-base side. Vetrano is by every definition, an example of how the Prep Baseball Report works for each player.

Committed to Boston College not long after the Future Games.