Nathaniel
Bray

Central Valley Preseason ID - Bray was at last season’ NorCal Preseason All-State and has made strong growth over the last year with a more stout build utilizing the added strength to improve his measurables. Slightly opened and tall with a high back elbow and hands away from the body, Bray’s hands work deep into the back shoulder with a toe-to-heel timing mechanism on the front leg as the barrel works like a windmill up through the zone. The backside drives through contact and there’s time the swing looks like a golf swing with a very high finish. The strength in the frame regularly came out as balls were easily lifted deep into the gaps with carry and life coming off the bat (90 EV). Behind the dish, the transfer on pop times was consistently quick pulling the glove to his strong throwing arm (76 C, 2.0-2.05) and keeping throws on the arm side of the bag. I liked his flexibility and low stance while receiving presenting a strong target for his pitchers with limited wasted movement on the glove hand and the explosiveness to get to blocks laterally. A name to watch during the Spring. 

Pitching - Max FB 82, FB 80-82, SL 73-76, CHG 79
Physical 6-foot-2, 195-pound body with strong lower half and broad shoulders. Repeatable mechanics, good lower body stability and direction, controlled/compact backside arm action representative of his being a catcher, high 3/4 slot moving towards release point. Average arm speed with fairly easy effort in a somewhat high tempo delivery. Heavy fastball with late arm-side run could give hitters uncomfortable at-bats. Velocity likely to tick up in season and warmer weather, fastball had length through the zone. Enough lateral action on the slider to play well off the fastball run/life. Can work quickly and with his feel of the strike zone he looks to have some innings eating ability and ability to get weak contact.

PBR N CA Preseason All-State - Medium frame with sloping shoulders on wide chest and high waist; athletic lower half with some quickness and strong stride length (7.28 60-yd). Low, balanced target using athleticism in lower half to pop up and gain ground to 2nd base; arm has flashes of average with high elbow and is compact with quick release (2.04-2.16 pop, 73 MPH). Wider, balanced stance with slight bend in the knees and even hands keeping bat straight up with high back elbow; loads body deep into back side with front leg lift and hands starting to pull back slotting early and flattening out the bat. Level swing with slight upward path showing late quickness through the zone and ability to drive ball gap-to-gap; bat was very loud with some future pull pop projection (88 exit velo) as he learns to turn through the zone.