With their seventh-round selection the Mets took Oklahoma City's Brad Wieck, a gargantuan southpaw who can run his fastball up to 94. Though he doesn't have a tremendous amount of experience against Division I competition, he has shown clear improvement each year he's been playing and led the NAIA in strikeouts per nine innings.
In the fifth round the Mets drafted Josh Prevost, a 6-foot-8 righty. In the seventh, they drafted another behemoth, a 6-foot-9-inch southpaw by the name of Brad Wieck. Perhaps they’ll combine à la Voltron to form an ambidexterous 13-foot-7 super pitcher.
Wieck’s had a bit of a difficult journey to get to this point. Wieck’s first stop after high school was New Mexico, but he blew out his elbow before throwing a pitch. He then transferred to Frank Phillips College in Texas for 2012 and then moved to Cisco College for the 2013 season. The Phillies drafted him in the 29th round but Wieck chose to honor his commitment to play for Texas Tech in 2014, but that fell apart for one reason or another and instead Wieck ended up at Oklahoma City University in the NAIA. There he had an okay season, striking out 118 batters in 69.2 innings while walking just 23. NAIA or not, those are video game numbers. He started out as OCU’s closer but moved to the rotation and really excelled down the stretch.
A lot of the same things that applied to Prevost will apply to Wieck. He’s very tall and generates nice downward plane on his heater thanks to those long arms. The fastball is typically thrown 89-92 and will touch 94. While Prevost features a slider, Wieck throws a curve, and they both have changeups. Prevost does appear to have better control and command than Wieck, and that, along with more experience against tougher competition, is a big reason why Prevost was drafted first. Coaches will need to watch how well he’s able to repeat his mechanics, especially because he’s probably not the athlete Prevost is.
Unfortunately I can’t offer a whole lot more here: I haven’t seen the guy pitch and haven’t heard much about his mechanics other than they’re relatively clean. Like many NAIA pitchers, he may need some extra seasoning, and as a redshirt junior he is getting a little long in the tooth. But in theory, he’s a very interesting pitcher with above average left-handed velocity who should be looking to sign despite having one year of college elibility left. Color me intrigued.