BAZ Shane

General
CLUB JOURNEY
He was selected by the Pittsburgh Pirates in the first round, 12th overall pick, of the 2017 MLB Draft. He had originally committed to playing collegiate baseball at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, TX, but decided to play professionally and entered the draft straight out of high school. In 2017 he played in 10 games for the Pirates' Rookie-level affiliate team, the Gulf Coast League Pirates, and in 2018 was traded to the Tampa Bay Rays. In 2019 he played in 17 games for the Ray's minor league affiliate the Bowling Green Hot Rods. In 2021 he has played for both the Double-A Montgomery Biscuits and Triple-A Durham Bulls. (mlb.com, 01 Jul 2021; bleacherreport.com, 13 Jun 2017)

PITCHING STRENGTHS
In 2017, while playing at Rookie-level, his fastball was already hitting speeds of 98mph, although at the time he was also working on his off-speed options such as the cutter, which he evolved into a slider after reducing its speed. "I want to dominate with my fastball - that really sets up every pitcher's off-speed pitches. I try to dominate the whole game with it, and then, if I need a put-away pitch or if I think a guy is going to ambush me on a fastball, I'll throw them a slider, curveball or a change-up depending on what I see. [The cutter] has been really good. I've turned it so it has a little more movement. I take a little bit off of it, as far as velocity goes, and try to get more of a swing-and-miss pitch out of it." (calltothepen.com, 13 Jul 2017)

INSPIRATION FROM JACOB DEGROM
He has said that his pitching style is modelled most closely on that of US baseball player Jacob DeGrom. "If there's a pitcher that I try and take stuff from it's probably Jacob DeGrom - power fastball, really hard slider with a change-up that he mixes in, and he tries to work off those three pitches. That's who I probably try and look up to the most." (offthebenchbaseball.com, 25 Sep 2019)