I May Get to See the Smokies This Week

[vance_the_cubs_fan]

Who should I watch for?

[Guest]

Who should I watch for?

 

The rotation is pretty interesting: Jay Jackson is a top 10 prospect in the system. Casey Coleman and Marcos Mateo have started off well. I like Blake Parker as a reliever and John Gaub might eventually replace Neal Cotts.

 

Steve Clevenger and Welington Castillo are good C prospects. Tony Thomas has been hitting the ball fantastically to start the season. Brandon Guyer is well regarded and skipped Daytona but has struggled thus far.

[craig]

There are five position prospects of interest on the team: in addition to the four Cal mentioned (catchers Castillo and Clevenger, 2B Thomas, CF Guyer) there is also SS Barney and outfielder Ty Wright. 3B Smith was also in BA's top 30.

 

I've mentioned some observations one poster at my regular board made, and I'll pass on a couple of those. He's been two two (both?) Mateo games, including yesterday. He sat by the players from the two teams who do their speed guns, so his gun readings are not stadium weirdness. He said that Mateo was again in the 91-93 range (considerably faster than Coleman and much faster than Chen, and not that much slower than Perkins). Said he threw some hard sliders as high as 86, which both of the gun players said was nasty. He was surprised mateo didn't K more people. Obviously said he was wild.

 

I asked him about Clevenger, and he said that he hasn't really noticed him defensively in any of the games he's seen: which is a good thing. Said he didn't appear to have any problem with Mateo's hard sliders.

 

He said that Thomas had a grounder go right through his legs, not the kind of error you hardly ever see in the majors. Last game he said that Thomas threw a Steve Sax crazy wild throw to first. So he said he's seeing why scouts who would see some really bad errors like that question his defense. Said that thomas has looked very good at the plate, looks balanced and has hit hard stuff. I'd asked him about how he does versus breaking stuff, and he said it looked like he waits back pretty well, doesn't look bad, although he doesn't recall ever seeing him hit a breaking pitch out of the infield.

 

In one of the games he said that Guyer went 0-3 but hit the ball hard several of those times.

 

If you could, I'd be interested on your observations on:

1. Thomas: defense, and how he handles breaking pitches.

2. Barney: how does his arm look, how does his range look defensively. And how does his plate discipline look.

3. Ty Wright: do you think he could hit for any power? And does his OF arm look too weak for anything but LF? Or does it look basically OK?

4. Any impressions of Clevenger as a hitter?

5. Any impressions of Castillo, either as hitter or defensively?

 

For pitchers, if you got a look at Gaub, Coleman, or Jackson that would be fun to get reports.

[vance_the_cubs_fan]

I went tonight, but left when the rains came. I'm going back on Saturday and I'll try to watch for some of those things in between chasing my daughter around the park.

[vance_the_cubs_fan]

 

If you could, I'd be interested on your observations on:

1. Thomas: defense, and how he handles breaking pitches.

2. Barney: how does his arm look, how does his range look defensively. And how does his plate discipline look.

3. Ty Wright: do you think he could hit for any power? And does his OF arm look too weak for anything but LF? Or does it look basically OK?

4. Any impressions of Clevenger as a hitter?

5. Any impressions of Castillo, either as hitter or defensively?

 

For pitchers, if you got a look at Gaub, Coleman, or Jackson that would be fun to get reports.

 

Thomas looked ok defensively. There wasn't anything that stood out as good or bad either way. He hit the ball well. I wasn't seated where I could tell exactly what pitches he was hitting. Well, I probably could have, but I was visiting with the people around me. He got his hits and all them were hit hard.

 

Barney had a good game, but I think he got his hits pretty early in the count. Nothing stood out on him defensively. I guess the same as Thomas.

 

Wright didn't get a hit tonight. He did throw out Gorkys who tried to stretch a broken bat single into a double. His throw was right on the money. It wasn't a particularly hard play, but it did require him to charge the ball quickly and make an on target throw to second. He executed it perfectly.

 

Clevenger was 2-4 and got a triple on a hit that went deep into the gap. I thought one of his outs was going out of the park, but the Braves fielder made a nice play running to the wall with his back to the infield. I didn't get to see Castillo play but a few innings in the rain shortened game on Tuesday.