Gaddis was drafted in the 5th round of the 2019 Draft and I caught one of his outings in the NYPL that summer and also had him assigned to me on video work when with the Angels. Since my first look at Gaddis, he really caught my eye and was shocked he got to the 5th round with the stuff he was showing after pitching a full college season.
I happen to be very good friend with the Area Scout at the time who drafted him who raved of his makeup and baseball IQ. He also told me Gaddis was on one of the worst D1 baseball teams in 2019 who didn’t have a very good defense behind him so his numbers were pretty inflated which likely allowed him to fall in some teams eyes who weigh a pitchers stats heavily without maybe knowing the full context behind them for some players.
Gaddis works with a 4-seam FB that I didn’t see significant life or movement out of in my looks. I have Gaddis with future average command of the heater, he showed solid feel for spotting up arm side and flashed feel for locating in the upper quadrants as well but was still vulnerable to middle-middle mistakes when working glove side especially.
His CB is an offering that shows both 12/6 and 11/5 shape, both of which feature plenty of depth. His CB flashed average tightness and bite a handful of times but most had below average teeth. I see the CB being used by Gaddis in the future as a show-me offering he can steal strikes with on occasion.
The other breaking ball in his arsenal is a SL that has two-plane shape and sharp bite more regularly than the CB did. The offering does have a tendency to get slurvey and lose some teeth when he’s on the side of it and doesn’t throw with aggressive intent.
Gaddis’ CH is the headliner of his arsenal hands down and is a pitch I project to be a plus offering in the future. It’s a true Bugs Bunny type offering that has anywhere between 10-15 MPH of separation from his FB. Does a very nice job of maintaining his arm speed when throwing the pitch which adds significant deception and contributes to large amount of swings and misses he gets with it.
Gaddis definitely has some rigidness in his delivery along with a noticeable head whack which gives many (rightful) concerns as to whether he stays a SP long-term or not. After taking a pretty big step forward statistically in 2021 with a 11.7 K/9 and an encouraging 2.6 BB/9 over 97 innings in A+ ball. He did allow almost 2 HR/9 in Lake County which I believe speaks to his tendency to leave hittable FB’s in very hittable locations. I see Gaddis’ future ceiling as a #4/5 SP.
