Grand Junction, Colorado —— Entering the postseason over the weekend, Los Angeles Dodgers right-handed pitching prospect Gregorio Sequera is 0-2 with a 6.56 ERA in 19 games (14 starts) split between Low-A Great Lakes and the Pioneer League‘s Ogden Raptors, with 49 strikeouts against 30 walks and 80 hits over 59.0 innings pitched. I observed the 19-year-old Venezuelan in his September 4th start on the road against Grand Junction; below is Baseball Census‘ full Gregorio Sequera scouting report, including video.
Gregorio Sequera Scouting Report — Video
Our video of Los Angeles Dodgers right-handed pitching prospect Gregorio Sequera shows his outing in that September 4 start against the Grand Junction Rockies, where he allowed two earned runs on six hits and two walks with just one strikeout over four innings pitched:
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Gregorio Sequera Scouting Report — Notes
Listed at 6’1″, 165 lbs., Gregorio Sequera looks both taller and heavier than that, with a solid frame that should have him physically withstanding the rigors of the starting rotation in the future. The Venezuelan righty sits 87-91 mph with his fastball, topping out infrequently at 93 mph in my look on September 4. It’s a pretty straight fastball, though, with little by way of sink or arm-side run; what little downward movement Sequera does get is by good downward plane when he’s able to get on top of the ball, thanks to a high three-quarters release point. He couples the fastball with an 80-81 mph changeup and a 76-77 mph breaking ball that looks to be more of a slider than a curve, but it’s loopy with slow, gradual break rather than hard, late bite.
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The Los Angeles Dodgers prospect is still raw, as one might expect of any teenager in rookie ball, and you can see that freshness manifest itself in his mechanics more than anything. At least in his September 4 start, Sequera was tipping his off-speed pitches by noticeably slowing down his body and arm speed on both the changeup and slider. Maintaining arm speed, arm action, and mechanics on all of his pitches is imperative at this point; beyond that, the hurler will see vastly improved pitch life when he starts to throw his off-speed (especially his slider) a lot harder than he is now, trusting his grip to do the work. That said, and even with less-than-ideal walk rates (roughly 4.5 BB/9 in 2017), Sequera has decent feel for all three of his pitches and can control them all in the zone even though his command lags fairly far behind right now. He misses too often out over the plate, and that’ll continue to hurt him as long as he flashes below-average stuff across the board.
Even though Gregorio Sequera has the use of three pitches at this point, he’s proven incredibly hittable and struggles to consistently work down in the strike zone with authority. As a corollary, he also struggles to miss bats, and doesn’t have anything resembling a wipeout pitch right now despite already nearly flirting with the mid-90s on his fastball. Even at his age, that combination makes it hard for me to see him as much more than organizational depth barring a drastic development in his command profile or mechanics far outside the natural pace of improvement you’d expect over the coming few years.
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That said, Sequera has good raw arm strength for a 19-year-old in rookie ball, and with a strong, thicker frame than his list weight, he might continue to add velocity as he figures out his mechanics and grows into his natural strength. Even though he hasn’t missed bats as a rotation arm this year, any added power may actually give Sequera a future in the bullpen, because his stuff might play up significantly in short stints. With his raw arm strength, if the Los Angeles Dodgers prospect starts to throw his slider as hard as possible, he ought to find himself with a decent breaking pitch to complement a good fastball in short-stint relief work. But until then, at least in a starter role trying to stretch out against a lineup multiple times, I struggle to find a scenario where Gregorio Sequera isn’t hit hard because of a lack of bite and late life to his arsenal.
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