2025 Cleveland Guardians Prospect Scouting Report: #28 LHP Josh Hartle

Is Harte over his draft year struggles?

Bio

• Age (2025 season): 22

• Acquired: Trade (2024, Pittsburgh Pirates)

• 2024 Level: College/A

• Rule 5: 2027

• Height: 6’5

• Weight: 210

• Throws: Left

2025 Scouting Grades

• Fastball: 40

• Slider: 50

• Cutter: 50

• Changeup: 50

• Command: 45

• Overall: 40

• Risk: Moderate

• ETA: 2027

First impression

Tall, lanky type arm. Looks the part of a durable, polished college pitcher. Came into 2024 with first round expectations and struggled with some mechanical/sequencing/grip issues. Command over stuff lefty that needs some tweaks to rebound from down draft year.

What Makes Hartle Fun

At his best, Hartle has a well developed cutter that runs in on righties and takes them off a fastball that lacks life and his slider is big and sweepy and runs away from lefties. The changeup wasn’t far behind at one point either. His sinker was heavy and induced grounders at a decent rate. Hartle was a command/control guy with some deception and extension. The array of stuff all made up a decent pitch mix that worked well with good control and focus on keeping hitters off balance. Though he’s at an age where he’s somewhat mature, there could be some room for him to get stronger.

What Could Hold Hartle Back

Some delivery/pitch grip/sequencing issues plagued Hartle in his final year at Wake Forest. He encountered some pitch grip problems not staying behind some of his offerings, particularly his changeup/cutter and he also relied very heavily on his cutter. He also needs to get to the upper band of his velocity more, being more 92-94 than 89-92. The grip/delivery issues too also contributed to some control issues he didn’t show previously. But these are all potentially fixable issues.

Key Metric

12.31 K/9, 2.11 BB/9 - Cleveland has bet heavily in the past on players who had a good sophomore year and a bad draft year. Those are Hartle’s metrics in his sophomore year at Wake Forest, which is why coming into 2024 most places thought he was a clear first round pick - maybe even one of the first two or three college arms off the board. By acquiring Hartle in a trade, Cleveland is betting on the tweaks they can make to get him back to that kind of pitcher, one they liked coming into the draft.

Intangibles

Normally, Wake Forest pitchers come into the draft with plenty of polish from college and Wake Forest’s pitching lab (Jared Schuester, Rhett Lowder, etc.) but usually don’t have much left to grow once they’re in the pros. Perhaps Hartle is the opposite of that. Or there’s concern that he didn’t reach his full Wake potential that it’s kind of a red flag. But Hartle already seemed confident that the Pirates had helped him find some things to tweak and he was back to his best version for them, and could see more of that in 2025 with Cleveland.

Future

Hartle projected to be a ‘safe’ 4/5 type starter that could move fast through the minors coming into 2024. That ceiling really hasn’t changed for him, but he’s less safe and the floor is now lower unless he’s made the necessary tweaks to get more separation from his changeup/cutter, regained some command finds some increased velocity, at least scraping 91-93 instead of 89-92. He should start 2024 at High-A Lake County and a good half year there should vault him to Double-A Akron to finish 2025.

Role/Risk

40/Moderate - Solid back of the rotation type arm, possible depth/relief floor