The San Francisco Giants clearly like their 4th round pick.
The Giants selected RHP Blake Rivera with their 4th round pick, #106 overall, after having drafted him as a high schooler in the 32nd round in 2017.
Rivera’s calling card is a hammer curveball in the Low 80’s, and he pairs it with a low 90’s fastball that has movement that he can ramp up to 95-96 here or there. He also has a changeup, but he didn’t use it much in the JuCo season at Wallace State. At 20 years old, he’s the youngest of what has so far been an all-college draft for the Giants.
Rivera was 10-0 this season, with 98 strikeouts, 35 walks and 28 hits allowed over 65 innings with a 1.75 ERA. He was the 2018 Alabama Community College Conference Pitcher of the Year.
Scouts are reportedly split on Rivera’s future, with some seeing him as a potential starter and others seeing his curveball as a real weapon out of the bullpen. On MLB.com, one scout parallels him to the best player to ever come out of Wallace State, Craig Kimbrel.
Rivera is ranked #111 by MLB.com and #169 by Baseball America. But not high enough to get actual game video footage by MLB.com, apparently.
Blake himself, however, posted a couple of short clips of his pitching, which doesn’t show too much.
February needs to hurry. Itching for it to be time to play ball pic.twitter.com/tYG6zZwxlW
— Blake Rivera (@b_rivera10) December 9, 2017
Sneak peak of what's to come. #blazers #tigers @trusk22 pic.twitter.com/5hZCIwT8Kt
— Blake Rivera (@b_rivera10) September 27, 2017
(Blake is on the right)