7921 miles from Los Angeles sits a unique suburban town in Australia known as Berwick City. Berwick City is just Southeast of Melbourne and is known for having a unique mix of 19th-century characteristics, mixed with 21st Century amenities. It is also known as the home of one of the most unique prospects in the Dodgers organization, Cameron Gibbens.
Gibbens is a 6’8 pitching prospect that grew up playing baseball in the Berwick City baseball Club from T-Ball all the way through Senior baseball and has finally taken the next step, affiliated baseball in the States. Berwick City baseball runs deep in Gibbens’s bloodlines as his entire family, his mom, dad, brother, and sister were all Cougars dating back as late as the 90’s.
Journey Begins
Gibbens tried out on several different occasions for the Melbourne Aces of the ABL, but didn’t make the team. So, he got a full-time job, kept playing for Berwick City, continued to get better, and eventually, at the age of 22, was signed into the Melbourne Aces developmental program and fairly quickly made their big club.
Yeah, I played at the Berwick Baseball club from TBall all the way up through Seniors. I was a 2 way player until I was 16 where I started pitching more, from there I played there all the way up until I got signed by Melbourne.
After playing for Berwick it was a bit of a whirlwind. I tried out for the Aces for a long time, starting when I was 18, but I didn’t make it. But I kept playing and got a lot better before getting selected when I was 22. The first year I played for them I pitched maybe 3 innings, but I went on one away series, and it’s really cool because in the ABL you get to travel all around Australia, and you fly everywhere, so it’s a great league. Then, the following year I was selected for the team again and I had a bit more of an impact. I got thrown in there by Peter Moylan who was our pitching coach and is a really well known name from the Atlanta Braves. He threw me into lots of really tough situations, and I kept getting out of them and so he kept putting me in there. Before you know it I was the guy they went to out of the pen in the Championship game.
As an Ace, Gibbens played for John Deeble who is an International Scout in the Dodgers system in Australia. Deeble played in the ABL, and also in the Minor Leagues, so when he introduced the idea of coming to the states to Gibbens, he welcomed it. Gibbens was eventually offered an undrafted free agent contract, he accepted, and took his big fastball and tall frame to America to compete against the greatest competition in the world. But, just 7 days into his first Spring Training in 2020, the Dodgers sent him back home due to Covid cancellations. Fortunately for Gibbens, the lockdown restrictions in Australia eased after time, the ABL started back up, and he got to pitch with the Aces during 2020.
I was only at Spring Training for 7 days before all of the stuff happened with Covid and they sent us back home so I had 18 or 20 hours of travel in a week which was crazy. So I got to come back to Australia for a whole year and we were locked down here in Australia and it was pretty bad, but I definitely didn’t take it lightly, I worked really hard, eventually built a mound in my backyard and I threw into a net so that was pretty crazy. And then the ABL season started and I got to pitch with the Aces and had 9 or 10 outings in that 2 month long season and I believe that gave me such a good start to the Minor League season because I was so far ahead of guys that hadn’t played in almost 2 years.
Movin On Up
Gibbens was 24 years old at the time he signed in 2020, and turned 26 during the 2021 season, so the Dodgers advanced him from Low A all the way to AA in just 3 months, a time frame that is certainly quicker than usual. In May, at Low A Rancho Cucamonga, he gave up no runs in 10.1 innings and earned a promotion to High A Great Lakes at the beginning of June. The hard-throwing Australian continued his dominance by giving up just 2 runs in 9.1 innings across 7 appearances with the Loons, and, in fact, didn’t give up an earned run until his 14th appearance and 18th inning of work in 2021.
July was another great month for the Australian as he posted a 1.04 ERA and combined with Clayton Beeter, Bobby Miller, and Jake Cantleberry to close and record the last 3 outs of the first no-hitter in Great Lakes history. He was promoted again at the beginning of August and spent the remainder of 2021 in AA Tulsa.
Yeah, it was awesome, I mean for me, being the older guy, I was just trying to show that younger group of guys that I was serious about it and that I wasn’t just some guy from Australia that likes to throw baseballs and that I could actually pitch pretty well. I got off to a really good start and I didn’t really notice it, but I started getting messages from a whole bunch of people telling me good job. One of my friends messaged me the night before I gave up my first run and told me I hadn’t given up a run.
With a good laugh, Gibbens jokingly continued
I was like, thanks, thanks so much, but, yeah, going up to Great Lakes after having a really good start in Rancho was awesome and my first outing at Great Lakes was one of my favorite because I pitched a 2.1 innings save and it was really cool. It was the coldest weather I had ever pitched in, I think it was like 35 degrees the whole time and I felt like I didn’t get warm the whole outing, but that was so cool to do, to show my stuff being the Australian guy coming up to the team and having a really good outing was awesome and that kind of sky rocketed me into the next however many games it was that I had a scoreless streak. And then, when the no hitter came up that was such a shock to me because I didn’t even know it was a no hitter until the 6th inning. We were all sitting in the bullpen in Lake County and I think one of the fans told us and was asking who was going to screw it up, and who was going to be the next guy in and I was like, what? And then I realized it was a no hitter and at that point I was the go to guy for the closer role so I wasn’t expecting to be the guy that went in because it was like 14-1, so I didn’t know that I was going in until the radio rang and the adrenaline came up and it was a really cool experience to be a part of with multiple pitchers that are all really good friends of mine.
Gibbens Travels
As stated earlier, it is 7921 miles from Melbourne, Australia to Los Angeles, California. Gibbens started in 2021 in Rancho Cucamonga which is 41 miles from L.A., then got promoted to Great Lakes which is 1996 miles from Rancho, then got promoted to Tulsa which is 935 miles from Great Lakes. If you add all of that up it equals 10,893 miles traveled by the Australian before the road trips that his teams took during the season. The fact that he traveled that much, and finished 2021 having thrown 46.2 innings while posting a 3.47 ERA is a testament to his aforementioned perseverance and was an impressive show of endurance.
Feature Cut
Gibbens has always been a pitcher that records a lot of strikeouts, and 2021 was no different as he struck out 83 hitters in 46.2 innings and had one of the highest strikeout rates in the Minor Leagues. As with most pitchers, he relies on his fastball and throws it 75% of the time if not more on occasion, and then tunnels his slider off of it. He sits at 92-94 with his fastball when he is at least somewhat rested, and keep in mind that he traveled close to 15,000 miles last year, and threw more than 4 times as many innings as he had thrown combined in his professional career up until that point, so he was fairly burned out, as he put it, by late August and September. So, it will be very exciting to see the pop he brings with his fastball to Spring Training.
He throws his fastball to the glove side and hits what the Dodgers call the 4 slot very well, then gets very good ride on his 4 seam when he throws it up in the zone.
Gibbens has plenty of secondary stuff to be a very effective back-end reliever. He throws a “Gyro” ball that really progressed in 2021 because he learned how to throw it as hard as 86-87 mph, and it has tremendous tumble. In the first pitch of this video you’ll see him start it inside on a lefty, then get it to “hop” back over the plate, then, on the next pitch, you’ll see the amount of tumble the pitch has as it falls off the table. In the third pitch of the video, you’ll see a great combination of both tumble and fade that demonstrates the potential this “Gyro” pitch has.
Gibbens also throws a slider that, again, is a very good pitch. He’s not afraid to throw it in any count and has a lot of confidence in the pitch.
What’s Next?
Cameron Gibbens is a very talented prospect that has traveled close to 8000 miles for the opportunity he has been given. He also had to wait until he was 25 to get this chance, so, needless to say, he’s going to do everything within his power to make the most of it. He will be 26 at the beginning of 2022, so, if he shows progress early in the season, it is more than plausible to think that he will get an opportunity with LA sooner rather than later to show what he can do at that level. And, quite honestly, I’m excited to get a bucket of popcorn and sit back and watch that process in action. Has Spring Training started yet? It can’t get here fast enough!
