Editor’s note: College Baseball Nation is joined by guest writer, Owen Surett. Owen Surett is a college student who resides in North Carolina. Owen covers College Baseball for his media outlet, College Baseball USA (@ColBaseUSA on Twitter), which was founded in Fall of 2019. He is passionate about various aspects of the game, including analytics, player development, and player evaluation.
Evaluation is from an in-person look on April 3rd, 2021. Steven Hajjar was facing Northwestern.
LHP Steven Hajjar - University of Michigan
6’5”, 215 lbs
Central Catholic HS (Mass.)
Frame/Athleticism: At 6’5”, 215 lbs, Hajjar has an evenly-distributed muscular frame, with long legs. He is an average athlete and still has room to add 10-15 pounds of muscle in the weight room.
Fastball: At 89-90, touching 91, Hajjar isn’t blowing up radar guns but it’s his straight over the top arm angle and 12:30-ish spin direction that optimizes the pitch’s vertical ride which in turn helps the pitch play up and miss so many bats. He can also add a tick or two of velocity.
Slider: His best secondary, the slider, is a lethal offering at times, especially when thrown off his fastball. He is able to generate some horizontal bite on the pitch, despite his vertical arm angle.
Curveball: Hajjar’s curveball is a legitimate second breaking ball that is as close to true 12-6 as curveballs get. It is a good compliment to his arsenal, and can be relied on when he needs a strike, despite maybe not being of the bat-missing variety.
Changeup: Used sparingly in this outing, he seemed to have a solid feel for the pitch.
Command: Hajjar did get into some hitters counts, but was for the most part able to wiggle his way out of them with ease in this start. He was able to throw enough strikes in this outing, but his control is slightly below average and command lags behind that.
Hajjar brings to the table a starter’s frame and what has the potential to be a big league-caliber four-pitch mix from the left side, and that is certainly a profile teams like as early as the first round. For Hajjar, it is the fringy strike-throwing ability that will keep him from being a high first round draft pick.
FB 50/55
SL 50/60
CB 40/50
CH 40/50
CMD 40/45
Projection: SP4, Comp Round to 2nd round
Thanks for stopping by! Follow us on Twitter and on Instagram to keep up with all of our content!