Tommy Mace

Mace was draft-eligible in the 2020 class, where he ranked as the No. 75 prospect but reportedly turned down big money to go back to Florida to try and improve his draft stock. He added good weight and improved the velocity of his fastball a tick or two, sitting in the 93 mph range this spring and touching 97. Scouts critiqued the life on Mace’s fastball last season, and this spring they’ve seen him try and throw more four-seam fastballs, but he still doesn’t get a ton of swings and misses with the pitch. Instead, he relies on spotting it at a high level in each quadrant of the strike zone. Mace also throws a hard slider/cutter in the mid-to-upper 80s, a slurvy 78-80 mph curveball and a mid-to-upper-80s changeup with slight arm-side fade. None of Mace’s secondary pitches projects as plus and his lack of bat-missing stuff makes scouts wonder about his true upside, though he did achieve a career-best strikeout rate (11.3 K/9) through 90.1 innings this spring, while still walking just 2.1 batters per nine. Mace has given up close to a hit per inning over his Florida career, so he’ll likely have to rely on inducing weak contact at the next level and avoiding walks barring a jump forward in his secondary stuff. Sinker/slider types aren’t the most coveted in today’s game, but Mace has enough pitching ability to become a back-of-the-rotation arm.