Zach Lee
Position: RHP
Level: Double-A (Chattanooga)
Age: 20
Law's preseason ranking: 41 | Law's midseason ranking: 49
Lee became a name partially because of his bonus, signing for $5.25 million out of a Texas high school, in part to buy him out of a scholarship to be a quarterback at LSU. Lee is also a young (turns 21 on Sept. 13) athletic righty who is struggling at an advanced level for his age after breezing through A-ball.
I saw Lee last summer, and he was up to 95 mph with a slider that flashed plus, an impressive showing for a prep arm late in his first full season. The scouting buzz was that Lee's stuff had backed up this year, and that's exactly what I saw last week. He sat 90-93 mph with plus two-seam life and showed above-average command of the pitch, generating double-digit ground balls in my look. He relied on his heater the whole game, and it had improved greatly since I last saw him. Lee also has a longer arm action that lets hitters follow the ball well, but he has tilted his body to try to hide the ball more to right-handers. He also threw a changeup at 85-87 mph that was average at times; he showed some feel for it, but it was still a little too firm.
The big difference was that the big two-plane, mid-80's plus slider has morphed into two pitches: a short, cutter-type slider at 82-85 mph and a soft, 12-to-6 curveball at 75-76 mph. The slider was the better of the two pitches and was solid-average at times, but it wasn't even close to the breaking ball he had as an amateur or late last summer. The curveball is a below-average "show-me" pitch he didn't throw often, though it could be fine in time as a fourth pitch to give hitters a different look.
While Lee has made a lot of progress with his fastball and overall feel for his craft, it's all been undermined by his vanishing slider. If the pitch never comes back, he's a No. 3 or No. 4 starter with a plus sinker and no out pitch. If the slider comes back, there's No. 2 starter upside.