Today's Baseball Prospect of the Day

Jacob McGee is a powerful left-handed pitching prospect in the Tampa Bay Rays system. Overshadowed since the signing of #1 pick David Price, McGee has been a top Rays prospect ever since he was drafted out of high school in the fifth round of 2004. Today he projects to join Price in an imposing Tampa rotation of the future.

Born with a cannon arm, McGee has also made slow and steady progress learning the art of pitching, and the patient and talented Rays' handlers have been good to him. After stumbling through rookie ball, he spent three full seasons in A ball (one at low-A Hudson Valley, one in the hitter-friendly Midwest League, and the last at high-A Vero Beach in the tough FSL). His ERA and batting-average-against improved despite the increasing talent pool he faced, while his strikeout to walk ratio zipped all the way up to 145:39, or about 3.7 to 1.His strikeouts per nine innings has been over 11 (!) since late 2005.

At the end of 2007, McGee was promoted to AA Montgomery to get his feet wet and refine his secondary pitches, and that's where he's expected to stay until it's time for the Rays to give him a big league looksee.

As long as he remains a Ray, McGee will inevitably be compared to both draftmate Wade Davis (a righthander) and lefty David Price, the Rays top prospect. While he lacks Price's size and polish, he does have a similar fastball, a 96mph sizzler that can touch 98mph with a late cutterlike break. The combination of speed and movement makes it an almost unhittable pitch for lefthanders (.147) and it's not exactly easy for righties to get around on, either. With apologies to Mr. Price, McGee's may be the best fastball in the Rays system.

McGee's secondary pitches, however, lag far behind the younger lefty. His changeup is erratic, spending most of its life either up in the zone or well outside it. His slider has nice movement, though it's not as devastating as the heater, and he struggles to throw it with consistent command. While that plus fastball has been his meal ticket to date, he's going to need to refine his other offerings, or MLB's best hitters will start timing his fastball and he'll be in for some very pinball-game outings.

He's being developed as a starter to give him maximum opportunity to refine those pitches, and if he can master them he'll be a solid #2 guy. But even if that doesn't happen, and the Rays re-assign him to bullpen work, he could project to be a top-ten closer arm.

Update: In 2008, McGee only made 15 starts at AA Montgomery before being shut down on June 23 with a sore elbow that eventually led to Tommy John surgery. Despite the hit this will give his prospect stock, he's not worth writing off just yet. TJ surgery has a very high success rate, and McGee's shoulder (much more delicate for power pitchers) is unharmed. Before going down, McGee had posted a 3.94 ERA across 15 starts (78 innings) for the Biscuits, striking out 65 while walking 37. He's going to spend most of 2009 in the minors, working his way back from surgery, but he remains a top prospect. The lost year of development time might encourage the Rays to move him to a bullpen role, but if so it's not necessarily a bad thing: Tampa is stacked with starting pitching prospects, and McGee definitely has the stuff to be a premium closer at the big league level.

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Height: 6-3

Weight: 190

Birthdate: 8/6/1986

Bats: L

Throws: L

Team: TB

Birthplace: Sparks, NV

College: Reed HS

IPs pre-2008: 0