UVSC pitcher is harnessing his potential

OREM — Utah Valley State senior starting pitcher Kam Mickolio is a 6-foot-9 work-in-progress; where he ends up, nobody knows.

Tall pitchers with power arms are enigmatic in the baseball community because of how easily their raw potential and projectability seduce scouts and talent evaluators, but how frustratingly complicated it can be to fully tap into all of that ability.

Although being tall is to a pitcher's benefit because it increases the downward angle from which he throws to the batter, it also complicates matters by amplifying the control problems that mechanical flaws in his delivery can create (think "molehills into mountains").

Indeed, the scrap heap of one-time prospects that never made it to The Show is peppered with tall pitchers who could not overcome control problems and inconsistency. The mythical flipside to that coin, however, is that once in a generation a tall pitcher who was an afterthought on his college team and best-known early on in his professional career for breaking his hand by punching a wall will finally figure out how to channel his vast talents and evolve to become virtually unhittable (see Randy Johnson).

Mickolio's 2006 stats are modest at best: 3-5 record, 4.87 ERA, more combined walks and hit batsmen (39) than strikeouts (33). But because he can light up the radar gun, and because he "puts it all together" once every three or four times out, the scouts gladly keep coming to watch him.

"(Mickolio) has above-average velocity with weight movement, and his slider has turned into a very good pitch," UVSC assistant coach Eric Madsen said. "When he's going good, he just gets more confident as it goes. Everything works off the decision-making that he takes away from the hitter with that upper velocity, because he hits 94, 95 (mph)."

Mickolio was far from a finished product coming out of Montana, a place where the locals don't play high school baseball. He went to College of Eastern Utah, where Madsen was the pitching coach his freshman year. So while Mickolio is in only his second campaign at UVSC, it's the third season of the past four that he's been tutored by Madsen.

"He was pretty young and raw coming out of Montana," Madsen said. "He had a decent arm, but his arm strength's gotten better. But more than anything it's his understanding of pitching and his commitment to improving (that have made the difference), because he's earned everything he's got."