Braves Player Pool Profile: Philip Pfeifer

Philip Pfeifer came from an elite program in Vanderbilt. During the 2013 season he was kicked off the team for failing a drug test. He missed the entire 2014 season and was allowed back on the squad for the 2015 season in which he posted 11 K/9 over 96 innings where he split time starting and closing games (9 starts and 5 saves). He was a pitcher that didn’t have any plus pitches and was known for his pitchabilty. It was enough to get him drafted in the 3rd round by the Dodgers as an under slot signing.

Since being drafted, Pfiefer has dealt with control issues. He carried a walk rate over 5 BB/9 from 2016 through 2018. He was off to a slow start in 2019 that earned him a domation from AA to High-A, where he last pitched in 2016. Interestingly enough, the Braves thrust him into a starter role to soak up innings since the team doesn’t like sending top prospects to Florida. But despite the odds against Pfeifer it worked. He’s always been able to pile on strikeouts, but all of the sudden his walk rate dropped to respectable levels which allowed him to dominate hitters/games.

So what changed?

Despite Pfeifer’s fastball sitting 91 mph (max 95), the pitch has some nice movement that he was starting to locate better to both sides of the plate. Honestly, I couldn’t find out why it took him starting to locate his fastball better. His curve has always been a quality pitch with excellent spin rates, but now it was flashing plus more often. The final reason for the big turnaround was working with the pitching coach to ditch the change-up for a slider.

“We’ve been working on a slider and that was a huge pitch for me,” he said. “I used to throw a changeup, but we’ve been working on replacing that pitch with a slider to go along with my curveball and fastball, and it’s made a huge difference. When I’ve got all three working, it’s saving me pitches and that helped my pitch count tonight.”

Added Dan Meyer (pitching coach at High-A):

“We’ve been playing with a slider for a different look, a different spin. We wanted to put the changeup away because he had a tendency to fly open to his arm side. With a slider, he’s working more north to south, and he’s able to get on top of the baseball. And that just makes everything more crisp and more repeatable and just better all around.”

With this change he would go on to put up an 11 and 17 strikeout games for Florida and would eventually earn a promotion back to AA. Pfiefer would only spend four games at Mississippi after his he threw back to back 8 inning games only giving up one run while striking out 19 and walking 2. He would finish out the season pitching out of the bullpen with the Gwinnett Braves.

Boo to the Florida Fire Frogs not being on MiLB TV.

He wasn’t done there. Pfeifer ended up throwing another 52.1 innings for the Australian Winter League where he struck out 60 and had a 1.34 WHIP.

When you add up all the innings that he threw it amounted to over 185 innings, where his previous high was 59.1 innings. It remains to be seen how the huge increase in innings will affect his arm. Regardless of that, the Braves saw enough to add him to the 40 man roster to protect him from being placed in the Rule 5 draft. His turnaround was strong enough that the Talking Chop crew felt more than comfortable adding him to the top 30 prospect list (27th overall).

With Pfeifer being on the 40 man roster, there’s a very good chance he gets some time with the Atlanta Braves, whether an injury replacement or to give someone a little extra rest. Braves will not worry about protecting his prospect status as he turns 28 on July 15th.