Burrows' 'next-level stuff' could elevate him to top-100 prospect status

SAN DIEGO -- For years, Mike Burrows heard the same scouting report.

He needs a changeup to be a starter.

He had mid-90s heat and a high spin curve that spiked, giving him two good pitches in his arsenal, but for the early years of his pro career, the former 11th-round pick was struggling to find that third pitch.

At the end of last year, he started to find that changeup. After an offseason of refining, it’s now become what his manager, Kieran Mattison, considers a third plus pitch.

But that same scouting report will still pop up from time to time for the Altoona Curve’s right-hander.

“It’s to the point when I still hear about or see people saying it, [I know] you’re clearly not watching games,” Burrows told me.

And if you’re not watching Burrows’ starts, you’re missing out.

Take his outing Thursday, where he went a career-long seven innings and punched out eight:

With that start, Burrows has now pitched to a 1.90 ERA with a 32.5% strikeout rate over nine starts with the Curve this season.

There’s a reason why Burrows, 22, is in position to be a top 100 prospect, like MLB Pipeline’s Jonathan Mayo suggested on an AT&T SportsNet broadcast this week. Not too many pitchers make that leap whenever they’re in Class AA.

Though to be fair, there aren’t too many Class AA pitchers who are throwing offspeed stuff as well as Burrows right now.

Few, if any, have watched Burrows more in person these last two years than Mattison, who managed him in Class High-A Greensboro last season and made the trip to the Arizona Fall League with him. It was at the Fall League that he noticed the changeup was looking crisper. 

Fast forward to Akron, Ohio in late April. Temperature wise, it was about the furthest thing from Arizona. Cold, frigid, not exactly a great day to try to get a grip for breaking and offspeed stuff.

Burrows did just that, throwing more offspeed stuff than he had to that point.

“He landed that changeup at will against lefties and righties,” Mattison told me. “I’m like, ‘wow, that’s next level stuff.’ ”

A big reason for that improvement is Burrows has finally found his grip. He called it the Vulcan grip, putting the ball between his middle and ring finger along the two seams. Doing so gives him a pitch that tumbles rather than spins, making sure it has its own distinct flight towards the plate that can be used either to try to get weak contact or to miss a bat.

The grip came from working with Dodgers minor-league coach Connor McGuiness. If that name is familiar, Burrows has worked with him before, with the coach being the person who turned him onto a prototype pitching tool called Clean Fuego that helped him learn to utilize his spin more efficiently.

And it’s working. Burrows isn’t afraid to righties, and 20-plus changeup starts are becoming more common.

“It’s damn near as good as the curveball now,” Burrows said.

And that’s a good curveball with spin and drop. If the changeup is the new tool, that curveball, which tunnels off his high fastball that the new pitching regime lets him throw often, gives him the combo that could make him a top 100 prospect.

One of the few frontiers that Burrows has to conquer is innings. The COVID-19 pandemic canceled the 2020 minor-league season, and an oblique injury limited him to just 13 regular season starts last year. At the end of May, he’s already almost thrown a career-high in innings pitched in a season with 42 ⅔. His previous high was 49 innings last year.

“I don’t think I’ll have an issue with it,” Burrows said. “... The injury last year wasn’t anything I can control. Just a freak accident. Oblique is a tough injury. Nothing you can predict or do anything about. It was unfortunate, but it gave me the opportunity to go to the Fall League.”

Consider that perhaps the last hurdle for him staying in the rotation, something that he has all the confidence of being able to do.

“I’m going to be a starter as long as I can,” Burrows said. “I have no thought of being a reliever. Maybe one day the day comes, but it’s not gonna come yet, I know that.”

Three plus pitches makes that possible.

“I think that’s the coolest part from last year to this year,” Burrows said. “Last year was experimenting. This year is just throwing. Doing. Now that I’ve got the feel for strikes, where it needs to be and what I need to do with it, sometimes I’m like, ‘screw the curveball, let’s throw a changeup.’”