Cy Sneed started for Dallas Baptist, and you can see the 6-4 Freshman throw here:
Scouting reports I have seen say Sneed throws about 87-89 MPH on his fastball, and it definitely looked like he had good velocity. His delivery was effort filled, so it does raise questions about whether he can add velocity and whether he will have injury problems later in his career. He hit two batters early, and liked to keep the fastball high and tight to right handers. In the first real at-bat, he got 3 swing and misses, striking him out on a breaking ball in the dirt. That hard breaking ball also got another strikeout in the dirt and another one swinging that wasn't in the dirt. His breaking pitches went in 3 different places, one was too much in the zone, one was perfect and one went 58 feet (which wasn't fooling anyone). He got 5 strikeouts swinging on the fastball (one was a check swing). He threw a ton of pretty pitches. He did have some control issues (a wild pitch) other than the hit by pitches, although his only real walk was on pitches in good locations. Despite giving up more fly-balls than ground-balls, he really pitched better than his 5 runs allowed in 6 innings. More capable Corpus hitters made more contact the 2nd and 3rd time around. With runners on he had a lot of pickoffs and had a balk. Defensively, I thought he moved well despite his size.
Adam Hoelscher pitched for Texas A&M Corpus, and you can see the 6-3 Junior throwing here:
As a Freshman, Hoelscher had a 4.47 ERA, and then took a step back in 2011 with a 7.15 ERA. He wasn't throwing hard, and the ball was staying up which is a bad combo. He kept the ball away from lefties, and at his best he put breaking balls down low and away. However, there were not many flashes of good. I didn't like the arm action as it seems to be an elbow killer and took away velocity. He had no swing and miss stuff and even pitches out of the zone were getting hit hard. He gave up 3 weak fly-balls to start before giving up a line drive homer. He end up giving 4 homers and 8 runs, and just stood no chance. It was really hard to evaluate the Dallas Baptist hitters because of how terrible he was throwing. He also had a wild pitch.
Texas A&M Corpus was clearly an inferior team, which is kind of hard to believe considering all the high school baseball talent contained in Corpus Christi.
Bobby Buckner, the son of the infamous Bill Buckner, was one of their better hitters (sorry so many of the videos have so many blurry moments, I blame that on the lights):
The senior Buckner was originally a Texas Longhorn but left after he was transfered. Buckner appeared to be one of the team's better hitters but has been pretty unimpressive the last couple of seasons, with an OPS of .777. In the game he had a 5 pitch walk, a 7 pitch walk, and two medium fly-balls.
Brad Porras played 1st-base, and stands at 6-5 220. He fell for a breaking ball, and just had a horrible eye and a bad swing for a first baseman. Defensively, he just seemed goofy and awkward. Kyle Danford is a big freshman outfielder. He looked bad and couldn't lay off the breaking ball. He also had an ugly check swing strikeout, and has a hole in his swing. He does run decently well though. Jonathan Gonzalez is listed as a first baseman and right handed pitcher but played DH in the game. He also couldn't handle the breaking ball and had a less than impressive swing. He did hit a home run though, and is 6-0 245 (and really slow). Santiago Ruiz was the senior catcher who had a nice eye with a great walk. He is little for a catcher, but he had a nice arm. He was pinch run for. Last year, Ruiz had a .711 OPS. Omar Garcia was the replacement catcher, and was not great at blocking pitches. He did have two walks, but he was extremely slow and was thrown off of first. The senior has an OPS of just .736 in his career, with very little walks and a patience rating of just 8 by Baseball Cube. Dan Sciantarelli batted 9th and struck out twice and was only able to foul off pitches early in the count. He is listed at 5-11 195, but he seemed smaller than that. Jeramie Marek lead off for Corpus, but he wasn't the traditional fast lead-off guy. He also had a big time cut, but it was a slow swing. He had a lot of swing and misses and had a gigantic hole in his swing. He could foul off pitches with 2 strikes but did strike out looking. He had a nice long at-bat for a soft line drive. Marek is a senior and had a .764 OPS last year. Eric Weiss can play both outfield and catcher, and the junior banged one double off the wall. He doesn't have a very good arm, but he had a nice long at bat that end up being a strikeout. He also had a nice line drive. Weston Montgomery can pitch, but I only saw hit hit and field. Hit may be a strong word, as he looked lost at the plate with some wild hacks on a 4 pitch strikeout. It really was ugly. Drew Vest pinch hit and had a 5 pitch walk (in which nothing was in the strike zone). He is quick on his feet and had another long at-bat where he struck out on check swing. He is not a good hitter with a .688 OPS in 2011. Jordan Lee is a freshman who came in to pinch run. He was quick, but we never really saw him turn on the jets. He had a weak arm and was bad defensively with a drop. He did have a decent swing though.
There was very little wind, but the DBU field is slightly smaller compared to many other college fields I have been to. Dallas Baptist really had a all or nothing philosophy when it came to swinging the bat and it showed.
R.J. Talamantes lead off and played 2nd base. He is a decent runner, but is really little at 5-5 155. The sophomore did have great contact quality for his size for the most part, and hit a home run. He was also pretty patient, not swinging at balls and made good contact up the middle on a 2 strike count. He also had a shallow fly-out.
Landon Anderson is a senior outfielder that has hit pretty well at DBU with a 972 career OPS. The lefty had a long walk, another walk, with a weak fly-ball and fooled on a check swing that he put in play. He ran okay but not great, his speed is rated at 76 on Baseball Cube. I was disappointed I didn't get to see his 88 rated power.
Nash Knight played 3rd base and had a really nice play on defense. He had a slow big cut that led to K. He also loved the low breaking ball, but he hit the ball pretty hard (he hit a decent fly-ball on a pitch that was out of the zone and in the dirt) and is just a freshman.
Duncan McAlphine is a junior catcher and right handed pitcher. At the game I attended he caught, and had a nice arm gunning down a runner. He wasn't the greatest pitch blocker though and isn't real big at 5-10 200. With the bat, he had a huge cut with a possible hole in it. He struck out, but also had a deep fly-ball, and this home run:
McAlpine had a huge freshman year, but regressed in his sophomore year. He still has a career .950 OPS, and I like his bat (97 power according to Baseball Cube) if your willing to put up with a ton a strikeouts. It will be interesting to see whether he can stick at catcher.
Joel Hutter played shortstop and made a nice play defensively. He wasn't a great runner though, and had very questionable bat speed. He hit a relatively weak fly-ball, a hard grounder, and struck out. It is possible I saw the senior on a bad day though, as he has 81 contact and 91 power to go with 81 patience. He slugged .500 in 2011.
Ryan Behmanesh was the first baseman, and he wasn't a very good one defensively. He runs decently, and when he had the bat in his hand, he was dangerous. He just missed a home run off Dorris, and then pulled a homer off Danton. He has a .916 career OPS so far, so you want to see that number go up, but he has good ratings on all his batting tools.
Ronnie Mitchell is an outfielder who can also pitch (but I just saw him as an outfielder). He had an open stance that is Texiera or Bonds like, and the deficiency of that stance showed when he hit a pitch on the outside corner off the end of his bat for a medium ground-ball. He also wanted to swing at breaking stuff that wasn't really hittable. It was apparent he had some power though, as after he couldn't get a bunt down, he popped a homer. He has an under cut type swing, and the positives of his stance showed whenever he hit a hard ground-ball off a lefty side-armer.
K.J. Alexander is listed as a catcher, but played DH in the game I saw (so that raises some questions about his defense). He did have some power though, as he banged a homer off the foul poll. He did walk, but overall he didn't have much patience, as he wasn't waiting on the breaking ball. In one at-bat, he took two out of the zone only to check swing one in play up in the count. He also had a hard grounder up the middle.
Now for relief pitchers:
Matt Danton had a slow delivery with a high leg kick and wasn't very impressive to look at in warm ups. Early on, he was working in the low part of the zone but his control got away from him and he gave up a line drive homer. He got a lot of swing and misses (with two strikeout swingings, one on a fastball up), but when he gave up contact it was usually hard. Although he got a few swing and misses in the zone, I really question whether he can consistently live there. He is just a freshman, and he is 6-3, so he could add some velocity with his already good looking breaking stuff.
Chance Bragg had a reach back delivery and was throwing harder than the previous two Corpus pitchers. He stayed in the middle of the plate, while his fast-ball some times got high. He was certainly a fly-ball pitcher, giving up a homer, a deep fly-ball, and a line drive in his first 3 hitters. He gave up a lot of foul balls and his breaking stuff was very unimpressive getting some swings but no real misses. He did get some grounders but most of them were hard, and he had some walk problems. He did get a strikeout on a high fastball swinging.
Alex Jack was a side-armed soft tosser who really projects to a lefty specialist. I don't see how he could get righties out consistently. He got a hard grounder from a lefty and walked a righty. He simply wasn't putting the ball where he wanted to, and hit a lefty with a pitch. Jack pitched in 11.2 innings last year and had a WHIP of almost 2.
Jacob Doris was a right handed side-armer, but his delivery was harder and he was throwing harder. He was getting very weak contact and fielded his position well. The freshman had a looping slow breaking ball that led to good speed differential from his fastball. His pickoff move wasn't very good and neither were his pickoff throws. When he could control it, he had good swing and miss breaking stuff and could get grounders as well.
Tyler Wilhem hides the ball well with an exploding fastball with nice pop. One of the worst hitters was way late on his fastball, but he didn't get many swing and misses and gave up lots of fouls. He had a low hard breaking ball with not much speed differential and he didn't have much control of his pitches. He seemed bigger than his listed 190 pounds and he gave up a medium fly-ball, and a GIDP.
Kenny Hatcher was listed just as an infielder but came in as a reliever. He didn't pitch last year, but played 3rd base and wasn't a very impressive hitter with a .760 OPS. He is a contact hitter with mediocre power and patience. As a pitcher, he had a similar delivery to Tyler Wilhem and seemed to be throwing reasonably hard with nice speed differential. His breaking pitch low got swings and misses, and he kept everything low to the first hitter and walked him. He then threw his fastball down the middle, then on the outside corner and got a ground-ball on a low pitch. He then walked another batter, and while he started getting the ball in the middle height-wise, he couldn't find the strike zone. He was able to get some jam action though. He had a decent pickoff move but not a great throw over.
Blake Webster was throwing soft and gave up a homer to the only hitter he faced. The junior is listed at 6-1 205.
Jordan Staples has nice size (6-4 210) but not intimidating velocity. He was a little wild and gave up a walk, but he had a nasty low pitch. He also had a beautiful looking strikeout on a fastball on the low and away corner. However, he also gave up hard contact. In 2011, he gave up over a hit an inning and walked more batters than he struck out.
Tim Beard hides the ball almost like we see in Southeast Asia (although he doesn't have the pause):
He got Ronnie Mitchell to strikeout swinging on a breaking ball in the zone, his breaking ball struck out K.J. Alexander, and got Dustin McAlpine to strikeout swinging on a fastball. His breaking ball is very soft, while he has decent velocity with good placement on his fastball. He also gave up a soft fly-ball and a HBP. Beard is a jr. who went to Western Nebraska and had a 1.95 ERA with 7.11 K/9IP as a freshman, but struggled his sophomore year with a smaller sample size (although he elevated his strikeout total).
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