Could Tanner Hall Be the Twins' Next Prominent Pitching Development Success Story?

[Cody Schoenmann]

With a systematic but flexible approach to scouting and development, the Twins have had various former college starting pitchers emerge as promising pitching prospects over the last handful of seasons. Could Tanner Hall be the next to join the mix?

Image courtesy of William Parmeter

The Twins love to target college starting pitchers in the draft, add velocity to their four-seam fastball, and help them develop MLB-caliber second and third pitches. From Bailey Ober to more recent developmental success stories like David Festa and Zebby Matthews, President of Baseball Operations Derek Falvey has delivered the much-desired "pitching pipeline," a buzzword many have used in the past to criticize and demean the organization's ability to draft and develop home-grown arms.

Andrew Morris, Jaylen Nowlin, and Christian MacLeod have continued the trend of former college pitchers performing well enough to quickly progress through the minor-league ranks and join the Double-A Wichita Wind Surge relatively early in their developmental cycles. While Morris, Nowlin, and MacLeod could become relevant depth options in the team's long-term rotation or bullpen plans, another former college arm residing in the low minors could be fairly close behind them.

Tanner Hall, 22, was selected by Minnesota with the 114th pick of the 2023 MLB Draft, out of the University of Southern Mississippi. Hailing from Brian Dozier and Matt Wallner's alma mater, the steady righthander produced a 2.48 ERA there, while striking out 124 hitters over 112 innings pitched for the Golden Eagles over three seasons.

Pitching in the heart of the Bible Belt, Hall was one of the most successful Division I pitchers in 2023. He earned consensus All-American status. Like most drafted college arms, Hall took the rest of the 2023 season off after being selected by the Twins. He has pitched exclusively at Single-A since making his professional baseball debut early this season, posting a 5.22 ERA and 1.51 WHIP over eight starts and six relief appearances for the Fort Myers Mighty Mussels. Although his numbers on the surface underwhelm, though, his underlying metrics tell a different story. Over 39 2/3 innings pitched, Hall has mustered a 3.86 FIP and 3.44 xFIP.

Hall's inflated ERA is seemingly the result of poor luck on balls put in play, evidenced by opposing hitters generating a .375 BABIP against him. He has generated a 52% ground ball rate, with 52.8% of balls put in play against him being pulled by opposing hitters. The mix of Hall's high ground ball rate and ballooned opponent BABIP indicates that he is presumably falling victim to balls sneaking through the infield. These unfortunate results are likely the product of poor infield defense in the lower minors. Nevertheless, Hall has performed well when in control, netting an inspiring 52-to-18 strikeout-to-walk ratio and allowing just three home runs over 184 total batters faced.

The key to him is his fascinating pitch mix. The soft-tossing right-hander utilizes a sinker, slider, and changeup to contest hitters of both handedness effectively. All of his pitches move laterally.

Hall uses his sinker and slider as his primary modus operandi for attacking right-handed hitters. His slider, which moves away from same-handed batters, works as a great complement to his in-breaking sinker. This traditional "east-west" approach to combating same-handed hitters is in no way a new or unique approach for right-handed hurlers. However, Hall does possess a distinctive quirk that makes him stand out.

Hall uses a Vulcan-style changeup grip, similar to Dodgers great closer Éric Gagné. Coined after the fictional extraterrestrial humanoids in Star Trek, his change possesses fascinating cut action, relative to his sinker. This peculiarity helps make his changeup (which rates as a 60 on FanGraphs's "20-to-80" scouting scale) especially effective against left-handed hitters. While Hall has an intriguing pitch mix, he has command concerns he needs to iron out before getting a promotion. However, his 9.8% walk rate is a promising development that indicates he may have already made sustainable adjustments.

From the past in Ober, to the present in Festa, and looking to the near future in Matthews, the Twins have been able to draft college pitchers in mid-to-later rounds, increase the velocity on their primary hard pitches, improve their secondary pitches, and turn them into viable MLB-caliber prospects. Hall has demonstrated promising results at Single-A, and if he can improve his sinker velocity (presently hovering around 91-92 MPH) while solidifying his slider and truly formidable changeup, he could be next in the long line of former college pitchers to blossom under the organization's pitching development program.

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[Dman]

Very nice article, Thanks!. His fastball velocity is still not ideal and his control was absolutely brutal to start the year though as mentioned has gotten better.  If he can fix those things I agree he has a chance to be real good maybe even elite (if Fastball ticks up) because he is a K machine right now with a 28% K rate.,  

I feel like a lot of us were very excited about the pick and his elite Changeup, but he has struggled mightily to get his pitches under control (walks) and with balls finding holes it has made for long innings and short starts. In the Twins Daily writeup for draft picks they said " Hall has an at least average slider and plus control" I'm not sure what happened to the plus control, but it wasn't there to start the season and still feels like a bit of work in progress. I think most of us were expecting him to be a fast mover with plus control and that has not proven accurate to this point.

I still like the arm and slow starts often times lead to a stronger pitch mix down the road.  Hopefully Matthews gives him some pointers on pounding the zone with your best stuff and seeing if they can hit it.  Given the movement Hall is getting that should be pretty challenging for most hitters. As stated he is trending up with high end potential if he can put things together.

 

[tony&rodney]

Have watched him pitch a few times (milb.com) but Hall has not been too impressive. He hasn't missed many bats. Still plenty of time to develop as a pitcher.

Great article though and he certainly is a pitcher to keep an eye on.

[Fatbat]

@Dman ☝👍🏼

[jmlease1]

14 minutes ago, tony&rodney said:

Have watched him pitch a few times (milb.com) but Hall has not been too impressive. He hasn't missed many bats. Still plenty of time to develop as a pitcher.

Great article though and he certainly is a pitcher to keep an eye on.

11.8 K/9 suggests that he is missing some bats out there.

[Dman]

56 minutes ago, tony&rodney said:

Have watched him pitch a few times (milb.com) but Hall has not been too impressive. He hasn't missed many bats. Still plenty of time to develop as a pitcher.

Great article though and he certainly is a pitcher to keep an eye on.

Yeah I watched him early in the year and he looked horrible in the games I watched.  I just stopped watching when he pitched it was too painful.   He'd get three K's in an inning after giving up three walks and three hits or something like that so the K rate while good wasn't mitigating the damage done.  I still haven't watched him since those early in the season games but the results in the box score have looked better. 

Kind of feels a bit like Raya.  He gets amazing movement, but not for strikes and then needs a fastball or change in zone down the middle and bad things happen. Hoping he has turned a corner, but still feels like a lot of work to do there. They have the plus to plus plus change to work with so high end reliever should be the floor but the fastball has to play to make it all work. I think they'll get him there it is just gonna take more time than we might like.

[twinstalker]

It could be poor fielding behind him, but that's not usually the answer.  My guess is there are hard hit rate and similar stats that aren't so great.  He's not throwing fly balls, but he's getting hit really hard.  Conjecture on my part.

If I'm right, it's still something that can improve, but it would require Hall to get better.

[SaberNerd]

On the ERA front, there have been a number of pitchers at Fort Myers who have ERA's significantly higher than their FIP (Pasqualotto, Soto, Langenberg, Dunn).  It could just be poor defense at that level rather than guys getting hit really hard.

Hall's Slider/Changeup combination misses bats, but his fastball averages <90mph with poor extension as well dropping the perceived velocity about 1mph.  If he doesn't throw harder he likely isn't an MLB player.  He'll stay as a starter for now, but I think he probably ends up in the bullpen for the velo bump.

[DocBauer]

He's been one of the most disappointing guys in the system for me this season. I had predicted we might see him touch AA before the end of the season based on his control and secondaries, if they could add a little more velocity, which the Twins are famous for.

His K numbers look very good, and his BB have dropped since early in the season. 

Guess I have to echo everyone else and ask if his BABIP is due to being hit hard, bad defense, or bad luck. His 2024 debut is still a SSS enough to not know the answer. But at some point, when you see really high or really low peripherals for a pitcher, or hitter, the numbers just are what they are.  However, he's still a professional rookie, so there's a lot of room still for development and better luck. Really hoping he finishes the season strong and we see him in the 93-94mph range by next season. That increase, while not overpowering, mixed with his other pitches, might give us someone to really get excited about.

[tony&rodney]

9 hours ago, jmlease1 said:

11.8 K/9 suggests that he is missing some bats out there.

Yes, I know. Just curious - have you watched him pitch? I just gave my opinion from watching several times.

[tony&rodney]

Heh, heh - Tanner Hall just had his best pitching performance of the year. So .... timely article.

[jmlease1]

13 hours ago, tony&amp;rodney said:

Yes, I know. Just curious - have you watched him pitch? I just gave my opinion from watching several times.

haven't had the opportunity, but isn't this the pure scouting fallacy? You've watched him several times, but at this point he's started 9 games and made 15 total appearances for 46 2/3 innings. If 2 of the starts you saw were 6/20 & 6/26, your impression isn't going to be very good I suspect. If you watched his last 2 starts, I suspect you'd be more impressed. It's why the overall stats have to be included. When I think of a guy who doesn't miss enough bats, those guys can't hunt Ks.

It sounds like his issue is more about commanding his pitches (the walk rate and HBP numbers are good indicators there) so that when he throws the change or slider with good break guys are more likely to chase it, while keeping a few more runners off the basepaths. Looking at his pitch counts, you can see he's had those type of games where he's racking up 70 pitches in 3 innings, which again goes to his command & control questions.

He seems like an interesting prospect who is doing ok in A-ball in his first professional season.

[tony&rodney]

2 hours ago, jmlease1 said:

haven't had the opportunity, but isn't this the pure scouting fallacy? You've watched him several times, but at this point he's started 9 games and made 15 total appearances for 46 2/3 innings. If 2 of the starts you saw were 6/20 & 6/26, your impression isn't going to be very good I suspect. If you watched his last 2 starts, I suspect you'd be more impressed. It's why the overall stats have to be included. When I think of a guy who doesn't miss enough bats, those guys can't hunt Ks.

It sounds like his issue is more about commanding his pitches (the walk rate and HBP numbers are good indicators there) so that when he throws the change or slider with good break guys are more likely to chase it, while keeping a few more runners off the basepaths. Looking at his pitch counts, you can see he's had those type of games where he's racking up 70 pitches in 3 innings, which again goes to his command & control questions.

He seems like an interesting prospect who is doing ok in A-ball in his first professional season.

He has been better in the last two starts and was very impressive in his recent start. FWIW, I based my initial thoughts on an opponents' batting average near .250 at the time and seeing teams hit the ball pretty square. I'm not down on Tanner Hall but until last night he has not been dominant. Pitching takes time and he is clearing getting better. He is, for sure, an interesting prospect.