Despite going through three different general managers over the last 4-5 years, the Astros have continued to churn out pitching prospects. We saw it with Jeff Luhnow, we saw it with James Click, and so far, Dana Brown and company’s draft in 2023 is looking really good on the pitching side.
In the 14th round of the 2023 draft, the Astros drafted a right-handed pitcher, Jackson Nezuh, out of the University of Louisiana-Lafayette. But that wasn’t the first college he attended:
“I wanted to pitch more, I wanted to be a weekend guy, wanted to be the Friday night guy,” Nezuh said about transferring to ULL from Florida State. “Just trying to give myself the best opportunity to just reach out to other schools.”
After two seasons at Florida State, Nezuh had only logged 18 innings at the collegiate level. He did pitch in some summer leagues, but knew he needed to get more innings. His junior season at ULL, Nezuh pitched 90 innings while striking out 100 batters.
“It was the best experience, best season ever made,” Nezuh said. “They [ULL] work so hard and they’ve kind of made me into the guy I am today, it was awesome.”
This wasn’t the first time the Astros dipped their toes in the water at University of Louisiana-Lafayette. Back in 2021, the Astros took another right-handed pitcher from ULL, Spencer Arrighetti. Arrighetti had a similar path to Nezuh, starting at a bigger school, Texas Christian University, and transferring before his junior season.
“The big thing was, a lot of those big programs get the best of the best talent. When you go to ULL, there is great talent but it’s more like hard-working dudes that want to be there every day,” Nezuh said. “Deggs [ULL head coach] does a great job with the atmosphere and the culture of the whole program, its just a lot of grit in that program and you don’t find that at every school.”
Nezuh didn’t pitch following the draft last year, but he has had success already in 2024 racking up a Carolina League leading 79 strikeouts in 66.2 innings.
“Throwing my splitter, my split-change more. It’s been a big pitch for me recently, just getting a lot of whiffs and it’s setting up all my other pitches and allowed me to pitch more freely,” Nezuh said. “I didn’t throw it as much [early on] and down here at the lower levels we are always working on certain pitches so I was a little breaking ball heavy and I wasn’t getting ahead with the heater.”
Nezuh had a rough stretch in April, but since the calendar turned to May, he has been nearly unhittable. The right-hander has appeared in ten games totaling 47.2 innings with a 2.45 ERA. Even more impressive is he has struck out 58 and only allowed just 21 hits during that time.
“Really just getting ahead and attacking dudes and taking my work during the week, like mechanically,” Nezuh said. “Just going out there and not worrying and just pitching and trusting that the process is going to work in the game.
“I like to pitch with the heater a lot, the top rail and then the sweeper and the slider I throw are really good early in counts. The splitter has been really good putting guys away, and just elevating the heater later in counts.”
During that time, Nezuh has shown the ability to not just rack up strikeouts, but to also get soft contact outs. This is important for pitchers that want to go deep into games, understanding that striking everyone out isn’t always the best approach.
“I’m always trying to rack up the Ks but I think attacking dudes with nasty stuff in the zone is super effective,” Nezuh said. “If you can do that and just getting ahead [in counts]. It makes it so much easier. Guys numbers are staggeringly higher behind in the count than they are when you’re ahead of curve.”
Nezuh has been impressive this season so far. With a promotion to High-A Asheville likely later in the season, Nezuh could continue to move up the latter and follow former Ragin’ Cajun Spencer Arrighetti in his route to the big league.
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