Posted by Zach Sanders on Monday, August 3, 2009 at 2:29 pm

Too much has been made of the young pitching trio of David Price, Tommy Hanson and Rick Porcello this year. It’s time to introduce the newest set of rookie pitchers to get the callup: Bud Norris (HOU), Chris Tillman (BAL) and Mat Latos (SD).

I could rattle off minor league numbers all day long, but I won’t. The easiest way to compare these players is to do a little Pitch F/x comparison. First, let’s see what their fastballs look like. To the graph-mobile!

Click on images to enlarge.

It should be noted, that Norris is only 6 ft tall, while Tillman and Latos come in at 6′5″. Norris has great run on his fastball, as it moves inside on righties. Tillman’s has some run on it, while Latos throws the straightist fastball of the group, and it may even have a bit of cut on it. Now, let’s move on to their changeups.

This is where Norris really excels. It looks like he throws more of the circle-change variety, as it moves more towards righties. Just like the fastball, Tillman has a little movement towards righties, while Latos throws a change that looks to move straight down for the most part. Lastly, let’s take a look at their breaking balls.

This is where Tillman and Latos have Norris beat. Latos has great downward movement on the slider, but could probably add a little side-to-side movement to make it even better. Tillman throws more of a looping curveball, and Norris throws a slider that doesn’t do a whole lot. The strange thing about Norris, is that he used his slider more than his fastball! I would prefer to see him utilize the fastball-changeup combo more, while relying on the slider as more of an outpitch when he’s ahead in the count.

All three of these guys have a great future ahead of him, and it’ll be interesting to see who has more success going forward. If I had to pick one to build a team around, I would probably go with Norris, Tillman, and Latos in that order. Norris seems more polished at this point, and while Tillman and Latos have more physical tools, it’s not quite what I’m looking for.