I completely missed Patrick Joshua Conlon’s rise to prospect status over the course of last year. Yet the press starting writing about him as he started to put up great numbers in his second season, first full season, of minor league ball. Conlon was born in Ireland and played ball in the states at University of San Diego. As his draft profile states, he’s a painting type of pitcher who won’t over power you, he’ll just mix up his pitches as a lefty and get the job done.
I couldn’t read his profiles and not think of Tim Kurkjian’s new book I’m Fascinated By Sacrifice Flies where he spends time talking about the abundance of power throwing lefties in the league now. You used to have just a handful as recently as Billy Wagner’s time, but now they’re all over the league. This makes Conlon an old school style lefty pitcher. That being said, the local Belfast paper still posted a video of him hitting 90-mph as if it was something amazing. Which it is. As baseball fans in America, we have gotten used to the idea of 90-mph as practically slow in the minors when this is a human feat of strength to get that.
Anyway, it is the numbers that has made Conlon’s name jump out. In 2015 he allowed 0 earned runs in 17.0 innings of work over 17 games. 0! This includes 25 strikeouts and a 0.588 WHIP. Last year he started off in A ball with Columbia posting a 1.84 ERA over 78.1 innings and 12 starts leading to an incredible 81 record. He continued this with St. Lucie going 401 over 12 games, 11 starts with a 1.41 ERA over 63.2 innings. By the end of the season, over 142.0 combined innings he had a 0.979 WHIP, 0.3 HR9, 1.5 BB9 and a 7.1 K/9.
If he continues to post numbers like this, it’s hard to imagine him staying a secret. He wasn’t in the 2016 Baseball Prospectus Annual, but one more season like last year and he’ll have to be.
