Cullen Kafka Stats & Scouting Report — College Baseball, MLB Draft, Prospects

IP	153
ERA	4.706
WHIP	1.627
BB/9	3.765
SO/9	8.294

Full name Cullen Daniel Kafka
Born 04/16/1999 in Walnut Creek, CA
Profile Ht.: 6'4" / Wt.: 210 / Bats: R / Throws: R
School Oregon
Drafted in the 9th round (260th overall) by the Colorado Rockies in 2021 (signed for $158,100).

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Kafka struggled in his first two seasons at Oregon, pitching to a 3-2, 6.80 mark as a freshman and a 5-5, 5.48 mark as a sophomore, but he looked slightly better in the truncated 2020 season while lowering his hit and walk rates. This season, he’s taken an even bigger step forward and put up the best numbers of his collegiate career, with a 5-3, 3.00 mark with 84 strikeouts and 35 walks in 78 innings. Kafka’s track record was spotty due to poor results coming into the season, but evaluators have been encouraged with what they’ve seen from the development of the 6-foot-4, 217-pound righthander’s fastball and slider, his two best pitches. Kafka’s fastball sits around 92 mph, but has gotten up to 94-96 mph at its best, with heavy sink that induces ground balls and helps the pitch play up. Kafka has shown immense improvement with his slider, converting it from a fringe offering to an above-average pitch that misses bats and gives righthanded hitters headaches. Kafka made adjustments to his delivery this season, regularly pitching out of a full windup, and it resulted in him throwing quality strikes more consistently. While Kafka had plenty of success against righthanded hitters, he struggled against lefthanded bats and issued too many walks (4.0 walk rate), leading some to believe he’s destined for a role in the bullpen. Kafka’s fringe changeup is a clear third offering, but if he can improve the pitch it’ll give him a better chance to start at the next level. Kafka could go anywhere from the third-to-sixth-round range, and if he has to move to the bullpen, his fastball/slider combo could prove devastating in a specialist role.

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Kafka struggled in his first two seasons at Oregon, pitching to a 3-2, 6.80 mark as a freshman and a 5-5, 5.48 mark as a sophomore, but he looked slightly better in the truncated 2020 season while lowering his hit and walk rates. This season, he’s taken an even bigger step forward and put up the best numbers of his collegiate career, with a 5-3, 3.00 mark with 84 strikeouts and 35 walks in 78 innings. Kafka’s track record was spotty due to poor results coming into the season, but evaluators have been encouraged with what they’ve seen from the development of the 6-foot-4, 217-pound righthander’s fastball and slider, his two best pitches. Kafka’s fastball sits around 92 mph, but has gotten up to 94-96 mph at its best, with heavy sink that induces ground balls and helps the pitch play up. Kafka has shown immense improvement with his slider, converting it from a fringe offering to an above-average pitch that misses bats and gives righthanded hitters headaches. Kafka made adjustments to his delivery this season, regularly pitching out of a full windup, and it resulted in him throwing quality strikes more consistently. While Kafka had plenty of success against righthanded hitters, he struggled against lefthanded bats and issued too many walks (4.0 walk rate), leading some to believe he’s destined for a role in the bullpen. Kafka’s fringe changeup is a clear third offering, but if he can improve the pitch it’ll give him a better chance to start at the next level. Kafka could go anywhere from the third-to-sixth-round range, and if he has to move to the bullpen, his fastball/slider combo could prove devastating in a specialist role.
A 6-foot-4, 217-pound righthander with a fastball that gets up into the 95-96 mph range, Kafka has spent plenty of time in a starter role with Oregon over the last three years. He split time as a reliever and a starter in 2018 as a freshman, but still started six games and then added 14 in 2019 as a sophomore and four as a junior before the 2020 season was shut down. While Kafka’s fastball gets up into the mid-90s, he more typically sits in the 91-93 mph range, and the pitch has good sinking life. He’s shown a fringy slider and a below-average changeup, though there are some scouts who believe the slider has a chance to be an above-average offering. Because of his pitch mix, some teams believe Kafka would have more success in a reliever role at the next level, and also point to consistently high walk rates that might not be serviceable in a starting role at the pro level. Kafka has walked 4.7 batters per nine innings over his pro career and walked 13 batters in 18 innings of work last summer with Yarmouth-Dennis in the Cape Cod League.