Jordan Kipper - pitcher of the year for the Angels system in 2016?

Jordan Kipper was a 9th round pick in 2014 out of Texas Christian school.  You won't find him on the Angels top prospect list, but he is definitely one to watch.

Kipper was not a huge standout in high school and had a mid 80s fastball, but he did play in the 2010 and 2011 Perfect Game USA.  In 2011 he went in the 39th round to the Dodgers and in 2012 he was drafted in the 30th round by the Phillies.  Obviously neither of those stuck and in his final season of college before the Angels snagged him, he was 8-3 with a 3.23 ERA and struck out 74 in 75 IP.  Oddly enough, Kipper was a teammate of Kevin Cron (CJ Cron's bother) in high school.

When Kipper was drafted his fastball was in the low 90s thanks to some mechanical adjustments and he had a good off-speed slider with natural break and a natural sinker with good movement.  He can also throw a change and a curve and has a nice easy motion in his delivery.

Kipper became a reliever in rookie ball and had an impressive first season with a 2.73 ERA and 1.29 WHIP in 14 appearances.  He jumped over A ball to the 66ers the following year and was "converted" back to a starter.  He struggled a bit in High A and ended the year with a 5.63 ERA.

Kipper showed huge improvement as he moved up to AA ball and his 2016 season may have earned him a trip to Salt Lake next year (and probably a spring training invite).  He was pretty consistent all season, putting up nearly identical numbers in the first and second half and in 14 of his 25 starts he allowed 2 or fewer runs, only stumbling in a handful of games.  Kipper is also a ground ball pitcher and has a career GB/FB rate of 1.77.  For comparison sake, Weaver has a 0.59 (A LOT of flyballs), and 1.77 in the majors this year would be good for the 14th best groundball to flyball rate behind some great pitchers like Marcus Stroman, Aaron Sanchez, Jake Arrietta, and Noah Synderfaard.

The Angels will take their time with him to some extent, so I doubt we'd see him in 2017.  He should be on track to crack the roster some time in 2018.