Aumont Changing Things Up

Phillippe Aumont is adjusting nicely to minor league camp as he had an impressive outing yesterday against the double-A affiliate of the Toronto Blue Jays.  Aumont pitched 3 perfect innings while striking out 4 and allowed only 1 flyball out.  Aumont has seemed to recover nicely from his outing in which he went 2/3 of an inning against FSU and allowed 5 runs.

It has been reported that the Phillies are tinkering with his delivery in hopes to improve his control.  The Phillies scouted Aumont when he was in high school and believe that his delivery has significantly changed since then.  The Phillies have sat down with Aumont in recent weeks to show him the difference and see if he can get back to what he was doing in high school, which was throwing at more of a 3/4 angle instead of an over the top motion.  This occurred because the Mariners organization viewed him as a reliever and wanted to utilize his 4-seam fastball over his sinker.  An over the top motion will increase velocity, but will take away from a pitcher's ability to add movement to a pitch, it also increases the chance of injury as it adds pressure on the elbow.

Aumont has an incredible amount of potential as he has 3 pitches (4-seamer, sinker, curveball) that can potentially be viewed as plus pitches.  Aumont also throws a changeup but it is a work in progress at this point.  The issue with Aumont, similar to almost all young pitchers, is whether or not he can control those pitches.  If Aumont can find comfort in his new delivery and control his pitches, the Phillies may have gotten more for Cliff Lee than originally thought.  2010 will be a big year for Aumont's development so it's good news that he's in Reading where they have been known to succeed in developing pitchers.