@dodger_poke
Baseball is a sport that takes so much time and focus, it makes it easy to lose perspective on, well, just about everything other than trying to make it to the Big Leagues. The sport is consuming, and, although sometimes mundane and repetitive, it’s addictive, and it requires such a commitment that there are times when a player would seemingly do anything for a spot on a 26-man MLB roster. Those moments, many times, end up defining the end results of a player’s career, but they, every time, reveal a person’s true character. Jon Duplantier, a 6’4 pitcher in the Dodger’s organization, was taught at an early age the lessons of character and perspective and a sense of family by parents that helped define who he is, and the game of baseball has simply been a part of that, and probably, more accurately, just one of an infinite amount of successful results of it.
Background
Duplantier grew up in Katy Texas and was a standout multi-sport star at Seven Lakes High School where he recorded 83 strikeouts on the mound as a Senior, a 1.60 ERA, and was the quarterback on the football team in an area of the world where High School football reigns supreme. All of those things are very impressive but are expected for someone who has made the Major Leagues and just scratches the surface as to how impressive his career actually was as a prep. He was also named first-team Academic all-state, had a 4.32 GPA on a 4.00 scale, and was a Member of the National Honors Society, all of which are far more impressive than anything he did on the diamond or gridiron, in my opinion. As successful as his High School career was on the diamond and gridiron, as he was deciding where to go to college, however, athletics weren’t the focus, academics and family were. After touring several of the most elite academic institutions in the United States, the Katy Texas native found a perfect fit with closeby Rice which offered close proximity to home, elite educational opportunities, and lastly, and only as icing on the cake, great baseball as well.
I never really thought about playing college sports. My family was always academic based and talked about going to school and taking care of our grades and going on and making a successful life. My best friend in High School ended up playing college football and he was like, hey, you could play college football too, and I was like really? So I started thinking about that and that was the first time we started thinking about college sports and so we went to the Ivy League schools, then Stanford and Rice and thought about that as the next route. Then we did that with baseball as well and, all in all, Rice ended up being a great fit because I had less injuries in baseball than I did in football. My dad and I took a month long football camp tour and went to all the Ivy League schools like Harvard and Princeton and I was gone from home for about a month and I remember missing mom so much, that I was like, I don’t want to do that. So, eventually the Rice offer lined up and I wanted to play baseball over football and Rice was only 30 minutes down the road so it was a “no brainer”, and that was before I even thought about how great their program and Coach Graham were. The program, the location, the academic standing of the school, and the fact that I had a buddy there made everything about Rice line up for me and my personality.
Rice proved to be the perfect fit and the 6’4 right-hander flourished as an Owl and became an All-American and Conference USA Pitcher of the Year in 2016. He was 2nd in all of Division I in strikeouts, recorded the 6th highest amount of strikeouts for a single season at Rice, and was 8th in the nation in K’s/9 innings. As a result of his great career at Rice, the Arizona Diamondbacks drafted him in the 3rd round of the 2016 Draft and by 2019 he was in the Big Leagues. 
Duplantier threw 36.2 innings for the D-Backs in May and June of 2019 and was off to a promising start to his MLB career, but that’s when the unfortunate injury bug got in the way. On June 12th he was sidelined with shoulder inflammation, then on July 7th was sent on a rehab assignment to Visalia and reassigned back to the Minor Leagues. Despite all of that misfortune, the tall Texan fought his way back and was eventually recalled in August of that year, but, then, after being optioned and recalled 3 times between then and August of 2021, he, unfortunately, had to fight injury until he eventually chose free agency and signed with the Giants in December of 2021. While with the Giants he was subjected to the Rule 5 Draft, the Dodgers drafted him and now he is thriving in the best developmental system in the game. When asked what he is trying to get out of his AAA stint in OKC, this is what he had to say:
The first goal is good health. The majority of my career right now has been plagued with injuries, so being with the Dodgers and being in OKC, the #1 goal for me is to stay healthy and show up everyday and be available, and whenever my name gets called go get outs for my team. The next goal is getting back to learning how to pitch and moving the ball in and out and tunneling my pitches off of each other and reading swings. Another thing is how to be a professional and how to show up to the field everyday, because when you’ve been spending so much time in rehab you kind of forget that. Things like getting used to Hotel living again and the travel and being in cities and how to navigate that and seeing your buddies that play for other teams is just all part of getting re acclimated to the everyday mundane sense of professional baseball
Feature Cut
Duplantier is a big right-hander that sits in the 92-94 range with his fastball, and features a ++ slider, a big curveball, and a very smooth “over top” arm action. His fastball has a good “ride” factor to it at the top of the zone, good carry at the bottom of the zone, his slider is tight and his curveball falls off the table. He is using his time in AAA OKC to put all of those pieces together to tunnel and sequence off of each other and he is doing a good job of it.
Fastball At 6’4, Duplantier is very angular so, he is able to get a lot of “ride” on his fastball where the pitch gives the appearance that it is rising to a hitter when he throws it up in the zone. But, he also gets great “carry” to it at the bottom of the zone as well. When he’s hitting the bottom of the zone with his 92-94 mph fastball, his ball has a lot of vertical drop, so, to a hitter, balls at the bottom of the zone appear as if they will continue to drop out of the zone, but, because of the good “carry” he gets on the pitch, it stays in the zone. He also is extremely good at hitting the 4 slot which is down and away to righties to his “glove-side.” Everything Duplantier does revolves around him throwing strikes and setting “tunnel” locations with his fastball that he uses with his breaking balls. The following video shows all these processes in action, so give it a look and you can see it for yourself.
Secondaries
Duplantier has some really good secondary stuff. His slider is tight, his curveball seems to fall out of the sky, and he is learning to trust his changeup more and thinks it will eventually be his best secondary pitch. In this video you’ll see three tremendous breaking balls in a row, 2 tights sliders and a change up with good fade and tumble.
Here’s an example of one of the reasons why Duplantier thinks that, despite having such a good breaking ball, his change-up will end up being his best secondary pitch. In the first frame, you will see side-by-side pitches with the one on the left being a change-up and the one on the right being a fastball. Notice that they come out of the same “tunnel” meaning they have the same starting point for the hitter when they are trying to figure out the speed, location, and the corresponding movement the pitch will have. So, not only does the change-up look identical coming out of his hand as his fastball does, but it also stays in the same tunnel until the hitter has already committed. As a result, in the videos following, you’ll see the hitter get jammed pretty severely because he is fooled by the speed and location of the pitch.
Next Up
Jon Duplantier is a very talented, smart, hard-working 27-year-old who is trying to get everything put back together at the AAA level. As you’ve seen in the videos, his stuff is plenty good for the MLB, his work process is elite, his clubhouse manner is first class, and he’s in an organization that will max out his potential. As long as he stays healthy and continues to put all of his pieces together the odds are favoring that he will find his way back to the MLB, and maybe sooner rather than later. Good luck Jon, it was a pleasure getting to meet you, it was an even bigger pleasure getting to talk with you, and, honestly, I hope I never get the chance to do it again in OKC, because that would mean you made your way back to L.A.
