By The Baseball Beginnings Guy
April 12, 2013
Chris Oakley is a guy I saw just a few times in the summer of ’12. Haven’t seen him since, so I don’t know where he’s at now. I’m not digging out my always extensive notes, so it’s time again to go on my memory.
By The Baseball Beginnings Guy
April 10, 2013
Jimmie Sherfy is a guy I’ve seen quite a lot of over the last four years, back to his high school days. Here’s a recent look and I’ll have some comments.
By The Baseball Beginnings Guy
April 5, 2013
Hey, look, it’s Tony Kemp from Vanderbilt, the Energizer Rabbit. My boss is staring me in the eye, so I ain’t got time to check my cards, let’s see what my memory says. Once again, without looking at the video.
By The Baseball Beginnings Guy
April 3, 2013
It’s late around these parts and I’m not in much the mood to go digging through my summer notes to see what I got on this guy. So let’s all sit back and see how good The Baseball Beginnings Guy’s memory is, oh, nine months later. And I won’t even look at the video before I write.
So this guy is an athlete. If you took Hunter Pence and played him at third this is what you would get — tall, lanky, gawky, wiry strong — the actions aren’t generic and that’s why you can like him. Rangy, mobile corner infielder, good hands, he can run, instincts. He can hit. Strong hands, short stroke, strength, he profiles. You had to go all the way out to that rock pile in Bourne to see him play, but I assure you, there was one other guy on that club, for next year, who I loved. Hey look, I saw Pence as a rookie in person. I was sitting in a press box and at the time, I wasn’t as good as I am now. I was a little bit like, what the hell is this guy all about? And I felt a little bit that way when I watched Moran, but the difference is Moran could play up the corner. Now I’m going to watch the video on the preview page and see if I agree with myself — and I’m going to do this in public — because I’m the Beginnings Guy, and you’re not.
By The Baseball Beginnings Guy
April 1, 2013
Ryon Healy is having a pretty good year up at Oregon, where every day is just another day in paradise, and doing a very fine job of just doing what he does since I’ve seen him on this site — hitting. Only now, we’re starting to see glimpses of some of the power I have always seen.
By The Baseball Beginnings Guy
March 29, 2013
Jeff McNeil is not a guy a lot of people know about, or have really ever heard of. But I gotta tell you one thing — he can run.
By The Baseball Beginnings Guy
March 28, 2013
I am a man of a million stories. One tale I like to tell is the one about the flame-throwing bonus baby who never used to run after he pitched. I never forgot that one. So when I came across another pitcher, named JD Busfield, last summer, I liked him. I saw him in fall. I liked him. I saw him in winter. I still liked him. And I saw him at the end of March and I still like him. This is the old scout in me talking, ya understand. But one thing I like most is that after he pitches, no matter where, he runs. He worked hard to transform his body. I love that kind of commitment and as I was taught by dear old Mr. Genovese — we have invented a device to measure the speed, but not one to measure the strength of heart. This guy has both ability and commitment, a rare find.
I ventured out to see this guy pitch against Canyon the other day, because a rivalry game in high school baseball can do for you what showcase baseball cannot — it can show you what a guy is made of when he plays a game that means something to him and the players around him. I’ve been to enough Perfect Scam and Phone Book (ok, that’s a poke at Area Codes) games to know that what some baseball people deride as “bad baseball” is actually the best baseball of it all, because you see who a guy really is when he’s playing for something other than himself. They cannot hide when it counts. Yeah, I’m old school. Pretty young to be old school, but old school nonetheless. You won’t find many people out looking where I do, and that’s part of the joy.
By The Baseball Beginnings Guy
March 25, 2013
Hey look, it’s Mike Lorenzen, back on Baseball Beginnings, which is back from being called Baseball Prospect Report and really kinda feeling better about itself. Onto the baseball…
By The Baseball Beginnings Guy
March 21, 2013
There is something to be said for a shortstop who can field his position. J.J. Altobelli is one of those guys. He’s not ever going to be the most toolsy guy on the field, but he’s a good athlete who is a solid average defender and knows how to play. That will get him a job as a senior sign this June, and from there, he’s going to have to grind, trust his instincts, work hard, and try to get himself in a spot where he’s in the right place at the right time.
By The Baseball Beginnings Guy
March 18, 2013
Kevin Ziomek is seen pitching here. Feed the hit, read the rest. I have a feeling these will be one of these write-ups that the big sites rip off and re-write.
