Josh Burgmann

Burgmann was drafted by the Cardinals in the 30th round of the 2016 draft out of high school, but he instead made it to campus at Washington. In his freshman season, Burgmann appeared in just eight games and tossed 13.2 innings before he had to be shut down with a partially torn UCL and underwent Tommy John surgery. During his redshirt freshman season in 2018, Burgmann worked mostly as a reliever and posted a 3.19 ERA. He struggled to locate his secondary offerings, however, and he struck out just 6.10 batters per nine innings while walking 3.77 per nine. He added a slider to his repertoire at that point and during his first full season as a starter in 2019, he finally started to put everything together. Through his first 14 starts and 79 innings, Burgmann posted a 3.99 ERA, but the major improvement was the fact that he was striking out a career-best 11.5 batters per nine while walking just 2.5 per nine. Scouts praise his strike-throwing ability—he almost throws too many, as Burgmann doesn’t like to waste pitches and will frequently give hitters too many hittable offerings inside the zone. His fastball sits in the low 90s but touches 95 mph, and both his slider and curveball are above-average offerings. He also has a solid fourth-pitch changeup. Listed at 6 feet, 205 pounds, Burgmann has a strong, stocky build without much room for further projection, but he has a solid trio of pitches and good strike-throwing to match.