Brewers 2021 MLB Draft Prospect Profile: Miami (OH) RHP Sam Bachman

As we approach the 2021 MLB Draft, Reviewing the Brew will profile several of the top draft prospects that could find themselves selected by the Milwaukee Brewers. Let’s take a look at Miami (OH) righty Sam Bachman.

The Brewers could look to stock up on pitching in this year’s MLB Draft after going with all college hitters in the 2020 Draft. We recently profiled Kansas State lefty Jordan Wicks, Ole Miss righty Gunnar Hoglund, and UCSB righty Michael McGreevy on the pitching side. We also looked at UCLA SS Matt McLain on the hitting side.

If he’s on the board, should the Milwaukee Brewers draft Miami (OH) RHP Sam Bachman with the 15th overall pick?

Possessing one of the best fastballs in this year’s draft class, Sam Bachman can light up the radar gun, sitting mid-upper 90s and occasionally hitting triple digits. He also has a double-plus slider in his arsenal, giving him two very solid weapons.

Bachman has a changeup as well, which flashes above-average, but he hasn’t used it as much.

Baseball America dug into Bachman’s slider, which has drawn comparison’s to Jacob deGrom’s gyro-slider. That’s pretty good company for any pitch.

Bachman’s stuff shows really well analytically, which could make him a target for the analytically inclined Milwaukee Brewers. They have shown to love pitchers with that kind of stuff in the past.

However, there are some concerns with Bachman. His command is a work in progress, and he’s walked over 4 batters per 9 innings in his first two college seasons. But he did cut that down to 2.5 BB/9 this year.

Also, Bachman is a little undersized at 6’1″ for what you’d like to see in a starter, and his arm action and delivery combined with primarily just a two pitch mix gives Bachman a high amount of reliever risk.

While he could be a really good reliever given the quality of those two pitches, using a Top 15 pick on a reliever doesn’t seem like the best value for that selection.

Could the Brewers be enamored enough with his fastball-slider combo and depend on their pitching development program to ensure he remains a starter going forward? Sure. That’s entirely possible.

The Brewers took a high powered arm with reliever risk in 2019 with Antoine Kelly. But Kelly was a second round pick, not a first rounder. Kelly was also a JUCO arm that was known to be pretty raw. Bachman is a third-year college player and is more polished. Bachman won’t last to the second round and might not even last to the 15th overall pick.

There’s potential high reward here, but there’s also high risk, and given the state of the Brewers where the Brewers are in their competitive cycle, a super risky pick might not be the wisest choice.

It’s likely there will be other pitching options on the board at 15 if the Brewers want to go that route that will be less risky than Bachman. But if they fall in love with the pitching lab type data, Bachman could be the route they choose to go.