Jakub Izold Scouting Report

According to Baseball America, the Reds signed a left-handed pitcher named Jakub Izold. Evidently, Izold is a 19 year old pitcher from Slovakia that has been pitching in the under 21 European Championship for his home country. According to profiles I have seen of him, he stands at 6 foot 3 inches and weighs 205 pounds, so he is not a small pitcher.

It is pretty easy to find some game logs and box scores of him, but considering we (or at least I) have no idea as to the actual level of competition or the predictiveness of such statistics, it doesn't seem to do much good to look at them very closely. From what I can see, Izold has been striking quite a bit of hitters out, but also throwing quite a bit of wild pitches.

If Google is an indication, there are no scouting reports on Izold easily available. Luckily, there are several videos of Izold on YouTube, so I watched those to build this one. The video showed what the profiles said, he is a very large man. This may hurt him from a projectable standpoint, as it is hard to see him growing anymore, especially in weight, so it is hard to envision a velocity jump. With that said, he has the size to be a big league starter. He has quite a large leg kick in his delivery and, especially when in the windup, he has a dramatic turn in his delivery. It is all very fast and sudden, which much provide some deception, but also seems hard to repeat. It seems like the pitchers that do have these kind of complicated deliveries that provide deception do not have long and successful careers, but when they are good, they have have really high ceilings. Again, strikeouts and wild pitches.

I thought his stride and landing was a little odd, especially when he was in the stretch he didn't seem very consistent. It seems like you would expect him to stride a little more, but he cuts it off a little. As far as his actual arm action, he comes basically straight over the top (perhaps it is more of a 3/4 action with a body that comes down like a pitcher that throws over the top).

Obviously, we don't have velocity or pitch data on Izold, so it definitely limits our look at him. I don't think he has the delivery that allows him to take advantage of his good size. He will provide deception, but repeating his delivery throughout the minors will be an interesting task. He is also 19, older than most international imports (Alexander Roy from France that the Mariners signed was 16, as are most Dominican and Venezuelan imports) and high school players, so if he starts in the Reds Arizona affiliate after spending the first half in extended spring training, he will be a little old for the level (playing with the lower drafted college players). This means he should probably start in the Pioneer League when their season starts. This will give everyone (other than the Reds, as I assume they have an idea already) an idea of how advanced Izold is currently.