When Shawn Torbett initially met Will Sanders, he was first introduced to the reasons major league scouts loved him—a 6-foot-6 frame with plenty of room to add weight, and then he met the reason why Sanders has a chance to be a really good collegiate pitcher.
That would be a raggedly spiral notebook Sanders carries with him.
“It’s a regular, old spiral notebook of every pitch of every hitter. He charts the game all by himself,” Torbett said. “He has notes on every pitch. He’ll go, ‘Hey coach, we threw this guy a fastball away this time, what would you come back with?’ He’ll go through sequences with me…That kid is unbelievable. He’s a different breed.”
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Dating back to his time in high school, Sanders charts every game he watches and it’s carried over to his summer with the Lexington County Blowfish under the tutelage of Torbett, who coaches the team’s pitchers.
Sanders, who will enroll at South Carolina next month as part of the 2020 class, lives and dies by the notebook, studying it to try and get the upper hand on any batter he can just in case he faces him in the future.
Even when he’s not traveling with the team, Sanders watches and charts the game and will text Torbett about pitching sequencing.
It’s that mental edge, Torbett said, that really separates Sanders from a lot of other young pitchers coming out of high school.
“I’m telling you,” Torbett said, “he’s lights out.”
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While Sanders has a strong mental approach to the game, it doesn’t mean there isn’t talent packed in his long, lanky frame.
Sanders, who turned down money from professional teams to enroll at South Carolina this fall, is considered the No. 18 right-handed pitcher and No. 58 overall prospect in the 2020 class.
He’s already throwing four pitches at a high level with a fastball, curveball, changeup and splitter with a lot more in the tank as he gets further into his college career with the potential of him being a high-round draft pick by the time is all said and done.
“Scouts will sit there and he throws a splitter and it drops a foot and a half,” Torbett said. “I love him. He’s my kind of guy. My goal is to help them learn how to pitch the game. To me, knowledge is power. He’s my kind of guy. He just absorbs it. He has the it factor you say, ‘What makes a guy potentially a first rounder down the road versus a tenth rounder?' It’s that physical build but he commands the game.”
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Right now Sanders is sitting at 92 miles per hour on his fastball this summer but, at just a shade over 220 pounds on his 6-foot-6 frame, he has plenty of room to put on weight and add velocity once he gets on campus.
“He throws 92 effortless and you still see him falling or being very top heavy. I think his fastball’s going to be 95 effortless,” Torbett said. “It’s so fluid. Then the three other pitches, his breaking ball he still slows down on a little bit so I think that’ll get sharper.”
Sanders is still young and has plenty of room to grow—Torbett mentions getting more out of his lower half during his delivery and getting sharper on his breaking ball—but the mental side of the game is already there and his stuff is some of the best Torbett’s seen.
“He’ll throw a changeup in any count, which is unbelievable. This guy is 2-0 and he pulls a changeup and comes back with 93. Like, ‘What happened?’ That’s all going to amply once he gets into it. Coach Meade does such a good job and he’ll adapt him more to a college game,” he said. “He’s awesome. Unbelievable."
