Monday, October 22, 2012

University of Texas Baseball Scouting Reports

On Sunday, I watched the Texas Longhorns baseball team play Sam Houston State University in Fall baseball action. Without a further introduction, here are my scouting reports:

Madison Carter had a good day at the plate and is a line drive hitter. He is small at 5-10 175, with a crouched stance. He will chase off-speed pitches though. From 2nd to home, he ran a 6.67, really close to what I have for B.J. Upton and Francisco Cervelli (2nd to home isn't as much about speed as home to first is, it also has to do with how touches 3rd and the initial jump as well. This is why I have nearly the exact same times for 2 very different players in Cervelli and Upton).

Mark Payton wasn't nearly as fast (7.58 from 2nd to home), despite being pretty small himself. The right-fielder gets under the ball, which probably isn't best for him since he doesn't seem to have much power at all.

Taylor Stell is a big (6-4 195 Sophomore) right-handed hitter that got roughly a 4.30 time from home to first. He showed some possible power as well, along witha n ability to go the other way.

Collin Shaw DH'ed and showed some patience against lefties (as a left-handed hitter). However, his bat speed is a little slow, and his swing a little long, making it possible to burn fastballs by him.

Erich Weiss has a little hitch in his swing. He is a lanky (6-2, 200) left-handed hitting junior that played 3rd base and showed off a good arm.

Alex Silver has no such issues with his swing, as I really liked it. His size (6-1 195) gives him some power, but he is a slow 1st baseman. I got him at 8.82 on a double, which would put him in Pujols, Morales, Montero territory, but he did pull up a little towards the end, so he is a touch faster.

Jacob Felts looked like a good defensive catcher, with good blocking skills and a solid arm. At the plate, he has a lunge in his swing, which makes things look pretty ugly.

Ben Johnson is a freshman that fouled off a lot of pitches. It was tough for me to see what was up with his swing. It looked perhaps slow, but with good sweep like maybe it is just a long swing. As far as knowing how to approach an at-bat, he looked pretty good.

Landon Steinhagen is a senior outfielder who has a quick bat, but seemed to get started late. Whether that is because some kind of hitch I wasn't seeing or just general hesitation, lack of plate recognition, I am not sure. We should perhaps be careful of making definate statements on plate discipline and pitch recognition since it is the fall.

Jeremy Montalbano is a freshman catcher with a good looking arm. There is also some thunder in his bat and he has a nice swing once he gets it started. He is a catcher, so it isn't surprising that he doesn't run well.

Brooks Marlow didn't go after high fastballs, and the relatively small Sophomore left-handed hitter has a pretty violent but quick swing. He has a crouched stance and sometimes almost comes out of his shoes swinging. His plate discipline was not great. As far as other tools go, he is a below average runner at 4.3 to first, with an arm that looked weak at 2nd base.

Perhaps the player I was most excited to see was freshman shortstop C.J. Hinojosa, who was a late round pick by the Astros but was considered a possible first round pick before a (not serious in terms of long term effects) injury in high school. He wasn't really challenged on defense, but he looked advanced and athletic. At the plate, he will chase occasionally as he is a pretty aggressive hitter. He sprayed left-handed fastballs (a right-handed hitter) all over the field, showing good bat speed. It doesn't look like he has much power, but he should be a good average hitter, which is all you can ask from a shortstop (especially if he is good defensively). Here is video of one of his hits:



Ty Marlow both hit and pitched, even though the right-handed junior is just 5-10.  As a hitter he has kind of a chop swing with mediocre running abilities. As a pitcher, he had a pretty solid fastball despite his size. His issue was when he wasn't able to keep it low (which is usually a problem for short pitchers). When it was down, it was good, when it was high, it got crushed. He really only bounced his breaking ball, so it is tough to read what he has there. Here is a short video:


Chad Hollingsworth was the right-handed starting pitcher, despite being just a freshman. He has a solid change that he can either throw for strikes or spike. He had a decent looking fastball that he located well down in the zone. He looks more like a ground-ball pitcher than a strikeout guy right now.



Toller Boardman is a 6-3 210 freshman left-handed pitcher. He has some good spin and velocity on his fastball:

I saw Cameron Cox in Weatherford twice last year (here and here). On Sunday, he located the ball low well and got a lot of ground-balls. He was throwing strikes, adn they were quality strikes. He was having a little problem missing to his glove side, but he showed off a quality high fastball when he was in trouble. I would probably grade him better than Hollingsworth or Boardman, so he should adjust just fine to better competition.

Dillon Peters is a short (5-11) Sophomore left-handed pitcher. At his current size (200), there is no real reason to believe that he will fill out (and add velocity that way, of course there is other ways to add velocity). He throws a decent sinker, but when he left his fastball up, it wasn't very good. He has a good not great (in movement) changeup that he can throw for strikes.



Travis Duke doesn't throw real hard, but the left-handed freshman has a phenomenal changeup. He has a good delivery, but I didn't really like the arm action (although it was consistent, not tipping the fastball or changeup).


Here is some video on 6-0 freshman Ty Culbreth:


Kirby Below is a left-handed pitcher with an over the top delivery that seems to make him look taller (he is 6-1). He has a pause in his delivery and his fastball stayed high:


Corey Knebler has a high leg kick in his delivery with some weird torque in the middle of it (see if you can see it in the video). I didn't like that at all, as it seems that it would just cause more problems that it would solve and make it hard to repeat. His control and release point were issues for him in his outing. He has a good hard breaking ball along with a slower one that wasn't near as effective:

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