By The Baseball Beginnings Guy
February 23, 2013
Trent Gilbert is a guy John Stevenson wanted. One day when the original old man ran into the hitter’s old man, he said he wanted his kid. John had instincts. John knew what lean, quick, whispy left-handed hitters who were slow blooming white boys looked like. He coached the original South Bay model himself.
I miss old John, but I’m glad he got his 1,000 wins, and I’m even happier that I went off script at that rubber chicken lunch to say so. I mean, I guess I could have just creeped out all the softball players by leering at them, but that’s what the other guy was there for, and I was reading my Tris Speaker book while he was leering anyhow.
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By The Baseball Beginnings Guy
May 4, 2011
Trent Gilbert is the subject of today’s lesson, class. So what do I want you to tell me from watching this clip? No, the answer is not “Hey, he finally made it to Blair Field!” The answer has to do with…
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By The Baseball Beginnings Guy
April 26, 2011
Man, the 405 freeway sucks, but sometimes I get moments like this: fastball inside corner comes in at 85, goes out to right-center field on a line drive to 90. Real hitters, rare as they come, usually make my drive worthwhile. A few days later, at the field where John Stevenson carried his clipboard for all those years, this guy rapped out three more hits against a right-hander going to the Pac-10. I hope John took his clipboard with him, because I am sure he long ago put a circle around this boy’s name.
The best thing about Trent Gilbert is if I burn an afternoon to go watch him, he always hits for me. I can rattle off some names of some very high profile high school hitters in Southern California over the past two drafts who simply couldn’t hit high school pitching. Some of those guys who slumped then held out. They put themselves behind the 8-ball as young pros. Nobody cares what you did as an amateur once you sign on the dotted line. I never cared about all the excuses about, “Oh, this guy shut me down and messed me up.” Blah blah blah. I’m too nice to call them out. Hit or don’t.
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By The Baseball Beginnings Guy
March 29, 2011
Readers here know I have an affinity for the players who have tools and get no fair looks from the majority of pro scouts because too many people in scouting look only for the finished product and don’t look into the future. Somewhere this has changed, and it’s making the game a worse place to be.
I understand the pressure to deliver ready-made players, but the more front offices demand players who do no require development, the more costly busts they will absorb. They will sign too many players who are finished developing at a young age and maximized performance will be confused with upside. They will not have been scouting for the future, but for the present, and this is not scouting projection. This is scouting performance. This is the cardinal sin.
What happens when you have a player who performs but isn’t yet at physical maturity? What happens when that same player comes closer to physical maturity and shows the work ethic and most important tool for a position player closer to the draft? What happens when you have a left-handed hitter with hands – by that I mean bat speed and bat control, the even more scarce commodity that you can take to the bank – and he’s flying under the radar this late in the draft cycle?
You get a guy like Trent Gilbert.
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By The Baseball Beginnings Guy
March 29, 2011
Trent Gilbert actually drove the pitch to straight away center field the moment a train was passing behind the field blaring its horn. I swear, you can’t make this stuff up. Later, he laced another hit as the ice cream truck was playing that annoying music that gets stuck in your head for the rest of the day. But the best sound in this video is the sound of contact, and man, oh man, how I do hate the BBCORs. Only very few guys have the hand speed to make solid contact and not make my ears bleed. One of them is down in San Diego. And the other is seen right here in Torrance.
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By The Baseball Beginnings Guy
November 29, 2010
Trent Gilbert is going to be a new name to most of the readers here. He’s also a fine lesson in the fact that not every player who is talented enough to be at the Area Codes gets to the Area Codes.
I first came across this guy in 2010 when I was scouting his former high school teammate, Angelo Gumbs, who became a second-round pick of the Yankees. Gilbert was a little bit shorter last year, but you couldn’t miss the wrists from the left side. He helped himself when he had three hits against left-hander Gabe Encinas, another player who signed with the Yankees, who shut down Gumbs but couldn’t get Gilbert out.
Have a look at the video here and we’ll break him down a bit more. If the draft doesn’t beat a path to this guy’s doorstep, he’ll get to the University of Arizona, where he committed earlier this fall.
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