Michael Forret is an intriguing pitching prospect for a number of reasons. He is only 22 years old, has already reached Triple-A, throws five pitches, misses a respectable number of bats and has generally been difficult for minor-league hitters to square up.
There is also enough command and pitchability in the profile to understand why evaluators continue to project him as a major-league starter. But after looking closely at several of his recent Triple-A starts, a few concerns have come up with one concern standing out: Forret consistently loses velocity as his outings progress.
That doesn’t mean the Orioles should abandon the idea of developing him as a starter. At 22, that would be premature. But it does raise the possibility that Forret’s best eventual major-league role could be in the bullpen, where his stuff might play considerably better in shorter outings.
The velocity decline is becoming a pattern
This isn’t about one outing where Forret tired after a long inning. Across several recent starts, the same trend has repeatedly appeared. Forret’s four-seam fastball can sit around 94-95 mph early in games and has reached as high as 96.6 mph. By the fourth and fifth innings, however, it has often fallen into the 92-93 mph range.
In one outing, his four-seamer went from 94.8 mph in the first inning to 92.4 in the fifth. In another, it went from 94.8 to 93.0. Another start saw it decline from 93.9 to 91.7.
The sinker shows an even more dramatic trend. Forret has had outings where the pitch began around 94-95 mph and finished around 91-92. In one recent start, his sinker went from 95.1 mph in the first inning to 91.8 in the fourth.
More importantly, the velocity decline isn’t limited to fastballs.
His slider will frequently begin around 82-83 mph before dropping into the 80-81 range. His cutter and changeup have shown similar reductions.
When the entire arsenal loses velocity together, it looks much more like a stamina or velocity-retention issue than a strategic decision to take something off a particular pitch.
That’s important because Forret doesn’t have overwhelming raw stuff to begin with. Luckily, his stuff plays better than the models suggest. His Triple-A pitch-quality numbers are interesting because his actual results are generally better than his raw Stuff+ grades.
His slider is his only pitch currently grading as major-league average by psStuff+, coming in at 100.
His other pitches are below average:
Four-seam fastball: 91
Curveball: 92
Cutter: 87
Changeup: 85
Sinker: 82
Those numbers don’t mean the arsenal is bad.
Forret’s four-seam fastball in particular has consistently performed much better than its Stuff+ grade. The pitch has roughly 17 inches of induced vertical break and has generated impressive swing-and-miss rates despite averaging only around 94 mph.
His slider also has an unusual sweeping shape, sitting around 82-83 mph with roughly 12-15 inches of glove-side movement. Hitters have struggled to square it up, and it has frequently produced whiffs.
So there is clearly something here that a raw stuff model isn’t completely capturing.
Forret appears to benefit from some combination of deception, pitch shape, sequencing and command. But that’s also why the velocity decline matters. A pitcher with a 98 mph fastball and a devastating breaking ball has margin for error when he loses a tick later in a game. When he’s throwing 94-95, his four-seamer has enough velocity and ride to give hitters problems. When he’s around 92, he becomes much more dependent on location and deception.
The same thing happens with the slider. An 83 mph sweeper paired with a 95 mph fastball provides a meaningful velocity differential while forcing hitters to cover two very different shapes. A 80-81 mph slider paired with a 91-92 mph fastball is a much less imposing combination.
That doesn’t mean he should be moved to relief now. Forret is still just 22 and that’s an important part of this discussion.
He has already reached Triple-A at an age when many pitchers are still in High-A or Double-A, and he has shown enough strikeout ability, command, and pitch diversity to warrant every opportunity to remain in the rotation. His development of course isn’t finished.
Pitchers can improve their velocity retention through physical maturation, strength and conditioning, mechanical efficiency and simply learning how to pace themselves through professional starts. I imagine the Orioles will give him that opportunity.
Forret also has a legitimate starter’s repertoire. He isn’t a two-pitch arm being forced into a rotation though the quality of the other pitches have not been treated well by AAA hitters.
He throws a four-seamer, sinker, slider, changeup and cutter, with an occasional curveball. He can attack right- and left-handed hitters differently and has shown an ability to turn lineups over.
There is still a plausible path where Forret becomes a useful No. 4 or No. 5 major-league starter, but the velocity retention needs to improve.
If it doesn’t, relief could ultimately unlock a different version of Forret.
The pitcher we see in the first inning is much more interesting from a pure-stuff standpoint than the pitcher we sometimes see in the fifth. Fresh, Forret can sit around 94-95 mph and touch 96. Pair that fastball with an 82-84 mph sweeping slider, an upper-80s changeup and an 89-90 mph cutter and suddenly the arsenal looks considerably more impactful.
Instead of trying to conserve velocity for five or six innings, Forret could potentially maintain his best stuff throughout a two- or three-inning appearance. That’s why his bullpen projection doesn’t necessarily mean a traditional one-inning middle reliever.
He could potentially fit as a multi-inning reliever, bulk pitcher or high-leverage bridge arm capable of working through a lineup once.
For a pitcher with five pitches and some command, that could be a valuable role.
At 22 years old and already pitching in Triple-A, Forret has earned the opportunity to continue starting, but the velocity trends are something to watch closely.
The question isn’t whether Michael Forret has major-league stuff. He does. The question is whether he can maintain that stuff long enough to start in the major leagues or whether his best version will eventually emerge out of the bullpen.
