Friday, July 31, 2009

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Eric Hosmer and Jeff Locke

Mike Moustakas

Danny Duffy

Wilmington Blue Rocks vs. Lynchburg Hillcats: 7/28&29/09

We headed down to Delaware to see the Wilmington Blue Rocks (Royals A+) face the Lynchburg Hillcats (Pirates A+). The Blue Rocks are especially prospect-laden with 1st round picks Mike Moustakas and Eric Hosmer anchoring a potent roster with includes 6 of The Royals top 15 Prospects.

Lynchburg:

Jose De Los Santos - The Hillcats lead-off hitter went 5-10 with a run and a stolen base over the two game series. As a 24 year old in A+, he probably won't amount to much in the big leagues but he showed solid contact skills, and good speed.

Matt Hague - The Pirates 23rd best prospect according to Baseball America, Hague went 2-9 with a stolen base and two strikeouts. He lined out hard and just missed a homerun to dead center but the stolen base isn't really evidence of his speed; the Wilmington catcher was absolutely horrible throwing out runners.

Jeff Locke - The prize of the Nate McLouth trade, pitched a gem took a perfect game into the 6th inning before giving up a homerun which ended up being his only blemish as his final line was 6 inning pitched, 7 strikeouts, 1 hit, 1 earned run, and no walks. He had an excellent 3 pitch mix highlighted by his superb changeup which he would throw in any count. His fastball had good movement but seemed to lack velocity and his curveball had sharp, almost slider-like break at the end, but thrown considerably slower. He had excellent control of all of his pitches and kept almost every hitter off balance.

Wilmington:

Eric Hosmer - The 3rd overall pick in the 2008 draft went 0-8 with no strikeouts. It was a rough series for Hosmer who grounded out in all but one of his at-bats. On the upside, he is one of the youngest players in the league at only 19 years old, so he has plenty of time to develop into the star that he was touted to be. He made a bunch of excellent plays at first base and should be a perennial gold glove candidate.

Mike Moustakas - The Royals top prospect 3-7 with a homerun and a double. Moustakas' most noticeable characteristic is his muscular frame, he couples his strength with a nice, compact swing which should allow him to hit for both power and average. Jeff Locke made him look silly in his first at-bat which ended with Moustakas flailing on one knee. He had a top-notch arm from third base and made a few nice defensive plays.

Danny Duffy - After being perfect through the first three innings Duffy fell apart in the fourth and left with an injury. His line ended up at 3.1 innings, 5 hits, 4 earned runs, 1 walk and three strikeouts. Over the first three innings he was absolutely dominant, his fastball sat in low 90's with good movement, his curveball was excellent and sat in the low-to-mid 70's with sharp 12-6 break, and his changeup had nice fade to it and fooled a batter so bad that his bat flew into the the dugout. As a lefty with three potential plus pitches Duffy could be a potential ace, check out the video in the post above above of him striking Matt Hague.

Videos of Moustakas and Hosmer will be available soon.

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Whats New

Hey Everybody!

We are now on Twitter! you can follow us at www.twitter.com/baseballstalker. We'll be at baseball games all day tomorrow (7/29) tweeting away so make sure to check it out.

We've also redone the site a little bit--be sure to check out the prospect videos on the right-hand side.

New game summaries involving top prospects Mike Moustakas, Eric Hosmer, Danny Duffy, Jesus Montero and more should be up by Saturday along with a few new articles next week.

Thanks!

Monday, July 20, 2009

Portland Sea Dogs vs. Trenton Thunder: 7/18/09

We decided to go to the game at the last minute on Thursday and missed the first inning, but we were treated to an excellent pitching performance by Junichi Tazawa.

Trenton:

Reegie Corona - The speedy shortstop went 2-4 with a double and made a few nice defensive plays. He has excellent range and a pretty good arm, If he can continue to develop at the plate he could be a solid big leaguer.

Portland:

Junichi Tazawa - Tazawa went 5 innings giving up 5 hits and 1 run while striking out 4 and walking none. His fastball sat between 90-91 mph throughout the game and ramped it up to 93 a few times with good movement. His curve was an absolute gem, sitting around 72-75 mph with excellent depth. He also showed a pretty nice mid-80's splitter, but most impressive, was his feel for pitching, he showed excellent command of his pitches, and 3 out of his strikeouts ended with the batter flailing on one knee.

Josh Reddick - We missed Reddick when we saw Portland earlier in the year as he was on the DL. He didn't disappoint, going 1-3 with a double, two walks, and an RBI, His double banged off of the wall in left center and came excruciatingly close to being a homerun.