By The Baseball Beginnings Guy
May 31, 2013
It’s been quite a while since we rolled out one of these on Beginnings, so let’s go to the video and hear what Ye Ole Beginnings Guy has to say.
By The Baseball Beginnings Guy
May 14, 2013
As a man of a million stories, here’s another one. Ryon Healy’s senior year, I go see a night game. I can’t even remember who Crespi was playing anymore. I had seen Healy at Area Codes, where the broken bat didn’t dissuade me because the long double sold me. I had seen him at Brewers fall ball, and damn I loved the power. Then I went to check on him in the good old C.I. of F. Ran into an area guy I know. What do you think of Healy, I ask? College guy, comes the answer. I’m like, “Da (expletive)?”
Hey, I learned long ago never to doubt myself when I look at players, and I don’t care if the guy next to me thinks the guy we’re looking at is a college guy. People make mistakes in baseball all the time and they make them because they fail to take into consideration all the present variables that you might have to dig for in order to identify why or why not a guy is a major league prospect. This is why I don’t like the amateur baseball machine, the beauty pageant baseball, the pimping off of kids to travel teams, the collecting of hats and freebies along the way. That doesn’t make you a major leaguer. What does? Let’s have a look at Healy now.
By The Baseball Beginnings Guy
May 3, 2013
I look at Brett Thomas and I see a guy who reminds me of something I learned a long time ago. It is the old belief that just when you think you’ve seen everyone you think you have come to see, you better not stop looking at all the players, because just when you think there’s nobody else, “Up Jump The Devil.”
Yes, I always remember old Jim Walton teaching me that, and anybody that Del Crandall trusted with his pitchers is good enough for me. So up at the University of Oregon, where many a scout has trudged to see Ryon Healy hit home runs and Jimmie Sherfy close games, is a left-handed hitting outfielder named Brett Thomas, who just might, “Up Jump the Devil.” And hey, you got nine innings to wait for Sherf, so look at the leadoff guy while you’re at it.
I look at Thomas and I see a left-handed hitter who lives 4.15-4.20 down the line, can play all three outfield positions and close the gaps in center, has enough arm to play, and is an athletic guy growing into the hitter with the strength and pop he needs to have in order to survive professionally. Thomas is the junior leadoff hitter at Oregon who has 14 doubles – one less than Healy, who the world agrees can hit the sh*t out of the ball – and he’s gotten better as his junior season has gone along. Healy’s got a ton of RBIs and Thomas has a ton of runs scored. Good aggressive base runner, can steal a base, can go first to third. That has value, but you gotta watch. If there is one hitter in that lineup who has helped make Healy better, this is the guy.
So ask me what his role is and I say major league fourth outfielder with defensive versatility, occasional pop, average to plus speed, playable arm and a hardnosed, hard-working attitude, who can be signed for cheap. I see Sam Fuld, who was a 10th rounder out of Stanford, the school that wears tight white uniforms from 1983.
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 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 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
February 11, 2013
Ryon Healy is a guy we have followed for some time on this here site, really, since we started. Most of the old scouts who influenced and instructed me could usually tell me the exact moment they really fell in love with a player that became a memorable guy for them. For me, I remember liking the BP at Area Codes back in 2009. But that fall, one very cold night at USC sitting down the right field line in the empty ballpark, freezing my ass off on some Wednesday night, I saw him in a BP group. And I didn’t see it, I HEARD it. I can still hear that contact whenever I watch this guy hit with wood. I call those sounds of hard contact “gunshots.” Gunshots, you only get those from good, strong, hands, wrists and that top hand — it’s the ability to get the fat part of the barrell around the good fastball middle-in. You want to know what makes a big league run producer, that’s what it is. That’s what Healy has.
There’s something else. That group Healy was hitting in, he wasn’t the most “famous” player. You know who was? Yelich. Now I liked Yelich enough. But the ball sounded different coming off Healy’s bat than it did Yelich’s bat. I didn’t have any more history on Yelich than I had on Healy. Obviously the industry loved Yelich. But I never saw Yelich as an impact power bat. I saw a guy who could hit with modest power. That probably ran contrary to many people. But I saw Healy as the sleeping giant, the power bat just waiting to come alive in the coming years.
And to be honest, Healy has been compiling a pretty impressive offensive history since he won the Oregon first base job at mid-season of his freshman year — actually pushing the guy off the bag and into another baseball program. So very, very quietly this guy has been just hitting, plain and simple, hitting in the Pac-12, hitting on the Cape, flashing power in a tough conference in a tough ballpark. Do I think there’s more power there than the stats say? I sure do. I always, always trust my ears first, and I firmly believe that raw power with hand-eye coordination means a guy has a chance to do good things in the big leagues. When he’s going good, he’s very short to the ball, and can drive it. But what strikes me most is how much better this guy has become in college, and how I don’t think he’s done developing.
By The Baseball Beginnings Guy
May 17, 2012
Aaron Jones is a guy I liked out of high school. Now it seems like I am not alone. He should go pretty good out of Oregon this year, maybe 5th round would be my guess. You’d need to polish him up as a pro to keep him behind the plate, where I think he’d have more value than in right field. I will give Jones this — many moons ago, after a high school game in his senior year (and I hope, Jones, you remember this, back when we were Baseball Beginnings), we walked back to the parking lot after that playoff game against Hedges. That day, Jones told me he was was bound and determined to blow past the two Area Code catchers, Sabol and Hernandez. I’d say he’s gone a long way toward meeting that goal.
By The Baseball Beginnings Guy
May 15, 2012
Jimmie Sherfy, have you ever shook hands with this guy? I swear, the Newbury Park guy has the longest fingers I have ever seen in my life. I’m serious. The guy has fingers like E.T. I’m shocked his fingertip doesn’t light up when he grips the baseball. But he does seem to be lighting up hitters this season anyhow. I remember well that night he pitched against Covey. Truthfully I was split at first. Then I saw him pitch at Newbury Park and I understood why I should like him — the sinking fastball and live arm. And I’m telling you, the E.T. fingers have a lot to do with that. They should put him in a basket and let Horton peddle him out of the bullpen and over the moon when he comes into the game. The E.T. theme should be his walk-on music. Hey, think I’m joking? OK, you get in there and face him, because I want no part of him. He probably will hate seeing some video of him in this look at UCLA, but hey, not all looks can be out of this world, right?
By The Baseball Beginnings Guy
May 14, 2012
Seems like only yesterday I was watching Jack Marder one dusty afternoon taking a mean BP at Newbury Park on a non game day, then going kamikaze nuts on ground balls at short, ranging for balls most other guys would have given up on. Then, the Oregon years, when he sold me the time I saw him get his hands inside the good Gerrit Cole gas. He had a brutal last year in college – and he’ll tell you that – but he moved to catcher and I’ve never seen anyone move so effortlessly behind the plate. He was banged up that year – bad ankle, bad hand – and I watched everyone I knew give up on him. Pissed me off. You either sink or swim with your opinion on a guy, but don’t flip flop. Have the courage of your convictions. Marder said, OK, went to the Cape, got his money, and off he went. The Mariners have blown some picks over the years, but he’s going to make them look good in the 16th round of 2011.
