Tigers’ Brant Hurter Blends Old-School Mentality With New Ideas
While some players aren’t introduced to the analytics-driven direction of baseball until they’re drafted, lefthander Brant Hurter was fortunate enough to get a preview ahead of time.
While building his résumé at Georgia Tech, Hurter noticed the program taking a turn with the hiring of pitching coach Danny Borrell.
“Early on, probably my freshman, sophomore year, it was pretty old school,” Hurter said. “Then we got a new pitching coach my junior year. And then a new lab facility my senior year, which we were able to really dive into.”
Hurter views himself as a mix of both old-school and new-age mentalities. But to understand his journey to reach that balance, one must go back in time to 2019. That’s when he had Tommy John surgery as a sophomore.
When play resumed following the pandemic-truncated 2020 season, Hurter, now a fourth-year player, was ready to lead the Yellow Jackets’ staff with 85.1 innings in 2021. The Tigers drafted him in the seventh round that July.
Standing 6-foot-6, Hurter has access to plenty of natural downhill plane, but the art of finding balance has been a major key to the 24-year-old’s success this season.
“I’m kind of in between,” Hurter said. “I pick and choose which metrics I like to look at, but I still keep the thought of being able to feel each pitch. And even if the metrics say one’s better than the other, if I can’t control that pitch. I don’t really use it.”
Throwing a two-seam and four-seam fastball, slider, sinker and changeup, Hurter carried a 3.52 ERA with 83 strikeouts and a 1.24 WHIP through 16 starts and 71.2 innings for Double-A Erie.
“I’ve been a sinker guy my whole life,” Hurter said. “So this year we added a four-seam to mainly just throw at the top of the zone. Just another fastball that I throw three or four times a game just to get hitters off looking for low balls.”
