Scouting Reports on TCU and Baylor

On Tuesday March 6th, I watched Baylor play at TCU.

Brandon Finnegan started the game for TCU, and he had a goofy delivery in which he turned his back to the hitter (although not drastically):

He was throwing decently hard it seemed, and the radar guy agreed with a 88-89 MPH fastball (he touched 90 MPH a few times and hit it in the fifth a few times). He also threw a moving fastball (really a back door cutter to righties) at 85-86 MPH, with a 75-78 MPH breaking ball. He had very little to no control, especially in the 3rd when it got away from to an amazing proportion. How bad did it get? He end up hitting 6 batters (3 on breaking balls, 2 on fastballs, and I didn't write down which was the first one) before he was taken out (in all, there were 13 hit by pitches, which turned out to be an NCAA record). When things were going good, he had a nice breaking ball that was outside to lefties and in on righties (in which he got a nice strikeout looking). He got some help from Baylor, as the lefty got to face lefties as the 2 and 3 hole hitters, but he really didn't have much swing and miss (he did get one strike out swinging). He gave up 1 walk, with 2 ground-balls, an infield pop fly, 2 fly-balls, and a line drive. One positive was that he could field his position pretty well. He is just a freshman (I was disappointed neither starter is draft eligible), and while his short (5-11) stature is annoying, if he can ever find control he may be valuable in the future (especially if he figures out how to add a couple MPH to his fastball).

Dillon Newman started for Baylor, and you can see the 6-2 sophomore right hander throw here:

In a game with a big strikezone, Newman's pitches were everywhere and he was struggling to throw strikes (especially early on). He wasn't throwing real hard at 88 MPH with a 79-80 MPH breaking pitch. He brought his arm back in a way you wouldn't really expect with his delivery, and his plan was to throw outside to righties. He gave up a walk, a line drive, and 2 ground-balls to start the game, and had a great fielding play with an okay pickoff move. His breaking pitch was unimpressive (he got a strikeout with it but it was off Davy Wright, who as you will see later, looked awful at the plate). He really seemed to lack a put away pitch. He was getting hit pretty hard in the 3rd inning. Newman was definitely a contact pitcher as a freshman, pitching in 13 games and walking less than 2 per 9 innings and striking out less than 6 per 9 innings.

Josh Elander is the big prospect in TCU's lineup. However, and it's just my luck, he was injured in the first (not expected to be anything serious) and was taken out of the game (Kyle Von Tungeln, a junior outfielder was diagnosed with a mild concussion the day of the game and obviously didn't play). Braden Mattson, a freshman, replaced him at catcher. Defensively, he was very poor, missing a ball he should have had and having a bad arm. Offensively, he didn't display much patience, chasing a low and outside pitch, then chasing a breaking ball to strikeout. When he did make contact (even on a pitch out of the zone), it was for hard line drives. He is very unpolished like you would expect from a college freshman. Jason Coats is a senior outfielder with a 954 career OPS. He has been drafted in the 12th round (2011), and in the game he set the record for doubles at TCU. He has power rated at 80 by Baseball Cube with 62 speed and 51 patience. I saw him as a guy with value tied entirely to his bat (Jim Callis of Baseball America believes I am basically right and that his stock has really slipped). He is not a good athlete and misjudged a ball out in left field. He has a power swing if he can control it, and worked long at-bats, but I didn't see him as a patient hitter (which is confirmed above). TCU had him bunting for some reason, and he hit a couple ground-balls. Derek Odell was TCU's lead-off hitter despite being just a freshman. He had decent patience, working 2 walks, and the 6-0 infielder could make nice contact with a big swing (it produced a double). Davy Wright is a red-shirt junior, and he started at 3rd base. He did not look good at the plate, fooled terribly on the breaking ball twice. He did have a fly-ball to center in a 1 pitch at-bat, but he also made a bad throw on defense. Wright has been downright awful at TCU with an OBP of just .185 in 38 games (58 at-bats). Josh Gonzales is a junior who is listed as an infielder but played DH (despite being small at 5-9 185). He had a long-AB that turned into a walk, along with a strikeout looking where he didn't swing during the at-bat. So it is safe to say he is a passive hitter. Brett Johnson played first, and like a prototypical first-baseman, he was slow (although he weighs just 180). Defensively, he had a nice pick and then missed a ball I thought he should have picked. The Sophomore showed some promise as a Freshman, with a .812 OPS with 73 Power. His Baseball Cube contact rating of 18 showed big time in the game though, as he had a big whiff and then a strikeout looking later on. Freshman Michael Resnick came in as a pinch hitter, and he had a big whiff but did earn a walk. He is 6-0 205, pretty big size. Zac Jordan is the rare 5th year senior type, and the outfielder was pitched outside for the most part. He end up chasing a breaking ball for a strikeout, and also reached for a weak ground-ball. He did show some power potential though, just missing a home run. Power is his best attribute, but it is just rated at 58. As one would expect from a player that has been in college for 5 years, he is really just kind of average with a career OPS of .803. Keaton Jones is another freshman, but he started at shortstop, and he did have a walk and a ground-ball. Lastly, freshman Jerrick Sulter was built like a safety at 6-4 235, and played CF. That is the kind of athlete you want, or so you would think. He was actually pretty slow, and really too big to play center anyway you would think. He hit a line drive off a pitch down the middle, but fell for a breaking ball and rolled over on it.

Baylor played its share of freshman too, such as right fielder Logan Brown. The relatively small player had a nice arm and gunned down a runner at home. He had a walk and a strikeout looking. Michael Howard played left field, and this freshman (who can also pitch), was awful at the plate. He struck out on a check swing, chased a breaking ball (even though he ended up walking in the at-bat), and had a hard time catching up to a 90 MPH fastball. Logan Vick, a junior, played center field, and had a nice arm but threw it to the wrong base once, allowing a runner to take an extra base. Offensively, he didn't have any patience, swinging at first pitches and low pitches out of the zone. There is some potential in that bat, as he hit a ball hard, had another fly-ball eaten up by the wind, and drove a fly-ball to center. It appears I caught Vick on a bad day though, as patience is his best attribute, walking a stunning 18 percent of the time in his first two years at Baylor. He had a huge +1.000 OPS year as a freshman but was awful his sophomore year, with an OPS barely above .600. The Vick I saw was the later, but this is why you should pay attention to both what you see with your eyes (and you should watch as many games as possible) and statistics.

Josh Ludy was the catcher for Baylor, and the senior had a plus arm. Here is him batting:

He had some nice long at-bats, one with fouls, but the results weren't always good. He did have an ugly check swing strike-out though. None of his attributes are rated very high, and he didn't really get regular playing time until he was a junior, and that wasn't really impressive. He has just a .785 career OPS, but I do see some potential in his bat and patience and I like him being the plate.

Jake Miller played shortstop for Baylor, and the junior had nice size at 6-3 200. Defensively he missed an easy ground-ball, and looked bad out there. Offensively, he was very hack happy, but did hit a line drive, a good fly-ball, and a long at-bat with a hard foul ball (before being pegged by the pitch). It is not shocking that his contact rating is just 6, with a 42 patience rating. He does have 82 power though and that is hard to find in middle infielders. He has to get better defensively though. Max Muncy played 1st base, and was pretty unimpressive with a big ugly swing and miss on a big swing and a ground-ball. Muncy has 80 power though according to Baseball Cube, and was listed as a catcher last year. His career OPS is fringy for MLB prospects at .907, and is basically worthless if he can only play first. Nathan Orf played DH, but is also listed as a catcher. He seems really small to play catcher, at 5-9 180. The junior batted lead-off for the Bears, but I am not a big fan of his swing. He had a line drive to center and a hard ground-ball. He did have decent speed with a stolen base. Cal Towey played 3rd, but can evidently play outfield as well. The Junior was absolutely fooled at the plate.

Out of the bullpen, Trae Davis was the first reliever for Baylor. The sophomore was short at 5-11, but had some weight and a violent jerk back delivery that allowed him to hit 90 MPH (he hit 91 MPH once for a strikeout looking) a lot. Overall, he was about 87-88 MPH with a 77-78 hanging breaking ball (he threw one about 55 feet). He did get a strikeout swinging, but he was getting fouled and hit hard, giving up a fly-ball. He then really lost control, getting a HBP and a walk. He was drafted in the 29th round by the Rangers out of high school, but really struggled as a freshman, walking as many as he struck out for a WHIP of almost 2.

For Nick Frey, I thought I would do something a little different and catalog his pitches. I just used approximate estimates, and it didn't quite come out like I wanted, but I think it is helpful nonetheless. The donut circles are fastballs (he was throwing 89-90 MPH on his fastball), while the arcs are breaking balls (he was throwing his breaking ball for 76 MPH). Blue is just the standard color, meaning nothing of note happened, while yellow means either HBP, wild pitch, or that he missed his intended spot big time. The dark orangeish color is swinging strikes, green is ground-balls, and red is fly-balls.

Frey appeared in 10 games last year, and had a WHIP of 1.26 and 5.65 K/9IP.

Joe Kirkland was probably the most effective reliever and pitcher overall in the game. Like the majority of the pitchers in the game, he was throwing about 89-90 MPH on his fastball, but his fastball had some kind of sink and nasty movement. He struck out Jason Coats on a really long at-bat, which you can see here:

His breaking ball was around 77-79 MPH, and he got 3 strikeouts on it, including one looking outside to a lefty (Kirkland is right handed) that was just nasty. He was certainly making hitters swing and miss, and he is just a freshman! He was keeping the ball outside to righties, it was when he started losing control and it drifted to the middle he was hit hard. He balked, and also lost control in the bottom of the 7th and had back to back walks before he was finally taken out.

Justin Scharf broke the trend of cookie cutter pitchers with cookie cutter fastballs by being a submariner who was throwing anywhere from 70-81 MPH in warmups:

It appeared he could live in the middle of the plate against righties but he did vary locations. You could see how he could have serious control problems on a bad day but be a ground-ball machine on a good day. He was brought in to face a lefty and was successful, it doesn't appear that he is just a platoon righty. He gave up 3 ground-balls and a hard liner to Logan Vick, who he couldn't put away despite dominating early in the count. Both inherited runners ended up scoring, and he also hit a batter. Scharf previously pitched at Paris Junior College, and had quite a bit of success, with an ERA under 3.

Kevin Allen is a big (6-1 210 seemed a little conservative I thought) junior right hander who was throwing 89-90 MPH with an 80 MPH breaking ball. His breaking ball was getting some really nice swing and misses, as he got 3 strikeouts swinging on it. He also hit a batter (it seemed like everyone did), and was really reaching back in his delivery. He spent the previous 2 seasons at Weatherford College, where he posted good ERAs with almost a strikeout an inning over just over 100 innings.

Doug Ashby was another sidearmer who didn't get even close to 80 MPH in warmups. He did get a swing and a miss, but it is really hard to imagine this stuff is going to work on a higher level, especially against righties (who were the first 3 batters he faced). He gave up a hard hit liner and a walk.

The last pitcher I saw was Kolt Browder:

Browder had a herky jerky delivery with a strange "pull-back" arm motion. He had control issues early on and walked the first hitter. He was throwing about 97 MPH, and evidently pitched terrible. I left after he pitched to the first batter (the game had already lasted 3 hours, it was getting late and I had everything I needed), and Baylor was winning at the time but ended up losing by a few runs.

Scouting Reports on Dallas Baptist and Texas A&M Corpus Christi

On Thursday March 1st 2012, I went and watched Dallas Baptist and Texas A&M Corpus Christi

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.

Boomer Collins is sort of a stocky redshirt junior outfielder who made a bad throw. Offensively, he chased two breaking balls out of the zone and looked awful doing so. However, he did demonstrate some patience in some other at-bats, and had a ground-ball, and a walk. He was way late on a fast-ball down the middle, but hit a 2 run homer in a later at-bat. He is a good base-runner and is not a "burner", but runs well enough and had a nice steal.

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). 

Scouting Reports on Southlake Carroll and LD Bell High Schools

On Friday March 2nd of 2012, I went and watched Southlake Carroll and LD Bell, two 5A high school teams in the Dallas/Fort Worth Area.


LD Bell's starting pitcher was Blake Henderson, who you can see pitching here:

He wasn't throwing real hard, but he had nice speed differential with an okay off-speed pitch. He tended to put it in the strike zone, and it is not a pitch you want in the zone. He really got away with a lot of pitches that were middle height. He struck out the first two batters swinging, but overall he gave up quite a bit of contact, and didn't get any help from a poor defense (both squads had major infield problems with unimpressive outfields). He got hit pretty hard in the 3rd inning, but got a lot of ground-balls early.

For Southlake Carroll, the starter was Greg Miasto (I apologize if I misspell any Southlake Carroll players, as there was no roster on-line, and Perfect Game thought it would be funny to send me a roster of Carroll high school in Corpus Christi Texas), who you can see throwing here:

The lefty had a weak breaking ball that was all over the place. However, when it went further than 59 feet, it is effective and tempting to hitters. He had a turn in his delivery in an attempt to hide the ball, but it really let runners get a bunch of easy steal. For the most part he didn't give up hard contact, but he really had no idea where the ball was going. He had some velocity, and a nice low fastball. He got 4 walks and 4 K's (one on a breaking ball, and one where he blew a heater by a batter). In the middle of the 2nd time in the order he had a pitch driven to the wall, and was done in just 1 and 2/3rd innings and gave up 5 runs (although he got absolutely no help from his defense). Offensively, he had a reasonably big cut but he had slow bat speed and had a major hole in his swing.

The first reliever (I don't have a write-up on every pitcher that pitched in this game) for Southlake was William Shudd. He was a reasonably tall lefty with an extremely weak breaking pitch. He struggled to throw strikes and most everything was up in the zone.

Preston LeBrone was the next reliever, and he wasn't throwing hard. He had bold locations in the strike-zone and was actually throwing strikes for the most part. He had the ball absolutely crushed out of the ballpark and was really getting knocked around. He had an ugly wild pitch, but was getting strikeouts despite unimpressive stuff.

Notes from the lineups:

The most impressive player for Soutlake Carroll by far was Darien Mclemore, the son of former Ranger and Mariner Mark Mclemore. He was relatively small in size (he wasn't skinny but he wasn't pudgy), but on defense he had nice hands on defense, with a nice arm (even though he was a little slow getting the throw off). Offensively, he had a nice swing with some pop, but I don't think he projects to have much power. He was ahead of a breaking ball but he scorched a line drive and grounded out in two at-bats that didn't count this video:

To go with the pretty quick Mclemore, the catcher for Southlake Hayden Zier also ran okay. He had a mediocre swing and was pretty small for a catcher. He had a nice arm but has some problems throwing back to the pitcher. Kenny Hill had good size but swung at a horrible pitch for a ground-ball and just had a bad swing overall. The left fielder Chris Allamon struck out once, but had 2 line drive singles (one was rather weak though). He didn't run very well. Austin Tyrone was the first-baseman and he was a similar story with a good size but bad swing. He also was atrocious defensively.

LD Bell's best hitter was their catcher Taylor Empkey. Defensively, he had a nice stop behind the plate and gunned down a runner. Offensively he had a 5 pitch walk, a long at-bat with decent contact, and a home run on a weak breaking pitch that went maybe 380-390 feet so would be just a deep fly-ball normally. I never got to see him run because of silly high school courtesy runner rules. Here is a video of one of his plate appearances:

Gavin Gregory played centerfield, and he was small and struck out. Devin Bural was the pinch runner for Empkey and was also small, and he stole 2 bases. Toby Brown played 2nd base, and he was short. He had a slow swing with not a lot of patience. Trevor Podsednik played shortstop and was terrible at it. He had a walk on offense. Sydney Daley is someone who impressed me with his size (especially his height, I figure he will fill out more). However, he wasn't very good at baseball. He was awful in the field at third base, and was eventually taken out. Offensively, he had an open stance on the right side and made weak contact and had an ugly strikeout. Cullen Gassaway was the first baseman and had okay size. He had a not very good late swing with holes in it. However, he had a good take indicating a good eye and drove a ball to the wall. Joe Dean Shipp was the small left-fielder, and he was pretty slow.

Scouting Reports on UT of Arlington and Stephen F. Austin

I went and saw Stephen F. Austin play at the University of Texas at Arlington on Sunday February 26th.

UTAs starter was Lance Day, who threw 86-88 MPH (I was sitting around a couple of scouts with radar guns). Day is a senior right hander who went to Midland Community College previously. As a Freshman, he had 11 bad innings, but recovered as a sophomore, and had struck out 6.54 batters per 9 innings in his two years there. His first year at UTA (2011), he had a 3.62 ERA, .279 BAA, and 5.94 K/9IP (with a 2.29 K/BB ratio). At just 6-1, you would like to see more size to generate better velocity. He gave up lots of fouls early, but he got 4 strikeouts (2 looking and 2 swinging). He could throw his breaking ball for strikes (and he loved his breaking ball), but it seemed like he liked the strike zone a little too much considering his stuff. He had lots of short at bats. He could get some swing and misses, and kept the ball away consistently. He had a great two batter sequence in the 4th against two righties by keeping the ball away. He lost control in the 8th, and even though he had decent control most of the game, but when he hung the breaking ball it would be crushed by power hitters. Defensively, he didn't have a great route to the ball but made a good throw, and covered first well. He really reaches back in his delivery, as you can see here:

While he was able to get some hitters to chase off the plate, his low strikeout total was pretty consistent with his career averages, and the ball was really being hit hard. He left a lot of runners on base, and threw a wild pitch with runners on. His fastball did get high, and with his velocity, it seems unlikely he can live up there.

Cameron Gann was the starter for Stephen F. Austin, and the small freshman was throwing 84-86 MPH. He didn't get any of the first 3 hitters to swing and miss, but hothing was hit hard either. His plan was to go low and away to lefties, but it didn't always work. Overall, he kept the ball pretty low, but had a ball crushed for a ground rule double (the hardest hit ball of the game). His wild breaking ball wasn't fooling a lot of people, and it couldn't throw it for strikes consistently. His fastball was high and mostly unimpressive (as the velocity shows, it didn't look like he was throwing hard either). One scout really liked his potential, but he had control problems through out. He wasn't helped by a little zone from the umpire for the most part, but he couldn't make the ball go where he wanted. He did have a good pickoff move, and fielded the ball back to him perfectly (even though it was soft off the bat). Like Day, he was clearly a contact pitcher, and he end up having a high LOB %. Here is some video of Gann:

It was a low scoring game, and as I wasn't really impressed with either starter, I wasn't impressed with the hitting either for the most part.
Preston Beck was one of the more impressive hitters, as the 6-2 190 RF had long at-bats that I really liked. The Junior had a really long at-bat before grounding out, a decent-length at-bat that lead to a fly-out, a walk, and another reasonable long at-bat that ended in an infield fly-ball. Beck had a team leading 31 walks in 2011, and lead the team in hits in 2010 as a freshman. He is a legitimate prospect with that bat of his, and you can watch him here:

Brent Bollinger was another guy I liked, as the junior 3rd baseman made 2 great plays at 3rd, one on a spike then a great throw. He was hitting the ball harder than anyone else, and smacked a ground rule double after one long at-bat. He had a good eye, and wasn't falling for the breaking ball. He did strikeout on a pretty nasty pitch, probably Gann's best pitch of the game, but he creamed another double as well. He also had decent speed, meaning he could do everything you can do on a baseball field pretty well. He originally went to Midland for Junior College, and amazingly had to walk on to UTA. Here is him batting:

Daniel Garcia played catcher for UTA, and he had a nice arm, and a walk and a 1 pitch ground-out before being pinch hit for. The red-shirt sophomore hit just .214 last season. Cody Dyvig was the pinch hitter, and he grounded out, seeing just 2 pitches. Dyvig was actually better in 2010 than 2011, hitting just .243 last year. Greg Mccail caught after the pinch hit, but didn't bat.
The 2nd base/shortstop combo for UTA was pretty weak defensively. Michael Guerra was the 2nd baseman. He starts open stanced but then closes it to normal as the ball approaches. He couldn't lay off the breaking pitch, and hit 3 ground-balls, 1 for a double play. Ryan Walker played short, and he had a bouncy stance at the plate, and could foul off pitches outside the zone. The sophomore is small at 6-0 155 with decent speed (he stole 11 bases in 2011). He was also tempted by the breaking ball, but had a long AB that turned into a grounder. He hit .322 as a freshman, with an OBP of .387 as a freshman. He may be a guy to watch out for next year. Jordan Vaughn played first base, and they had him trying to bunt, which probably tells you what you need to know about his bat. He did get a hit to the left side on a long at-bat for an infield single. He grounded out both to pitcher and catcher, as well as having an infield pop up.
Derek Miller usually plays in the middle infield, but played DH on the game I saw. He is listed at 6-1 175, but seemed small. He seemed to have a decent eye, but had a 1 pitch flyball out, and a pop foul out. They also had the freshman bunting. Phillip Incaviglia is the nephew of former Astro and Ranger Pete, and the senior had a fielders choice ground-ball, a ground-ball, and a nice lineout. He is a passive type hitter, and that cost him when he watched a hanging breaking ball he should have crushed. He is really small, at 5-10 170 (or so he is listed) and was picked off.
Brandon Lawrence played center field and is a little bigger at 6-0 185. He had a big arm and runs pretty well, but wasn't a very smart baserunner. He had a sac bunt, a walk, and a double:

At Blinn Junior College in 2011, Lawrence hit .444, giving you a lot of confidence in his bat to go along with his other tools.

Stephen F Austin's lineup:

Zach Benson was a junior that spent time at San Jacinto Junior College where he was pretty good as a freshman with a .373 batting average, but regressed to .287 as a sophomore (5 homers in those 2 years). He was a hacker falling for breaking balls, and had a short compact swing that robbed power but pulls the ball for medium strength liners. He got a weak grounder on a huge breaking ball, with a fly-ball out, and a ground-ball that snuck through. Hunter Dozier played shortstop, and reminded us of Hunter Pence with his build and look. He doesn't run well at all the scout near me complained, and he has a hole in his swing.

He struck out on a 5 pitch at-bat on a breaking ball, and had a 1 pitch ground-out
and flied out on a pitch down the middle. He did have a nice throwing arm, and the combo of him and the 2nd baseman turned a very good double play.

Fola Lajide is a junior outfielder who doesn't have great speed. I do wish he was bigger, but he hit the ball almost to the wall. He also struck out swing and had a hard ground-out. Max Lamantia played 1st, and it looked like he did a decent job getting to grounders. It did look like he had a hole in his swing, but struggled with breaking pitches. He struck out three times with a ground-ball. The DH Jordon Lenaburg could spoil pitches off well, and had a line drive out. He did whiff on a breaking ball, and had a good luck ground-ball. He was then pinch run for. The pinch runner was Corey Bartkowiak, a freshman outfielder. He is really small, at 5-6 150, and he walked in his at-bat. Bobby Loveless pinch hit, and was jammed and flied out to the infield.Adam Mann also pinch hit, and even though he is listed as a catcher, he played 1st base. He had an ugly check swing on a breaking ball, and the senior eventually had an ugly swinging strikeout. Rene Moreda, the 2nd baseman, had real nice speed, but is pretty small at 5-9 150. He had 2 long drive singles, and a ground-ball up the middle. Michael Ruiz was another small infielder, and was a small ball type play. He fouled off a bunt, but then finished off the sacrifice later in the at-bat. He grounded out on a hit and run, and had a shallow fly-ball out. Ricardo Sanchez is a 6 foot outfielder, at 185 pounds. He had a full count ground-ball, an unsuccessful sac bunt, a ground out back to pitcher, and a short swing line-out.

Jarid Scarafiotti was the most impressive Stephen F. Austin hitter:

He was stocky at 5-11 230 (and was probably bigger than that) and played catcher. He had a bad throw early on, but made a good one later in the game, and it appeared he had a pretty good arm. He blocked the plate well on a play at the plate, but he really wasn't able to move well enough to block pitches. In my opinion, while it would enhance his value greatly if he was, he isn't a real catcher. With the bat, he was fooled on his first pitch and had a ground out on his first at-bat. However, he pulled a single, and had a relatively deep fly-ball, and another 1 pitch fly-out. The Senior has struggled so far this year, but has hit at least .306 in the 3 previous years. He hasn't ever slugged .500, but has an OBP of around .400. He is going to have to either hit for more power, or improve his catching, but if he can do one of those things, he will be a nice prospect for the draft.

Now for the bullpen pitchers:

Cody Priest threw 87 MPHs out a sidearm. 3-5ths type of delivery (reminded me of the way Scott Feldman used to throw when he was a reliever):

It looked like he was trying to put the ball low, but it stayed pretty high. His breaking ball was for strikes, but high strikes. It seemed the ball went everywhere but low, as his major control problems led to 2 HBPs.

Alex Moshier was throwing 92 MPH, and keeps his hands high and hides the ball well:

His delivery has a slow start, as did his outing as Bollinger, the first hitter he faced, creamed the ball off of him on the first pitch. His second pitch was a nice swing and miss, but 2 of his first 3 pitches turned into hits. His breaking ball did have swing and miss stuff, his fastball just isn't as overpowering as he thinks it is.

Michael Morales:

Morales was throwing 87 MPH, and was kinda hefty and turned to hide the ball (Brian Fuentes like, but not quite as drastic):

He got a strikeout swinging, but I am afraid that delivery won't work against lefties.

Adam Westbrook was throwing a measly 83 MPH, and was brought in to face a lefty:

However, the lefty was pinch hit for and Westbrook jammed the right handed pinch hitter. He got another grounder, and had a goofy kind of curve-ball that sits inside on lefties.

Kasey Merck was throwing 90 MPH on his fastball, and 80 MPH on his breaking ball:

He has a violent delivery where he throws his whole body around, and seems to sacrifice control for velocity (and he had no control, throwing one in the dirt, and then one down the middle).

Freshman Chad Nack can hit 95 MPH, but I didn't see him pitch, plus he is a freshman, so there is no reason to focus on him yet.

Big thanks to UTA RHP Sam Hansen, who I sat next to at the game, for giving me some radar speeds and some other information. Good luck and best wishes to him on recovering from Tommy John surgery. 

Scouting Reports on Abilene Christian and East Central

We went and saw Abilene Christian (again) play East Central University. The main reason I wanted to go see them was because Jordan Herrera, the reliever that impressed us last time, was starting for ACU. Here is one video of him:

Like any normal person, I obsessively categorized nearly every pitch and made half a page full of jumbled notes. His fastball tended to stay high and to the left (that is inside to right-handed hitters, and outside to left-handed pitchers), but he left the fastball down the middle for a sac fly. As one would expect in a transition from a reliever to a starter, he had less swing and miss stuff, giving up quite a bit of fouls. He got 3 strike outs on 7 swinging strikes with 15 looking strikes. He had some problems with his breaking ball, as he left it up too many times and got hurt when he left it down the middle. When its good, its nasty and low and away from righties, but you would like to see more of it acting like that. He was also able to locate one of his breaking pitches on the low inside corner to righties. Control problems were notable, as he had 3 wild pitches and 21 balls (versus 22 non contact strikes). He had a needlessly long at-bat that turned into a walk against a not very good hitter. He seems to be considerably poorer against lefties,which is something he needs to clean up if he is going to be a starter. He seemed to lose velocity and effectiveness as the game wore on, and had some questions about put away ability as a starter. I really thought they left him in too long, and he was the victim of back to back drops. He gave up 6 fly-balls and 3 other infield fly-balls, and most of them were soft fly-balls. He walked 2 batters, with a questionable hit by pitch, with only 3 ground-balls versus 4 fly-balls. In the end, I wasn't as impressed with Herrera on Saturday as I was a couple weeks ago, but he throws hard (he appeared to throw harder than a guy that I know was clocked at 88 MPH), and could be a draft prospect as either a reliever or starter. Here is another video of Herrera:

East Central's starting pitcher was Eric Fredrick, a 6-4 lefty from Pima Community College. There, he was very unimpressive, with a 4.92 ERA and 5.4 K/9IP and more walks than strikeouts (in high school his ERA was 4.3). Here is him throwing:

He doesn't throw real hard, and even with his size he still would fit in the "crafty lefty" category. He got some called strikes on a breaking ball, which can neutralize righties. He also got a swinging strikeout on a breaking ball out of the zone to the number 9 hitter. However, the ball was getting scorched of his bat, and he was staying high in the zone and ran into some control problems in the 3rd. He did find a nice low fastball in the zone to get a couple strikes on Rodge Macy (more on him later). I was impressed with that, but wanted to see more and as his previous statistics would indicate, he wasn't consistent with it. One positive thing that was out of the ordinary was that he definitely got better as the game went along. That is, it didn't help hitters that they had seen him 2 or 3 times, which means he is not a "one trick pony" and can showcase different pitches to get out hitters. On the defensive side, he seemed stiff and was not a good fielder, and made a disastrous throwing error. As "stiff" would suggest, he wasn't very fast at getting to first. In my mind, he isn't much of a pro prospect, as he doesn't have velocity or consistent command. The bad high school and community college statistics did surprise me though after watching him pitch.

Here is a second look at the Abilene hitters, most notably Conway and Macy. Kyle Conway DHed again, which was disappointing, as I wanted to see him field. I will just assume he isn't very good in the field (or else he would be out there), and is a bat only prospect. Speaking of bat, here is Conway batting:

Conway drew a 7 pitch walk, and his only swing was a foul. He had a 4 pitch ground-ball, with 2 foul-balls in the at-bat. He was pitched outside in the 2nd at-bat, and pulled a line-drive and got a double on a 4 pitch at-bat. He also had a 3 pitch foul-out.

Rodge Macy was the guy I really liked the first time I saw Abilene, as I really like his patience and pitch recognition (and Conway's is pretty good too). Macy was little bit disappointing, with two 5 pitch strikeouts, one swinging on a high fastball, and a check swing strikeout. He did have a 4 pitch walk, and a 3 pitch grounder for a single. Macy did come in to catch late, and had a meh arm. If he can catch even okay, it enhances his offensive value. As expected, here is some video of him hitting:

Some other notes from Abilene Christian's lineup:
Duncan Blades played 3rd base instead of first like last time, and it appears he fits that position better. I'm still not sold on his bat, but he had a long at-bat and hit the ball hard his third time up (after two very forgettable plate appearances).
I was again impressed by catcher Emmett Niland's arm, but he dropped an easy fly-ball. He doesn't block the ball very well, which is a problem because of his small size for a catcher. All they wanted him to do was bunt it seemed, which tells you all you need to know about his bat. Tyler Eager dropped an easy fly-ball (Bruce Gerhardt also dropped a similar one) as a centerfielder, and nearly made a nice diving playing and missed that as well. He does have a decent arm. Chuck Duarte had a nice double, and Ryan Luckie pinch hit and got a hard double, and runs pretty well.
Brady Rodriquez, who started the last game we saw and really struggled, was used as a lefty specialist, got a lefty to ground-out and then was taken out. 6-4 230 right-hander Michael Curtis was then brought in as a reliever.

Curtis uses both his size and his reaching back to gain velocity. He had a high leg kick and seemed to hide the ball well. However, his breaking ball is slow and stays up. He threw a wild pitch, and gave up lots of fouls. His first two at-bats were 1 pitch (fly-out and infield fly-out on a pitch out of the zone). He got a ground-ball on a breaking ball in a 3 pitch at-bat, and jammed a guy on the 5th or 6th pitch of at-bat that turned into a grounder. He got yet another grounder on the 4th or 5th pitch pitch of an at-bat, a 3 pitch ground-ball, a 2 pitch hard ground-ball, and a 6 pitch ground-ball. While they didn't hit the ball too hard off of him, the no strike-outs seem to imply that he doesn't have a swing and miss pitch (and it certainly didn't look like it watching him).

East Central Lineup:
Jeff Schmidt played some nice defense at 3rd, but looked overwhelmed in his second plate appearance. He had a 6 pitch fly-out, where he chased a low pitch. He had a strikeout, a flyout, and got jammed on a long AB for a grounder.
Jeremy Stein chased a low pitch for an infield fly-out (one of 2 such fly-outs), and had an ugly 3 pitch strikeout. As one would guess, Stein didn't hit for much (an OBP of around .330), but stole 17 bases (out of 18 attempts). Ethan Gold had a 3 pitch soft fly-ball, a 4 pitch fly-ball, a line drive single, a ground-ball on a long AB, and a 2 RBI fly-ball. Greg Hamrock had real questions about his pitch recognition, with a ground-ball and an infield fly-ball (he did scorch a line drive just foul). Hamrock hit .330 at Rio Hondo College. Jonathan Ramos fell for a breaking ball, had a 1 pitch fly-ball and a long walk. Ramos was decent at Indian Hills Community college, with a .335 batting average and .424 OBP (with 1 homer). Gilbert Guardado didn't hit for much at San Diego City College, with a batting average of around .270, and it isn't surprising watching him hit. He is listed at 5' 8", but that is very generous. He had 2 ground-outs (8 pitches seen in total), and struck out chasing. Chris Montgomery was the catcher, and it appeared that he had a good arm. He doesn't have much of a bat though (not in junior college or at East Central), as he had 2 straight 1 pitch at-bats, a line drive sac fly, an ground-ball, an infield fly-ball, and a hard line drive. Joel Pirez was one of the few guys that started that didn't go to junior college. While listed as a catcher, he played 1st base. He had an ugly drop on a foul ball, a 5 pitch ground-ball off a high fastball, tried to bunt for a hit unsuccessfully, a line drive, and a 6 pitch ground-ball. I really wasn't impressed with any of these hitters.
The only hitter left was Rick Hepworth, who I found interesting, and I still can't tell if its in a good or bad way. He stood at 6 foot 7, so freakishly tall for a baseball player, and is built to only play first. In 2011, he hit just over .300 and actually pitched some (but is no longer listed as a pitcher). He has not much bat speed, and was way late on a bunch of pitches. He also was a baserunner, but had long really patient at-bats. He had a walk, a deep fly-ball, and a 3 pitch ground-ball.

We stayed for the first inning of the second game of the double hitter to get a look at both starters.
Clint Cooper of Abilene Christian:

He seemed to keep the ball low using a low arm angle, but he hit a batter. He gave up a hard hit grounder to a lefty on the first pitch, which was low. He struck out another lefty looking, and he was trying to keep it outside to lefties, producing grounders.

Will Grimes of East Central is 6-3 (even though both Cooper and him were listed at 6' 3", Grimes was clearly taller) but kinda skinny at 195. Here is him:

He has a big slow delivery and it seemed like he had more velocity than Cooper. Tyler Eager had problems catching up with his fastball early in the count but eventually hit it hard when he did catch up. His breaking ball cut middle in to right handers. He also hit a batter, and made Conway look bad on a check swing and later gave up a deep fly-ball on 4 pitches. He got Macy to ground-out on 3 pitches.

Thanks to my girlfriend Rachel for helping, mainly with the videos.

Brandon Moore of Arkansas University 2013 Draft Prospect?

I have been writing a lot on 2012 MLB draft prospects at seattlesportscentral.com (as well as on this blog), but as Brandon Moore isn't eligible to be drafted until the 2013 draft, I decided to put it on here. Moore is a sophomore pitcher at Arkansas, and here is a short video of him pitching against NorthWesternern State:

I watched him throw the first few innings in this game, and that is what I am going to give the scouting report off of. He has a good pick off move, but did make a throwing error in the game I watched (I have recently been thinking about how pitching defense is underrated). Moore gave up 4 runs in the second despite nothing hit very hard off of him, and ironically, the hardest hit ball in that inning end up being a warning track out. He didn't overwhelm me with swing and miss stuff but he did get a nice K on the bottom corner with a breaking ball. He knew how to put that pitch down low where it couldn't really hurt him and still get strikes. I would imagine he gets a good groundball rate. It still didn't seem like he got anyone to swing and miss, it just usually wasn't for good contact, which could very well be just the inferiority of the hitters, and it was an inferior lineup, as their best hitter was actually pitching. Moore didn't appear to have intimidating velocity, but reportedly throws around 90 MPH. According to Baseball Cube, Moore has 70 control, and is 64 against Power, but has just a 10 K-Rating. So just as my impression was in a couple innings of watching him, he doesn't strike out anyone, but the ball doesn't get hit that hard off him. Last year as a freshman, it proved to be effective, with a 3.45 ERA, and .38 HR/9IP despite striking out just 4.86 per 9 innings. My first reaction to someone not being able to strike anyone out like Moore is to dismiss them. Strikeouts have proven to be the most predictive pitching statistic, and it is hard to get runs if you can't hit the ball. The dismissal shouldn't be so quick though, as the Twins have traditionally always went after contact pitchers, and have had quite a bit of success (and one can think of a handful of pitchers who didn't strikeout people and were still successful, but strikeouts do matter). So as long as that contact is consistently soft contact, contact pitchers can survive. With that said, there are some problems with Moore. He isn't consistently getting soft contact, as he allowed more than a hit an inning, and had a WHIP of 1.32, making it seem like he was a beneficiary of a high LOB %. Moore is going to have to either miss more bats, or consistently give up softer contact (preferably both) to be a real legitimate big league prospect. 

Scouting Reports on Abilene Christian and Southern Arkansas

On Sunday February 19th, we watched Southern Arkansas at Abilene Christian (we watched the first game of the double header, but didn't stay for the 2nd). Abilene's starting pitcher was Brady Rodriquez. He is a lanky 6-1 180 LBS pitcher, who didn't throw real hard and seemed to fit the bill "crafty lefty" quite well. Here is a video of him warming up (he threw harder than he did warming up, we weren't actually quite concerned when we saw him warming up):

Rodriquez had a loopy breaking ball that he could throw for strikes, but it also seemed to stay up, and that problem got worse as the game moved along. He did have problems throwing strikes at times, with two walks and a HBP. He struck out just 2, and only had 1 swinging strike (but 11 looking). Neither starting pitcher had swing and miss stuff, and it produced a ton of foul balls. Rodriquez was hit pretty hard too, giving up 3 line drives, 5 fly-balls, and just 3 grounders. He gave up 5 hits and 5 runs, with a balk in 3 and 2/3rds. Rodriguez originally went to Ball State but transfered after he was red-shirted, and was awful in his Freshman year at Abilene, giving up nearly 2 hits an inning with an ERA of 9.99.

Souther Arkansas' starting pitcher was Janson Carr, a 6-4 225 LBS Sophomore, who also plays 3rd base. He threw harder than Rodriquez, but had some kind of "shot put" like delivery. His pitches, unlike Rodriquez's, stayed up very high. He didn't strike out any one and hit 1 batter (but walked no one). Abilene was pretty patient and made pretty good contact, fouling off a bunch of pitches and hitting 4 line drives off Carr. He only got 1 swinging strike and 9 looking strikes. He got 3 ground-balls to 2 fly-balls. He end up giving up 5 runs off 6 hits in 2 and 2/3rds:

Abilene's relievers were much more impressive, beginning with Jordon Herrera a 6-3 200 LBS JR. who went to Wharton College where he had a 3.71 ERA in 2011, better than his team average of 4.52. In high school as a senior, Herrera a 1.69 ERA and was on the Houston area all-star team. Against Southern Arkansas, he gave up no fly-balls or line drives, and got 5 grounders (4 of which snuck by for hits, the defense was awful in the game as a whole, more on that later). He had nasty breaking stuff that led to 7 swinging strikes and 6 looking (it also led to 2 wild pitches). He struck out 4 batters, but let 2 inherited runs score in 1 2/3rd. No one on either team was chasing pitches out of he zone before Jordan Herrera came in and he had Southern Arkansas chasing.

Austin Palmer was brought in as a lefty specialist and faced just one batter, walking him and getting one strike looking. He had a strange deceptive delivery that tried to hide the ball. Palmer is a junior who spent 2 years at American River College. He was 6-4 but didn't seem to get a whole lot of velocity on the ball. At American River, they tried to use him as a starter, and it was a disaster, with an ERA near 7 in 2010 and a 6.74 ERA in 2011. He had exactly as many walks as strikeouts in those two years. He is certainly a LOOGY, but one that doesn't seem to over power or have much control:

Sam Malchar was another junior from Wharton College, at 6-1 and 200 LBS. He had a big stride in his delivery and had a 3.79 ERA as a Sophomore in 2011. His biggest problem was that he left his breaking ball up quite a bit. He got one ground-ball and one fly-ball, with one walk and no strikeouts (2 looking strikes):

The 9th inning man was junior Josh Stone, who was a power type pitcher that threw reasonably hard. He previously went to Richland College as a freshman, where he had a 7.88 ERA. However, as a Sophomore at Midland College, he was pretty good, striking out 7.56 per 9 innings (you would like for him to strike out more) with an ERA of 1.75 and striking out 3 times as many as he walked. He got 1 swinging strike, 4 looking strikes, and 2 strikeouts. The only contact he gave up was a fly-ball:

For Southern Arkansas, the bullpen was not impressive, as Joey Cifuentes was the first pitcher out of the bullpen, and the senior had control issues with a wild pitch and just struggled to throw strikes. He walked 1, got 2 ground-balls with 1 line drive, and 3 strikes looking. In 2/3rds of an inning, he gave up 1 hit and no runs:

Devin Avery had a violent delivery, and left his breaking ball up in the zone. This led to the ball really getting smacked around as he gave up 2 hits, 3 runs in 1/3rds of an inning. He gave up 2 line drives and hit a batter, getting 3 strikes looking but no ground-balls or swinging strikes:

Justin Parsons wasn't any better, giving up 3 runs on 4 hits in 2 innings. He had a wild pitch, but he got 3 swinging strikes with a strikeout (5 looking strikes). He gave up 2 ground-balls and 2 fly-balls.

Sheldon O'Dell was the best Southern Arkansas pitcher, but still walked 2 and only struck out 1. He had a delivery that started slow with a pause and then fast. He got 4 looking strikes and 3 swinging. He had 2 wild pitches, with a fly-ball as his only contact given up.

The most impressive position player by far was Rodge Macy, who is listed as a catcher but played right field. He has a good build as a junior at 6-2 210, playing previously at Vernon College. In 2011, in 94 AB, he had a .362 BA and .419 OBP with 6 SB and 8 CS (0 HRs). He certainly had the best at-bats in the game, with a 6 pitch line drive, 6 pitch HBP, 5 pitch line drive, and 5 pitch HBP (he also made a pretty controversial, at least the call was, out on the base paths). If he can catch (as we will see later, the Abilene catcher was good behind the plate and that is probably why we didn't see Macy there) and hit for some more power, he could be pretty valuable. Here is Macy:

                                                                                                                                                                                                       

Abilene's 1st Baseman was Duncan Blades, an extremely small first baseman at 5-10 180 LBS. The senior made a good throw home that got a runner, but also dropped a very easy fly-ball. He had a Sac Bunt, a 2 pitch liner, a 7 pitch walk, and a 7 pitch line drive. Obviously the 3 real at-bats were good, but the size is really concerning, the roster has him listed as an infielder and not exclusively as a 1st baseman. He has hit over .300 in all 3 years in college with a .343 average in 2011 as a junior. You do need more than just 3 homers in slightly over 100 at bats though. 

Luke Mejia played in the infield, and the junior bunted for a hit, and had 2 ground-balls averaging 3.5 pitches per a plate appearance in those at bats. On defense he showed a lack of range. Here are a couple of videos of him that were already on Youtube (as you can see there is not much going on with the bat):

                

                                                              Emmett Niland was the catcher, who also pitches (but didn't pitch in the game). He showed why with a good arm, and he threw out a base runner. He bunted himself out by hitting himself with the ball outside of the batting box, had a 6 pitch ground-ball, a 6 pitch walk, and a 3 pitch ground-ball. He really is small as a catcher at 5-10 and 180 LBS, and one would imagine that lack of height doesn't help him with velocity as a pitcher. He hit .316 and .288 with 2 home runs in his 2 years in junior college. It is a shame that he doesn't really project as a hitter, because he does have a nice arm behind the plate. 

Tyler Eager played center field, but is also listed as being able to play first (although he is also small for that position, it is bizarre that Abilene seems unable to find a big 1st basemen). He is just a freshman out of a high school in Fort Worth, Texas. He hit 3 fly-balls (averaging 4 pitches per plate appearance in those at-bats) and a line drive. He may be someone to watch out for in the future:

 

Chuck Duarte was another infielder that didn't show much range, partly because he is really slow (as he showed on the base paths). He had a sac bunt, a 1 pitch line drive, and a 3 pitch ground-ball. So not impressive with the bat, but he had a .457 OBP at Western Texas College in 2011 as a Sophomore, but made 10 errors with a fielding percentage of .962. He will have to hit the cover off the ball at Abilene to really make up for lack of tools.

Ryan Luckie came in as a pinch hitter, and plays the infield. The senior had a 6 pitch strikeout and a 2 pitch fly-ball.

Travis Schuetze played some brutal 3rd base by missing a ground-ball, making an error on another easy play, and missing another line drive. He compounded this by being a pretty bad base-runner. He hit two grounders, walked and struck out. 

Mike Keegan had a nice size, at 6-2 215 as an outfielder who also catches according to the team roster. He hit a liner on a 4 pitch at bat and a grounder on a 3 pitch at bat. Last year at American River College, he did a good job of getting on base, but didn't slug much, with an OPS of .937. One would expect his size to improve his slugging, but we will have to see. 

Finally, Abilene's DH was Kyle Conwell, and he was listed at 6-1 200 LBS, but appeared lanky. One would have to count on the junior filling out. He hit .330 with 6 homers at Western Nevada as a freshman, and had a .491 OBP at Western Nevada as a sophomore. He was drafted in the 22nd round of the draft out of high school, but obviously didn't sign. He saw 13 pitches in 3 AB, and had two grounders and a line drive. He didn't particularly stand out to us, but he has hit in JUCO, and is obviously a prospect. He evidently cannot field, as he has played DH every where he has been.

For Southern Arkansas, Rafael Thomas had 2 errant throws, and was not fast (at least as fast as he thought he was) as he was caught stealing and then thrown out at home. As a senior, he is 5-8 180 LBS. He had a 5 pitch walk, a line drive and a 2 pitch ground-ball.Here is a picture of his batting stance, I still can't figure out who it reminds me of: 

Jody Spain played 2nd base, and is a 5-11 175 LBS senior. He had a 3 pitch FB, a ground-ball and 2 strikeouts. 

Ryan Bell had problems at third, as he should of caught a foul ball and made an ugly throwing error. He had 2 ground-balls and a line drive:

 

Trey Buck played some of the worst shortstop I have ever seen. He had a bad dive on a ball up the middle that gave him no chance, had a terrible arm, and made 3 fielding errors on balls hit right to him. I thought basic baseball wisdom was that you play your best infielder at shortstop. Southern Arkansas is in some serious trouble if Buck is their best infielder. He is listed at 5-7, but that is very generous. He had 3 ground-balls (in which he say 15 pitches), and a 5 pitch walk. Unless he was a world class bat, which he's not, it wouldn't make up for his bad defense. 

Kyle Fillier had two long at bats, averaging 7.5 pitches per plate appearance, but they both ended with strikeouts, 1 looking and 1 swinging. The senior was pinch hit for by a junior: Philip Menou. Menou had one of the worst bat speeds you will ever see. He is 6-6 and listed at 220 LBS (probably a bit smaller), so good size, but he had two awful at bats where he had a 3 pitch strikeout and a check swing ground-ball. 

David Allday played 1st base, and made a nice stretch play but made a bad throw. The senior swung at low pitches, and had 2 ground-balls and 2 fly-balls averaging 3.75 pitches per plate appearance. Jason Dahl played RF with not much range, and hit 3 fly-balls and struck out. Outfielder Gavan McCauley played center and missed a ball on a dive and has a pretty weak arm. He had 2 ground-balls (averaging 4 pitches per plate appearance in those two PA), with a walk. Catcher Ryan Dardenne saw 12 pitches in 3 plate appearances with a line drive, strikeout, and a fly-ball.

Thanks again to David Withers (Big D from Football picking), who is on Twitter at @davidwithers18.