Sam
Donato

6/14/16 - 60 Time: 7.16, Position Velocity:  OF-84, Exit Velocity: 82
6'2, 165-pound, RHH hits from a balanced and even stance with a fairly high hand position in his initial set up.  Uses slight movement of his body to build momentum as he showed very little movement of his hands and no real stride to speak of in his load, lower half works correctly but doesn’t explode like you’d want to see, back elbow drops into a slot very well and allows his barrel to get flat through the zone and the ball, could get better extension but stays behind the ball well.  Defensively, stays under control and puts himself in a good position to work through the ball, doesn’t approach it very aggressively, uses good hands, a clean exchange, athleticism and lanky figure to get some good arm strength behind his throws out of an over-the-top slot.

6/14/16 - Max FB: 87, FB: 85-87, CB: 69-71,
6'2, 165-pound, RHP was one of the top arms we saw at the 2016 Top Prospect Games.  Donato has both a lanky and athletic frame and uses good rhythm throughout his motion to deliver pitches from an arm angle that is a little more over-the-top than we saw in January, loose and quick arm action was impressive and gave him some really good downward action on nearly every pitch, never quite gets front side all the way closed but stays on line and very much under control throughout.  Fastball was live and came across the plate very heavily with some sink and run, curveball was a little hit-and-miss but showed devastating 11/5-10/4 action when thrown correctly, both pitches were thrown consistently for strikes as he was able to strike out 3 hitters in two innings of game play.  Donato is on the rise.

1/18/16 - 6-foot-2, 165-pound righty uses a methodical motion and an athletic arm action to get significant tilt on all of his pitches, good use of his lower half and a loose arm from a high-3/4 arm slot with some effort involved showed a lot of promise, fastball sat 84-86 with some late run that could really get in on a righty, 11/5 curveball has some hard action that was late and sharp at 70-73 – a plus pitch, changeup stayed 78-79 and was a little erratic, but down in the zone.  Could improve the changeup, but has a lot to offer with his current FB-CB combo.  Good projectability as well.  As a position player, hits from a balanced stance and uses a short and early stride and a simple hand load to initiate his swing, above average lower half ignites a very good swing path that gets the barrel on plane and keeps it there throughout extension, hit some balls very hard when he got through them and produced an 83 mph exit velocity off the tee.  Defensively, showed above average footwork and a solid glove in the outfield, used a rangy exchange that led to a long arm action and nearly over the top release to hit 84 mph.  Donato ran a 7.31 60-yard dash and showed a lot of potential in many of the things he did at this event.