Left-hander Brody Bumila of Bishop Feehan High School in Massachusetts came out firing bullets this spring, reaching 100 mph in his first outing and 102 in a more recent start. I caught his start on Monday against rival Xaverian Brothers.Bumila’s stuff was a little down in the outing and you could see why some teams at least will not view him as a first-rounder even with that premium velocity. There were at least a half-dozen scouting directors there, several from teams picking in the top 10, as well as a crowd of scouts that was as large as I’ve seen at any single game all spring.Bumila is 6-foot-9 and physical already. He led Bishop Feehan’s basketball team to the state championship before he switched uniforms and ran out to the mound (not literally). On Monday, he started each inning around 91-92, topped out at 98 a few times, and was down to 90-93 in the seventh inning when he ran out of gas. He struck out 14 through the first six innings with two walks, then walked three in the seventh, the last one forcing in Xaverian’s first run. He left the game and Xavierian eventually tied it, with Bumila giving up his first earned runs of the year after he left (the first run to score had reached on a fielding error). Feehan eventually won the game in extra innings.Bumila comes from a low three-quarters slot and gets some ride on the four-seamer, missing bats consistently when he worked in the upper third or above the strike zone. He gave up contact when he released the ball from a lower slot unless he ran the pitch hard in to a batter. He threw fewer than 10 offspeed pitches in the outing, with a slider that ranged from above-average when he let it rip at 85 mph to a grade-40 pitch (on the 20-80 scouting scale) when he threw it down at its lower-end velocity (around 78-80 mph). He also threw a changeup that he never landed properly.He extends well over his front side, but his back elbow is way up until pretty late in the delivery and it looks like his arm action is putting stress on the joint.There aren’t many historical comparisons for Bumila beyond the broader category of high school pitchers. Noah Schultz of the White Sox was also a 6-9 high school lefty, but less physical at the time of the draft, and also not throwing this hard. Bumila has also already had one elbow injury, missing all of last spring and undergoing a procedure to put an internal brace in his elbow last May, which is why he’s been working on limited pitch counts most of the spring and may be why he’s still going with 90 percent fastballs.I’ve become a broken record over the last few years on the extreme risk of taking high school pitchers in the first round, as they fail at higher rates than other categories, both because of the inherent risk of pitchers and because there’s some selection bias at work — the pitchers teams take in the first round, especially high schoolers, tend to throw the hardest and often have pitched the most. Bumila’s upside is tantalizing — the size, the athleticism, the potential for a 70 or better fastball all point to an above-average starter — but he doesn’t seem to have a present average secondary pitch, and I can’t predict more durability for him than the average high school arm when he’s already had a UCL injury.I see him as a second-rounder because of the tradeoffs between the risk and the reward here, although I still think someone will take him higher than that because he’s left-handed and throws 100.
Scouting MLB Draft prospect Brody Bumila, the Massachusetts phenom with plus velocity
Bumila is tantalizing as a 6-9 southpaw with a triple-digit fastball, but his secondary pitches aren't nearly as refined as the heater.












