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BP Annual Player Comments

Year		Comment
2011		Chunky Matt Chico finally came all the way back from elbow surgery, but was left with the same mediocre assortment he started out with; he re-signed with the team after being designated for assignment in December, and will be auditioning for fifth-man gigs forever more.
2010		A finesse lefty, Chico has struggled with command in 42 big-league outings, a performance characteristic he will need to master if his goal is to succeed as a starter with an 86-88 mph fastball. His development was stunted by Tommy John surgery in the middle of the 2008 season, and while he recovered in time to pitch in the second hafl last year, there is no guarantee that he will stick as a starter, even with a successful rehab. Chico has struggled equally against batters from both sides of the plate—his 852 OPS against lefties ranks fifth-worst among southpaws facing 200 or more of them since 2007; his 854 OPS against right-handed hitters ranks as the sixth worst (750 batters faced). Given that Chico's numbers worsen exponentially multiple times through the order, he seems destined to become a long reliever or specialist barring a change in approach or improvement in command.
2009		Chico struggled throughout the spring, but still managed to break camp in the rotation as the other candidates (Patterson, Bergmann) fared even worse. He was trying to return to a pitching motion that he'd used in high school in an attempt to improve his control, stop throwing across his body, and protect his shoulder; he wound up blowing out his elbow, and won't be ready to play until sometime during the 2009 season.
2008		Chico wound up leading the Nats staff in most of the counting stats as a rookie last year simply by surviving the season (save for a brief late-August demotion to have him clean up his mechanics). Acta handled Chico with admirable care, monitoring his pitch counts, pulling him early, and only twice letting him go through an opposing lineup more than three times. The August demotion delivered tangible results-he made three quality starts in his last six after his recall (compared to seven in his first 25), with 18 Ks and eight unintentional walks in 34 2/3 innings pitched. That's still not as many strikeouts as you'd expect from a lefty who throws in the low 90s, but Chico's heat isn't overpowering or endowed with any extra english. He's more talented than your typical crafty lefty in the making, but still lacks an out pitch, and his extreme fly-ball rates aren't usually survivable for a rotation regular who isn't fooling people at home plate. His upside is as a fourth starter, which is pretty much what he is now.
2007		Chico has had a bumpy road by prospect standards. A top amateur in high school, he passed up pro money from the Red Sox to play at USC, couldn`t hack the coursework, drifted out of sight and into a SoCal semi-pro league, then got rediscovered by the D`backs in 2003. They taught him how to use a decent curve and change to support his low-90s heat; he`s not a reliever in the making. Although it took him three years to get past Double-A, the first time was an aggressive late-season promotion from Low-A in only his first full season as a pro, and the second came when he started off at that level and proved he really did need to get in some time at High-A. He`s been challenged by his parent organization, and the challenges have made him a better prospect for the long haul. He`ll come into camp with an outside shot at winning a job in the rotation, but it`s more likely that he`ll get some extra seasoning in Triple-A to show he`s the real Tabasco, then get the call in June or July after the veterans have flopped.
2005		Little SoCal lefty pitched well in the Midwest League, but upon arrival in the Texas League, got more pasted than a 21-year old Kennedy watching pole dances. Has problems keeping the ball in the park, falling behind in the count and then laying cookies down the middle of the plate in order to throw a strike. Good enough stuff to succeed in a relief role in the majors, especially given his youth, but there's some work to go before that time arrives.

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PITCHf/x Pitcher Profile

A Collaboration between BrooksBaseball.net and Baseball Prospectus - Pitch classifications provided by Pitch Info LLC

Although he has not thrown an MLB pitch in 2024, Matt Chico threw 1,322 pitches that were tracked by the PITCHf/x system between 2007 and 2012, all of them occuring in Spring Training. In 2012, he relied primarily on his Fourseam Fastball (88mph), also mixing in a Slider (81mph) and Change (82mph).