Baseball Opinion - Rookies to Look For: Jeff Niemann

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Rookies to Look For: Jeff Niemann

Christopher Solberg, Editor
6/19/2008

Standing at 6’-9”, Jeff Niemann may look the most imposing of the Tampa Rays’ pitching prospects, but he is just one of many good looking hurlers in the Rays’ system. Taken with the fourth overall pick of the 2004 First-Year Player Draft, Niemann was expected to be a start pitcher for them in a short time. But injuries besieged the tall right-hander and his timetable was set back. He didn’t really put in a full season until last year for Double-A Montgomery.

The fact is, he was used and abuse in college and it didn’t really show up until he started pitching professionally. But now he has the stigma of being frail and prone to injury.

But that stigma doesn’t hide his 95 mph fastball. At his height it also makes it rather easy to put a good downward plane on the ball, and he does. He also has two decent breaking balls in his repertoire.

It is his changeup that may be the only thing holding him back from being a top tier starter at this point. He needs to refine the pitch a little more to be a truly dominating talent.

Once he does that, Niemann could be a number two or number three starter for the Rays in a short time.

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