Who to watch for (Midland vs. San Antonio)

[texascub]

I'll be going to the Midland vs. San Antonio game on next Saturday the 29th, who are players that I should watch for? Looking through their rosters all I see are Kurt Suzuki and Travis Buck for the Rockhounds. San Antonio has alot of young players but the only names that jump out at me are Tuiasosopo and Travis Blackley; who all am I missing?

[Outshined_One]

OF Wladimir Balentin and P Yorman Bazardo both have gotten some hype in the past for SA.

[CaliforniaRaisin]

Besides the guys you mentioned (who are the best of the bunch), here are a few more intriguing names.

 

San Antonio Missions:

 

RHP Yorman Bazardo

LHP Ryan Feierabend

2B Yung Chi Chen

OF Wladimir Balentin

 

Midland:

 

2B Kelvin Melillo

[texascub]

Well I didn't get to watch as much of the game as I had hoped to. It was a National Guard sponsored game and since I'm in the guard I had to walk around for most of the first half of the game (missed most of the scoring) handing out promo stuff and trying to talk other people at the game into joining (atleast I got free suite seats out of the deal, right?). Yung Chi Chen and Travis Buck are on the DL so I didn't get to see them.

 

For Midland, Kurt Suzuki called a nice game behind the plate and did a good job of blocking pitches and keeping the ball in front of him. At the plate he had a good eye and was patient, but he was getting on top of the ball alot and I believe all of his outs were soft grounders. At second Melillo had good range up the middle and a strong, accurate arm. He made a good stop up the middle on the first play of the game; he ranged back behind second to get the ball, then he had to jump, turn, and throw to get the out. At the plate he looked to have pretty good pitch recognition and was making solid contact, he could turn out to be a solid contact/line-drive hitting utility man at the big-league level.

 

Feierabend got the start for San Antonio and wasn't too impressive. I never saw a radar gun but I'd guess he was only topping out around 90-91. I was sitting off to the side so it was a bit hard to judge to movement on his pitches but when I started walking around he looked to have decent movement, though he struggled with his command all night long. Wladimir Balentin was not very impressive last night. He did make solid contact a few times, both his pitch recognition and strike zone judgement were poor. He also misplayed atleast 2 balls in RF, the last of which allowed the winning run to advance to third and then the relay throw went into the dugout to allow him score.

 

This was my first minor league game, but the thing I was most impressed with was that every single fan at the game was really into it. The best part of the game was probably the awesome fireworks show afterwards and I think every single person that had watched the game stayed for he show. The ballpark didn't seem very big or very packed, but the announced attendance was over 6,000 people which seems pretty big for a minor league game too.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

Feirabend went to school about 10 minutes away from me. Is he still considered that good a prospect?