Bryan
Pall

6.14.17 - Drafted in the 25th round out of Michigan by the Seattle Mariners. 

4/2/14 - Ranked No. 11 in Illinois’ 2014 class, No. 45 overall. Michigan recruit. I believe the 6-foot-2, 205-pounder has dirtiest repertoire in Illinois. Indeed, he is not the most projectable, nor is his delivery the cleanest or easiest, but his four-pitch arsenal is, in my opinion, second to none. With that said, his first start of the season didn’t completely reflect what we’ve seen in the summer and fall, and Lyons’ hitters had very solid approaches against him, which was lay off his plus-plus slider and attack  the fastball. About his slider: he throws it exceedingly hard at 82-84 mph (we’ve seen it up to 86 in the fall). When he threw it harder, it was more lateral on Wednesday; but when he subtracted a few ticks on it, it had that samurai-like slice to it. His fastball primarily sat in the 87-89 range in the early innings, touching 90 once. In the third he was still pitching at 88 from windup and stretch. Because he opens his front side so early, he gets natural run on his fastball. Occasionally, he created wicked hard-boring arm-side sink, but not with regularity. He also throws a mid-to-upper-70s curveball; when thrown at the 74-76 range it had more 12/6 shape. Pall wrinkled in a change from time to time in the 81-83 range. He struck out five with no walks and yielded six hits in four innings, though his defense did him no favors (three errors, botched double play).

The 6-foot-1, 190-pound right-hander is one of the hottest names in Illinois’ Class of 2014. We first saw Pall come out of the pen early in his sophomore year last spring, pumping 83-85 fastballs with a hard and sharp 78-80 mph slider. As expected, Pall’s stuff continued to improve, and this fall he’s been up to 88 with a filthy 80-82 mph slider. The slider is a plus pitch, a true swing-and-miss pitch at the next level. Pall is yet another high-level arm in Illinois’ loaded 2014 class.