Baseball Prospect Report

By The Baseball Beginnings Guy
August 9, 2010

Outfielder Charles Tilson was the player people came back to see. In his first at-bat he was hit by a pitch and then out on a double play. The infielder who turned that double play, Drew Stankiewicz, is growing on me. I’ve watched the infields and more importantly – the pre-game pepper – and the guy has soft, fast, and instinctive hands. These little things play huge in games but get lost in the radar gun, long-ball world. Playability matters when you’re playing games where scores count and getting paid to do so. To shore up the case, he had another hit, what I term solid slap, to left. It works just fine for the player he is.  The guy plays the infield as smooth as anyone you will find.

Catcher Greg Bird has a good body and a swing that invites a fastball. He hit a hard double to left-center, his opposite field. Defensively he’ll become more polished in the coming years, I suspect, but I look at him and see left-handed pop from behind the plate. And he did one thing that I love to see. Nothing warms my heart more than a catcher covering first in full gear. Beware the trailer, eventually they get you.

Johnny Eierman is a strongly built middle infielder, firm Midwest stock, who gave a gunshot base hit. Another infielder, who probably won’t be written up on too many of the expert rags, is a guy named Casey Thomas. He runs OK, solid defender, gave a slap single with a good sound, has physical projection. Not a star but that’s not the point – the makings of a very solid college player who could grow into a guy who gets more looks.

Jerrick Suiter got into his last game here and was 89-91, pulling down on the slider and the splitter, and showing some arm speed to work with.

Categories: 2011 Draft
Tags: 2010 Area Code Games, Casey Thomas, Charles Tilson, Drew Stankiewicz, Greg Bird, Jerrick Suiter, Johnny Eierman