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  "description": "Cleveland's pitching lab strikes again with one of the most polished prep arms in the minor leagues",
  "path": "/under-the-hood-braylon-doughty/",
  "publishedAt": "2026-06-16T11:00:48.000Z",
  "site": "https://www.prospectslive.com",
  "tags": [
    "TJStats"
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  "textContent": "The 2024 MLB Draft has been generating its fair share of buzz this season, and rightfully so. From Travis Bazzana, Chase Burns, Konnor Griffin, and Nick Kurtz to JJ Wetherholt, Payton Tolle, and Trey Yesavage, the top billings from this class are already becoming household names throughout the league. Beyond them, however, sits a hoard of great prep pitching talent. Ryan Sloan is the headliner of that group having risen the ranks and becoming one of, if not the, top pitching prospect in baseball. Beyond Sloan, there's Cam Caminiti of the Braves, Kash Mayfield of the Padres, Bryce Meccage of the Brewers, but for me, one name rises above all but Sloan: Braylon Doughty.\n\nCleveland took Doughty with their CB-A pick at 36th overall. Doughty, hailing from Chaparral High School in Temecula, California, has spearheaded a newly found 'type' for the Guardians and their pitching philosophy, but Doughty will have to buck a trend size-wise. Doughty stands at just 6'0\". For a long time, the discourse surrounding undersized starting pitchers spanned any and everything possible that could discredit them. Their stuff isn't good enough, they can't attain/sustain velocity, or they can't physically sustain the workload necessary to remain a starting pitcher. I'm here to tell you that all of these critiques are...valid!\n\n6'2\" is the sweet spot for a starting pitcher. Dylan Cease, Aaron Nola, Carlos Rodón, Logan Webb, and Bryan Woo – just to name a few – are all 6'2\" and have all thrown at least one season of 180+ innings since 2024. The list of starting pitchers 6'2\" or taller that have posted 140+ inning seasons over the last three seasons is lengthy. The list of those shorter than that? Fractions of the size. There have been 146 instances of 140+ inning seasons by currently active pitchers over the previous two seasons. Just 13 have been from pitchers that are Doughty's height or shorter.\n\nThe short king of pitching is Yoshinobu Yamamoto. Framber Valdez stands at 5'11\" and does this routinely, as does 5'10\" Shota Imanaga. José Berríos (6'0\") has also done it in both seasons, but he's no longer active. So, we have Yamamoto, Valdez x2, Imanaga x2, Freddy Peralta x2 (6'0\"), Sonny Gray x2 (5'10\"), Jesús Luzardo (6'0\"), Andre Pallante (6'0\"), Andrew Abbott (6'0\"), and Yusei Kikuchi (6'0\"). That's the list. As we progress through this season, more are hopefully to join this group, Parker Messick comes to mind right away, but it's far from a common trend across baseball. It's an uphill climb for Doughty, but I'm here to tell you, he will be the exception.\n\n## **MECHANICS**\n\nGetting back to the Guardians, he has set the mold that I anticipate the Guardians to follow when selecting prep arms (they kind of already are): athletic, malleable movers, valuing polished, smoothed out mechanics with spin capabilities and an arm slot made for finding optimal fastball metrics and more velo. Cleveland chased more upside later in this draft with Joey Oakie, but they took Will Hynes as their first pitcher in the '25 Draft, and he is the next-in-line type of prep arm in this system after Doughty.\n\nDoughty was widely regarded as the most polished prep arm coming into the draft, and for good reason. He's fluid through his motion with easily repeatable mechanics. Doughty has maintained the same three-quarters slot since pre-draft as you can see below.\n\nHe keeps the ball at his hip through his entire wind-up and echoes the motion when he works from the stretch. He's quick to the plate, and he has already begun the early process of keeping runners at bay. Doughty will use the pitch clock to his advantage as much as he can to keep runners' timing off. Doughty still mixes in the quick pitch and Cueto-esque stutters and stops at the top of his leg lift at times as well. His motion is not one I would consider high effort, he gets through his hips with ease, and his release is easily repeatable across all pitch types.\n\n## **ARSENAL**\n\n### **FOUR-SEAM FASTBALL: 92-95 T98**\n\nDoughty's four-seamer is a pitch that's seen very real growth over the course of his first professional season to his second. Doughty is a big spinner, seeing his best RPMs on his curve and slider run well north of 3,000, and his fastball sits around 2400-2500+. That spin combined with putting on close to 10 pounds to fill out his frame has seen his fastball gain extra life and improved shape, going from 91-93, touching 95 last season up to 92-95 and reaching back for 97 early in outings while still consistently seeing 94-95 deeper into his starts. This has maintained into June. Doughty also mixes in a two-seamy sinker that he uses almost exclusively to right-handed batters.\n\nDoughty has lived right around 25% whiff rate on his fastball types thus far this season, and he's getting a fair amount of swings outside of the zone as well. His sinker creates a lot of jammed swings, generating the bulk of its chase along the inner third, but he also has great feel for spotting it along the outer third and back-dooring it to RHH, a trait all too familiar to the Guardians.\n\nPer Statcast, Doughty, in his lone Breakout Series outing this Spring, saw an average of 15.7 iVB and 10.5 inches of horizontal break on his fastball. He's already shown improvements in shape, and with his spin capabilities and overall athleticism, there's nothing really holding him back from continuing to find more ride on his four-seamer.\n\nWith the help of TJStats, he breaks down Doughty's Spring outing a bit further with his pitching summary, showing that Doughty's fastball saw a vertical release height at 5.9 feet on average with a -4.8 VAA, a good bit below average for a riding fastball shape. Doughty generates solid extension, 6.5 feet on average, a number that has maintained beyond his singular Spring outing.\n\nDoughty wins with his heater up in the zone where it sees its best traits thrive. His command of the offering is very strong, and he's continuing to evolve his late-count pitch mix so he turns to it less and avoids more bats. While his ability to generate swing and miss with the heater fluctuates quite a bit from outing to outing, his ability to use his breaking balls and cutter more fluidly have helped get barrels off his fastball as the season has progressed. An ever improving fastball will continue to raise Doughty's already high floor and expand his ceiling into that mid-rotation level.\n\n### **CURVEBALL: 82-85 mph**\n\nDoughty's curveball is among my favorite breaking pitches in all of the minor leagues. His ability to combine depth and horizontal sweeping action makes it a multi-faceted pitch that he both generates swing and miss with as well as spots for strikes when needed. We've touched on his spin frequently, and for good reason as Doughty's curve registers north of 3,000 RPMs regularly and registers velo much faster than the average MLB curveball. From his arm angle, the average MLB curveball moves 79.2 mph with 500 fewer RPMs.\n\nDoughty's shape makes the pitch. He is essentially throwing a whiffle ball generating over a foot of horizontal break that he can find capable depth with and land in the zone _and_ tunnel with his fastball. His command and the pitch's versatility cultivates its effectiveness, and hitters have struggled mightily all season against it.\n\nJust based on my start to start charting, Doughty is generating a 31.3% whiff rate with the offering with a chase rate of 30.7%.\n\nDoughty will use this pitch to either handedness and can spot it backdoor to lefties to steal strikes or later in counts to freeze batters. Doughty can struggle working inside to lefties overall at times, so the curveball lets him show the outer third of the plate to work his cutter more inside on a more consistent basis.\n\nHis curveball will not only translate all the way up the chain, but it's plus, bordering on double-plus territory and among the very best breakers in the minor leagues.\n\n### **SLIDER: 87-90 mph | CUTTER: 88-92**\n\nDoughty's slider is another big spin breaker with plus capability. His biggest challenge with it right now is figuring out what kind of breaker he wants it to be. A common mistake within Doughty's arsenal, one that I'm guilty of making up until this deep dive, was that his slider was more of a sweeper and blended with his curveball. In actuality, he's throwing more of a bullet power slider, and it does still blend in with another pitch, but it's his cutter. There is a distinct shape difference between his slider and his cutter, and the cutter sits closer to 90 while his slider tends to be more 87-88, but in terms of _how_ he uses them, it can get a bit muddy.\n\nDoughty fills up the zone with both offerings rather consistently, and he uses his slider primarily against right-handed hitters and his cutters against lefties. His slider finds more depth and gets a bit more action glove-side while his cutter sits flatter with better vertical action.\n\n0:00\n\n/0:16\n\n1×\n\nFinding separation between the two was a major struggle, and it saw zone contact rates against both offerings soar north of 90% and getting very little swing and miss on his slider. Doughty has done a much better job in his more recent outings finding a separation there, and in turn, he's seeing more swing and miss against his slider. Over his last five starts, spanning from May 20 to June 12, Doughty has seen his strikeout rate soar to 34.2% while his walk rate sits at a minuscule 3.8%. His slider in that span has generated a 35.5% whiff rate and 33.3% chase rate.\n\n### **CHANGEUP: 84-87**\n\nDoughty's changeup is the secondary pitch he goes to the least, but he's working on finding a better feel for it. On a rate basis, he gets the highest rate of swings and misses with his changeup (47.6% whiff rate) as Doughty exclusively goes to it against lefties, and the arm action mirrors his fastball's extremely well. When it's on, he's able to push it down below the zone and get whiffs or chases and weak contact.\n\nDoughty is susceptible to leaving the cambio hang over the middle which gets it hit hard if timed up, or he struggles to make a competitive offering with it late in counts, burying it in the dirt and leading to him turning back to the fastball in 2-strike counts and diminishing his overall put-away ability.\n\n## **OUTLOOK**\n\n### **CEILING: MIDDLE-OF-ROTATION STARTER, POSSIBLE SP2\nFLOOR: BACK-OF-ROTATION STARTER**\n\nDoughty's command over his entire arsenal gives him a very high floor, and his spin capabilities show real promise to continue to develop 50-grade offerings into 55's and 60's, and that gives him a ceiling that could put him in the mix with Parker Messick behind Gavin Williams atop the Guardians' rotation in the years to come.\n\nOne thing Cleveland has to do, however, is get Doughty to Double-A Akron ASAP. Lake County's infield defense has been abysmal and actively prohibits Doughty from being able to work deeper than five innings on the regular. Doughty seeing taxing innings where he's in leverage spots early in starts could be seen as something that builds experience in the situation, but having to do it almost every start because of fielding mishaps has run its course. His velo also tends to wane later into these outings.\n\nDoughty creates a lot of weak contact, but he's had starts this season where everything bleeds over the middle, and he's seeing a higher damage rate because of it. On the flip side, Doughty's command is above average, bordering on plus across his entire arsenal. He works both sides of the plate well, utilizing his entire repertoire to do so. His understanding of sequencing pitches together to create outs depending on situation is beyond what a typical 20 year-old is doing. If his fastball can continue to see improvements to its spin efficiency, he can take an escalator instead of a ladder in his climb to his ceiling. Cleveland snagged a gem here.",
  "title": "Under The Hood: Braylon Doughty",
  "updatedAt": "2026-06-16T14:03:55.368Z"
}