Andrew
Gillespie

Samford Commit. 6-foot, 180 pounds. The Wolverines ace is as good of a competitor you’ll find on the mound, and he’s an instrumental piece to this club in many more ways than just pitching. Gillespie plays all over the infield as a reliable defender with a cannon arm, and he’s the 4 hole hitter. But Samford loves him on the mound, and it’s hard not to. The delivery is explosive from start to finish and you can just see the velocity ticking up year by year because of how the delivery is built. His high leg lift allows him to access the largest muscles in his legs immediately, creating early pressure on the backside that is the foundation of his delivery. The height and pace of his lift create inertia and allow him to create more momentum in the 2nd half of his delivery, all while keeping the backside stacked. Gillespie also lands in a very consistent line to the plate that allows his arsenal to show consistent life. We’ve had the FB much higher velocity wise when he wasn’t playing infield every day, and this outing was in relief after playing SS for half the game. So he had already made many throws. Regardless, his FB (85-87 T88) still showed sharp run and ate up RHH hands, also freezing LHH with comeback life. We’ve seen the CB (mid 70’s) with consistent 2 plane snap in 2022, and it definitely flashed that at times in his outing. The pitch is known to be high spin and get lots of whiffs. We look forward to seeing a start soon to get the full picture of who he’s becoming on the mound in 2023.