Rodney Boone

Boone teamed with Michael McGreevy this spring to give UC Santa Barbara one of the best starting pitching duos on the West Coast. While McGreevy received most of the draft attention, Boone actually had the lower ERA (2.20) and higher strikeouts per nine innings (11.7) of the two during the regular season. Boone is a soft-tossing lefty who succeeds on command and deception. His fastball sits 86-88 mph and tops out at 90 mph, but he hides the ball well in his delivery and it gets on hitters quicker than they expect. His best pitch is a plus changeup in the low 70s that gets hitters lunging and keeps them off of his fastball. Boone mostly lives on those two pitches. He has a curveball in the low 70s he can land for strikes, but it lacks bite and he rarely uses it. He gets ahead of hitters with his fastball and finishes them with his changeup and locates both with above-average control. Boone will need to improve his fastball velocity and tighten his breaking ball to project as a back-end starter. His track record of performance from the left side has teams interested.