TJSweens
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Mike Berardino has a pretty good article on Graterol today:
Twins’ prospect Brusdar Graterol has big fastball, big-league role model in Jose Berrios
By MIKE BERARDINO
CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa — Say this for Brusdar Graterol, flame-throwing right-hander at Class A Cedar Rapids: The young man knows how to choose a role model.
“My favorite pitcher is Jose Berrios,” Graterol said recently in rapidly improving English. “I like the way he throws. I like how he throws his breaking ball. Oh, my God, it’s impressive.”
Graterol is a 19-year-old Venezuelan with a sturdy frame and a fastball that reaches 101 mph. Berrios is a 24-year-old Puerto Rican with a lithe build and two complete-game victories during the first half of his third season in the Twins rotation. Yet, Graterol doesn’t let the differences keep him from locking in on what Berrios is doing in the major leagues. His Twitter page carries a background photo of Berrios in full offseason-workout beast mode, and the prospect even briefly dubbed himself “The Machine” on the same social-media site, a la Berrios’ “La Makina” handle.
When Graterol’s name was mentioned recently in the Twins’ clubhouse, Berrios nodded and smiled.
“I know him,” he said. “He’s a good guy. We talked a little bit during spring training. I showed him some of my arm exercises.”
Now, hardly a day goes by that you won’t find Graterol religiously following his arm-care routine of J-band exercises and other drills meant to keep his arm strong in the wake of Tommy John surgery that cost him the 2016 season.
As he talked one recent morning by his locker at Perfect Game Field, Graterol was carefully strapping on a set of 10-pound ankle weights. It was the morning after a six-inning start in high-90s heat, but Graterol was getting ready to do his shoulder-flush routine.
That’s something else he shares with Berrios: a zealous dedication to his craft and the between-starts conditioning it takes to endure a long season.
“My focus is to work out every day — every day,” Graterol said. “I need to keep my arm strong; that’s the most important thing. So, every day I work on my arm. I like working hard. That’s why Jose Berrios is my favorite. I understand he works every day.”
It remains to be seen how may innings the Twins will let Graterol, who doesn’t turn 20 until late August, throw before shutting him down. In 2017, he was capped at 40 combined innings between the Gulf Coast and Appalachian leagues, and not allowed to go beyond 75 pitches in any start.
This year for the Kernels, Graterol was 2-1 with a 1.95 earned-run average through his first six starts. He stayed behind in Fort Myers, Fla., at extended spring training until late April, which allowed him to avoid the early-season chill of the Midwest League, and had another brief stint on the disabled list with a contusion on his pitching hand — reportedly caused by sleeping in an awkward position.
He came back to toss seven innings of two-run ball in his first start off the DL. Through his first 32 1/3 innings this year, he was striking out 11 batters per nine innings, walking just 2.2 per nine and maintaining a strike percentage of 66.7.
He had been allowed to throw 91 and 86 pitches in his past two outings, and that included a May 20 start against first-place Clinton in which Graterol touched triple digits eight times, including the penultimate pitch of another impressive showing.
The crazy part is Graterol generates all of that easy velocity with a smooth, low-stress delivery and nothing but two-seam fastballs.
“He’s a fun guy to catch,” Kernels catcher David Banuelos said. “He’s an effortless 100-mph kid. He’ll reach back a few times, but he’s not up there grunting. The future is bright for him. He’s special.”
Banuelos, a fifth-round pick out of Long Beach State who came over from the Seattle Mariners in a deal for $1 million of international bonus pool money, is still getting to know Graterol and his pitching repertoire. He sees the potential in the mid-80s curveball and the power changeup at 88-92 mph, but it’s the hard slider at 88-90 mph that tends to put hitters to sleep once the count reaches two strikes.
“It’s come a long way,” Banuelos said. “After the first start, we told him that’s a really good pitch to go to. We’ve told him, ‘Just throw it hard,’ and that’s what he’s been doing. He’s an animal out there.”
And an athlete, too — one who takes pride in his ability to hold runners and field his position. Graterol picked off the first Clinton runner to reach base against him in that May 20 start, and his sliding play on a swinging bunt near the third-base line a few starts earlier became an instant GIF.
“He tends sometimes to try to do too much because he knows he has a live arm,” Banuelos said, “but at his age he’s very mature and able to calm down and get back to where he needs to be. He gave up a couple home runs (on May 20), but he was still there, throwing strikes.”
Challenging hitters is a big part of Graterol’s mindset. So is thinking his way through two and three looks at an opposing lineup.“He didn’t have all his stuff right away; it took him a little bit to figure it out,” Banuelos said. “But then he figured it out and got comfortable. Sometimes at a young age, guys don’t have that. He understands what he needs to do out there, which is impressive at 19.
“He works hard, and it’s going to pay off for him.”
That’s what Berrios’ teammates and coaches used to say about him as he made the steady climb through the Twins’ system after they took him 32nd overall out of high school in the 2012 draft. Berrios was a month shy of his 22nd birthday when he made his big-league debut in 2016, but Graterol, signed at age 16 for just $150,000, might beat that.
“Every day I watch video of Berrios,” Graterol said. “That helps me improve. Right now, I’m working on my changeup.”
With that, The Machine 2.0 politely excused himself. He had some running to do.
< Message edited by TJSweens -- 6/11/2018 12:56:22 PM >
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