Brock Porter

Porter is the top prospect on a talented St. Mary’s Prep high school team and one of the best prospects to come out of Michigan in years. He should become the first high school first-rounder out of the state since Nick Plummer (No. 23) in 2015. The lanky and still-projectable 6-foot-3, 188-pound righthander established himself as one of the top pitchers in the class last summer, when he showed a fastball that was regularly in the mid 90s, an elite changeup and multiple quality breaking balls. Porter has a chance for two 70-grade pitches with his fastball—a pitch that has been up to 100 mph and regularly touches 97-98 mph—and a devastating changeup that features tremendous velocity separation, arm-side fading life and tumbling action. The pitch is one of the better secondary offerings in the class (rivaling fellow prep righthander Dylan Lesko’s changeup) and it regularly stymies hitters in the upper 70s. He sells it with impressive arm speed and shows advanced feel to locate the pitch and spot it down in the zone and below it for swings and misses. On top of his fastball/changeup combination, Porter throws both a curveball and a slider. The former is in the mid-to-upper 70s with top-down shape and the latter is in the lower 80s with three-quarter breaking action. Scouts believe the slider has a chance to be an above-average offering, but he’ll need more consistency with the pitch. Part of that inconsistency with spin could stem from a longer arm action, which is one of the few critiques in Porter’s game. There’s significant depth in the back side of his arm stroke, with some tilt in his delivery as well that could lead to inconsistencies, but in general Porter has repeated well and filled up the zone with strikes. He’s more of a control-over-command pitcher now but has the sort of power stuff to more than get away with that sort of accuracy. Porter is committed to Clemson, but with Dylan Lesko’s injury this spring he has a chance to be the first pitcher selected in a down class of college arms.