Noah Cameron has been one of the best rookie pitchers in the American League this season. Tonight, the 26-year-old Kansas City Royals against the Chicago White Sox mound, he will play in 16 innings with 2.52 ERA and 3.67 FIP, including 93 innings. In addition, his 6-5 championship record does not represent his overall efficiency. Cameron abandoned 29 innings and surrendered in one inning in his five indecisiveness.
When the Royals rose with a 50 fv outlook in late May, the Royals ranked third in the top prospects, with Cameron being described by Eric Longenhagen and James Fegan as “a very stable rotational piece… despite his lack of star-rated stuff.” The assessment was correct. Not only did Cameron’s 92.2 mph fastball ranked only 19th percentile in speed, but none of his stadiums stood out in the vacuum. Overall, the 6-foot-3-foot, 220-pound lefty dominates the lineup by mixing and matching with Ambomb. This season, he threw 27.2% of four-pin, 19.5% of cutter, 18.96% of change, 18.0% of curve balls and 16.6% of sliders. His method of committing crimes is anytime and anywhere.
“I’m more of an old-fashioned pitcher,” Cameron told me recently. “I’m not gunpowder – I’m not going to throw in the 90s or something like that – so I’m more inclined to read swings, look at scout reports, find the weakness of the batsmen. My mindset is to keep balance and try to attack the area early to attack quickly. I’m OK, I’m OK, but I can do something that I can do.
It was obviously not his game when the bat was missing. Cameron’s strikeout efficiency is relatively meager, although this does carry 7.0% of the highest walking rate than the walking rate. Always inducing soft contact, he agilely registered .236 BABIP-AGAINST and line drive rate was 18.3%.
He wasn’t the same pitcher when the royal family brought him to the seventh round of the 2021 draft at the University of Arkansas. When the fastball/transformation weight reaches the “small curve ball”, when he enters the pro ball, Cameron now has various weapons that he uses toys to go with the batsman’s timing. The enhanced expansion of Arsenal is another weapon: a bulldog attitude.
“I’ve started to have a mindset over the years,” Cameron told me. “My aggressiveness in the area has grown. I’ve been on the offense. Confidence is a big deal in this game. When you relax, when you get hurt. It’s any batsman you face, whether it’s a big money-making person or a rookie.”
The rookie racer added his slider the last winter in the past offseason. He described the latter as “more up shooters”, which is a pitch above the positive line, while his slider is “slightly slower, below the vertical line; it has a certain depth”.
Statistically speaking, the slider has always been his best court. The batsman averaged average of .155, while the batsman hit 0.172, slightly worse than his curve ball count. Cameron’s hook worked harder and more faithful than previous seasons, causing a hit average of 0.167 and a slip percentage of .181.
“A lot of that is the mentality behind it,” Cameron said of his 80.9 mph bender. “I’m going to throw it away as much as possible. I’m just trying to relax backwards and let it go. It gets shorter and clearer, not loopier and bigger. The strength of the grip gets a lot better. I grab it tighter and can get myself to throw more power curves, more speed curves bend the ball.”
When Longenhagen and Fegan summed up their reports a few months ago, they called Cameron’s change the best ball. Lefty thinks that this difference now belongs to his curveball.
“It’s been a change for me, but there’s a little bit of a change this year,” Cameron said. “The change was really good early in the season, but it’s a little behind since I added the cutter and the slide. The feeling of my change is maybe not the feeling of the past. I still like the change. Still, I still like all my courses. I’m happy with all the courses. I love the spin balls and the curve balls have become that way, so I’ll like that, so I like that.
But again, Cameron throws something, when he throws it, is mainly about what the data indicates – and his old-fashioned pitch-acuity acuity.
“Some games I’ll pitch a lot – say my fastball – but in other games I’ll throw a little bit,” Cameron said. “It really depends on what the roster is about, and what the situation tells me.”
