D-backs prospect Amendt not cooling off one little bit in the desert

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. – Life as a Minor League reliever has thin margins. Your ERA can be torpedoed by one bad outing. There’s also the obvious caveat that the fewer innings you throw, the less often scouts, evaluators and members of the organization get to see your stuff.

But the quickest and most effective way to make an impression? Strike out a ton of batters. Often.

Which is where Kyle Amendt comes in.

The D-backs’ 2023 Draft class is well represented in this year’s iteration of the Arizona Fall League, with first-rounder Tommy Troy (AZ No. 5) and Gino Groover (AZ No. 9) helping to lead the Salt River offense. Troy and Groover are back in Arizona to make up for valuable lost reps during the regular season, while Amendt is making his formal push to be on the big league club’s radar as soon as Spring Training 2025.

Surely a reliever who compiled 16.1 K/9 in his first two seasons of pro ball was a hotly recruited high school arm, weighing his options between powerhouse programs. In actuality, Amendt had no guaranteed collegiate offers, so he walked on at Southeastern Iowa Community College in West Burlington, Iowa, around a two-and-a-half hour drive from his hometown of Pleasantville. A veritable blank slate, he looked to a pair of big league aces for inspiration.

“I went there and had a fastball and a really bad breaking ball,” Amendt said. “I got told if I didn't get an offspeed [pitch], then I wasn't gonna pitch. So I started watching Clayton Kershaw. I started watching Adam Wainwright. I was learning the curveball and I really liked it. So I was like, ‘Well, we're gonna go with this’ and I brought the arm slot up a little bit and that's what it is now.”

But although Amendt was inspired by Kershaw and Wainwright's breaking balls, he more often gets compared to the Rays’ Pete Fairbanks. The two have a similar setup, bringing the glove up near the shoulder/face while looking toward the plate before rocking back off the back leg and using a compact, simple throwing motion.

Both pitchers were ninth-round picks (seven picks apart), separated by eight years. While Fairbanks primarily works with a fastball/slider combo, Amendt has his own unique weapon -- a “backwards curveball.”

The offering is something of an anomaly: a breaking ball that dives away from left-handed batters. It’s not truly a screwball, but the unique wrist position and arm slot make it an optical illusion. It’s also a big reason why Amendt has found tremendous success at neutralizing lefties through every step of the D-backs system.

Career numbers vs. LHB: .131/.260/.180, 1 XBH in 73 PA, 49.3% K rate
Career numbers vs. RHB: .168/..281/.226, 5 XBH in 160 PA, 40% K rate

“I've had some guys that have tried to pick my brain on it. Like what do I do?” Amendt said of his one-of-a-kind offering. “But on the other side, I’ve also had teammates that are kind of like, ‘Oh, I don't want to talk pitching with you because you're just so different that I’m not gonna get anything out of it.’ But I'll pick anybody's brain with anything, though. I love talking about it.”

An oblique injury pushed the start of Amendt’s season back to late April this year, but once he finally took the mound for High-A Hillsboro, he just kept racking up strikeouts for nearly five straight months.

Among the 1,852 pitchers who worked at least 40 innings in the Minor Leagues this season, Amendt ranked fifth in both K/9 (15.3) and strikeout percentage (40.3).

Justin Martinez was the latest example of the D-backs finding success with high-octane arms on the farm who didn’t exactly factor into the prospect rankings list. It's notoriously difficult for relievers to crack those Top 30s, mainly for the same reason general managers find it challenging to replenish a relief corps year after year: bullpen arms are volatile. No one gets everyone out from April to October.

Amendt found that out the hard way upon his promotion to Triple-A Reno in early August. The 24-year-old carved up batters for both Hillsboro and Double-A Amarillo over the summer, having allowed multiple runs in an outing just twice in his career prior to the promotion. He yielded multiple runs in back-to-back appearances to begin his Aces tenure. But by the end of the year, he had amassed 75 strikeouts in 44 innings with opposing batters posting a .523 OPS against him.

📩 CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE TO BEN'S BIZ

There is always a bit of wonder when it comes to an arm that dynamic: Could Amendt work as a starter to a similar level of effectiveness? In his mind, he was a reliever from the day he became the closer in junior college. There’s no turning back.

“I love it,” Amendt said. “My thought on it is I like being out of the bullpen because I like being able to pitch in as many games as I can. … It's less about ‘How many innings can I get per outing?’ and more ‘How many games can I get into?’”