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2014 Official Spring Training Thread
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Post by jmei on Mar 27, 2014 10:33:24 GMT -5
What I've noticed this spring is he has gotten away from going the opposite way. He is trying to be a hitter that he is not and may never be. It surprises me how he is handling, or not handling, a 2-strike count. Instead of putting it in play and keeping the defense guessing, he is trying to drive it....often to the pull side. One day he will be able to do both without doing so much thinking. Right now he looks like he is trying too hard to show some power. His strength is getting to FIRST (whether by a walk or a single). Yes he gets his share of doubles. Yes he eventually will hit possibly 10 to 12 homers per season. BUT currently he is not playing to his strengths, and they are REAL strengths. As Norm states above, he will be better (and more consistent) than Carp, but he probably still needs to be in AAA for, at least, 2 more months getting back to his game.....and not someone else's. I had the same observation. Overpulling the ball is something he had problems with back in college as well, and for a guy who will succeed first and foremost by getting on base, his strikeout issues have long been a major concern. Bradley has 17 strikeouts in 54 at bats this spring, and he continues to struggle with inside pitches. As much as I've been pulling for Bradley to make the roster over Carp, I'm starting to think in the back of my head that sending Bradley to Pawtucket to work on his contact issues wouldn't be the worst thing in the world, though I still think that doing so makes the team worse in the short run.
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Post by philsbosoxfan on Mar 27, 2014 12:45:51 GMT -5
Alex Speier ?@alexspeier 40m Victorino in RF, Breslow pitching in Triple-A game
Brian MacPherson ?@brianmacp 10m Matt Barnes (shoulder) still not pitching at maximum intensity off a mound, will stay back in Fort Myers when camp breaks.
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Post by brianthetaoist on Mar 27, 2014 13:04:00 GMT -5
All of this ignores what's best for Bradley's development, btw. For me, the clear answer to that is a full season in the Majors. And I also think he's the best (all around) center fielder we have; Sizemore I've always liked but he's still such a huge question/risk that I don't think it's close. But worst case, he spends part of the year at AAA and the Sox retain an extra year of control, and I'm resigned to that possibility. Hopefully the Bruins will keep my attention through the Stanley Cup Final anyway. Actually, I think that the development argument is more towards him getting some more AAA exposure ... he still has some things to work on in his swing, imo, and a couple of months in AAA can help him, I think. All offseason, Bradley was the one guy I worried about with the Sox (well, Middlebrooks, too, I guess) ... I'm just not convinced he's ready quite yet. He could do it and get better on the fly in the major leagues, I think, but a little more time in AAA isn't going to hurt him, imo. But this is the side of the argument that gets a little too subjective and biased, so every opinion will vary. Still, though, not to be lost in all of this is the fact that Grady Sizemore has been effective enough to cause this discussion, a hugely positive thing to me. A good centerfielder who can hit makes this Red Sox team a potential powerhouse, possibly even better than last year (since I think the Sox will get better production from SS and probably 3B this year and have better pitching).
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Post by philsbosoxfan on Mar 27, 2014 13:18:12 GMT -5
In a hypothetical world, imagine the debate we'd be having right now had the Sox released Villareal instead of Kalish. We'd be split a bazilion ways but interesting to contemplate (to ourselves).
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Mar 27, 2014 14:08:05 GMT -5
So no one else thinks Carp is the next Big Papi? ADD: I thought I got to this conclusion at other people's egging (whether it was you guys or radio-heads etc.) so I'm not at all stuck in that opinion, it's just how I thought we all were until this week. I'm probably higher than Carp than anyone, based on two things. First, the notion that his good numbers last year were the result of being able to come off the bench and hit even while rusty, due to his swing being "low maintenance," just aren't supported by facts. He had huge splits, regular (in just two stretches) versus sporadic PT. I know I didn't hallucinate him hitting the holy crap out of the ball, and I do know that my brain is wired to not process all the lame PAs he had when he was playing sporadically. So, you can regress his BABIP, or you can do what Blengino did and use hit/fx to normalize his stats, and he comes out average, but if you do that with just his stretches as a regular, the corrected numbers are going to look really good. Like a guy who was hitting the crap out of the ball. The short version is that there's reason to believe that guys do hit better when playing every day. That's a factor you have to add in, and it probably offsets something like half the BABIP regression. The second thing is that I looked at his pitch/fx data in a great deal of detail, and there were profound improvements, and they seemed to fit a pattern. At the winter Boston SABR meting I asked John Farrell, during his Q & A, whether the team had known something and made a tweak, and he answered no, and gave the "low maintenance swing" theory. Which means it was something that Carp figured out for himself, which is actually even more promising. And one thing I'm pretty sure I remember from than analysis is that he improved a ton on outside pitches. And it just occurs to me now that what happened is moving to Fenway Park. I believe he made a conscious change in approach to exploit his friendly new park, and avoid its death trap for lefty pull hitters, a simple change that amounted to not trying to pull for power and instead use the whole field, and it made him a much better hitter. And he was already regarded as a pretty good one.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Mar 27, 2014 14:15:10 GMT -5
Brian MacPherson ?@brianmacp 10m Matt Barnes (shoulder) still not pitching at maximum intensity off a mound, will stay back in Fort Myers when camp breaks. Projected rosters have Jeremy Kehrt taking his rotation place, but I would have to think it would be Britton or Hinojosa. Or did they fail to get stretched out, even a little, in ST as planned? Even if they didn't, it would make more sense to start the season piggybacking them. Let them get the extra innings and development. PawSox have Hill and Layne in the pen from the left side, so having Britton start for a month would be painless.
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Post by jimed14 on Mar 27, 2014 14:16:44 GMT -5
So no one else thinks Carp is the next Big Papi? ADD: I thought I got to this conclusion at other people's egging (whether it was you guys or radio-heads etc.) so I'm not at all stuck in that opinion, it's just how I thought we all were until this week. I'm probably higher than Carp than anyone, based on two things. First, the notion that his good numbers last year were the result of being able to come off the bench and hit even while rusty, due to his swing being "low maintenance," just aren't supported by facts. He had huge splits, regular (in just two stretches) versus sporadic PT. I know I didn't hallucinate him hitting the holy crap out of the ball, and I do know that my brain is wired to not process all the lame PAs he had when he was playing sporadically. So, you can regress his BABIP, or you can do what Blengino did and use hit/fx to normalize his stats, and he comes out average, but if you do that with just his stretches as a regular, the corrected numbers are going to look really good. Like a guy who was hitting the crap out of the ball. The short version is that there's reason to believe that guys do hit better when playing every day. That's a factor you have to add in, and it probably offsets something like half the BABIP regression. The second thing is that I looked at his pitch/fx data in a great deal of detail, and there were profound improvements, and they seemed to fit a pattern. At the winter Boston SABR meting I asked John Farrell, during his Q & A, whether the team had known something and made a tweak, and he answered no, and gave the "low maintenance swing" theory. Which means it was something that Carp figured out for himself, which is actually even more promising. And one thing I'm pretty sure I remember from than analysis is that he improved a ton on outside pitches. And it just occurs to me now that what happened is moving to Fenway Park. I believe he made a conscious change in approach to exploit his friendly new park, and avoid its death trap for lefty pull hitters, a simple change that amounted to not trying to pull for power and instead use the whole field, and it made him a much better hitter. And he was already regarded as a pretty good one. I'm not sure if you caught this article, but it's pretty damn revealing. Basically it proves that Carp is more valuable to the Red Sox than anyone else. www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-most-interesting-al-contender-boston-red-sox/The Red Sox have finally figured out who has that "perfect Fenway swing" and can pick up mediocre players and make them look way better than they are. Maybe this is why they aren't getting overwhelmed with offers for Carp.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Mar 27, 2014 14:28:55 GMT -5
Brian MacPherson ?@brianmacp 10m Matt Barnes (shoulder) still not pitching at maximum intensity off a mound, will stay back in Fort Myers when camp breaks. Uhhhhhhhhhhhggggggggggg.
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Post by elguapo on Mar 27, 2014 14:34:44 GMT -5
Yeah, way too much hand-waiving and assumptions for me to consider that 'proven'. Carp had better numbers on the road and is a pull hitter - you notice Fenway is relatively unfriendly to fly balls to right - it looks like he got a couple of wall ball doubles but as eric mentioned Blengino's adjustments just normalize away Carp's superior performance beyond park factors. At least that's how I read it.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Mar 27, 2014 14:40:03 GMT -5
I'm not sure if you caught this article, but it's pretty damn revealing. Basically it proves that Carp is more valuable to the Red Sox than anyone else. www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-most-interesting-al-contender-boston-red-sox/The Red Sox have finally figured out who has that "perfect Fenway swing" and can pick up mediocre players and make them look way better than they are. Maybe this is why they aren't getting overwhelmed with offers for Carp. That's the article I mentioned (using hit/fx to normalize stats). Of course, Carp hit even better on the road then at home (916 OPS vs 854). I wish Bleningo had broken his analysis down that way. Edit: the one thing I'm willing to buy is that nearly all of Carp's well-hit balls to the deep outfield went into gaps or down the line. I looked at his PBP and he didn't have cheap doubles. But what I wasn't counting is deep line drive and fly ball outs, and he might have been low on those. It's also worth noting that Bleningo's methodology factors in only hardness and elevation to predict outcome, and ignores direction. I believe that hitting the ball down the line is probably a general skill that follows from using the whole field. In fact, that also has to be true (to a lesser extent) of finding gaps. Players who use the whole field are significantly harder to defend than guys who don't. I wouldn't be surprised if his analysis was off by 10% because of that. Fix that, and look at only Carp's regular time, and I think he's a lot better than a 96 wRC+.
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Post by jmei on Mar 27, 2014 14:57:23 GMT -5
The second thing is that I looked at his pitch/fx data in a great deal of detail, and there were profound improvements, and they seemed to fit a pattern. At the winter Boston SABR meting I asked John Farrell, during his Q & A, whether the team had known something and made a tweak, and he answered no, and gave the "low maintenance swing" theory. Which means it was something that Carp figured out for himself, which is actually even more promising. And one thing I'm pretty sure I remember from than analysis is that he improved a ton on outside pitches. And it just occurs to me now that what happened is moving to Fenway Park. I believe he made a conscious change in approach to exploit his friendly new park, and avoid its death trap for lefty pull hitters, a simple change that amounted to not trying to pull for power and instead use the whole field, and it made him a much better hitter. And he was already regarded as a pretty good one. It's an interesting hypothesis, but I don't see a ton of evidence for it being repeatable. Here's Carp's 2012 spray chart next to his 2013 spray chart. I don't see a ton of difference between the two charts, and if you scroll over his opposite-field fly balls from 2013, you see that only a few of them were Fenway-type wall-ball doubles (I see two doubles and a triple in 2013 on deep opposite-field fly balls compared to one double in 2012). Instead, look at that little cluster of blue down the left-field line. He got eight doubles on fly balls than landed just fair down the left-field line, five of which were fly balls without much hangtime (i.e., bloops). That seems to be the big difference in Carp's fly ball production last year, and that seems really flukey and non-sustainable to me. I'm thinking about hits like this on slicing fly balls that land just fair. If that's the case, then his PITCHf/x improvement on pitches away might just be a few lucky balls falling in down the line and not a sustainable improvement in his batted ball profile. (One caveat: when looking for video, I did find these two doubles that I couldn't really find in the spray chart. Maybe some of those doubles down the line in the spray chart are actually truly driven wall-ball doubles that Inside Edge marked as landing where the balls were ultimately fielded? Both those clips show the ball being fielded close to the left-field line, for instance, and I can't really fathom a hitter getting so many bloop doubles down the line like Carp apparently did. In which case, maybe some of that opposite-field production is sustainable after all, as at least some of the deeper doubles down the line are just wall-ball doubles that have their location marked funny.)EDIT: I found that there was a hangtime filter, which solved some of my concerns about wall-ball doubles being marked funny. Looks like of those eight doubles down the line, three were wall-balls, but the other five were bloops (if they were wall-balls, they would have had a much higher hangtime and/or a different location).
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Post by jimed14 on Mar 27, 2014 15:05:24 GMT -5
The other thing worth asking is if his IFFB% drop a blip or a trend? Probably too soon to say because of SSS.
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Post by jmei on Mar 27, 2014 15:27:36 GMT -5
Edit: the one thing I'm willing to buy is that nearly all of Carp's well-hit balls to the deep outfield went into gaps or down the line. I looked at his PBP and he didn't have cheap doubles. But what I wasn't counting is deep line drive and fly ball outs, and he might have been low on those. It's also worth noting that Bleningo's methodology factors in only hardness and elevation to predict outcome, and ignores direction. I believe that hitting the ball down the line is probably a general skill that follows from using the whole field. In fact, that also has to be true (to a lesser extent) of finding gaps. Players who use the whole field are significantly harder to defend than guys who don't. I wouldn't be surprised if his analysis was off by 10% because of that. Fix that, and look at only Carp's regular time, and I think he's a lot better than a 96 wRC+. Just saw this edit. I'm not sure that hitting the ball down the opposite-field line is a general skill, especially given the nature of Carp's opposite-field production. Remember, these are fly balls with a short hangtime that drop a little more than halfway between third base and the left-field wall, not hard line drives or even Papi-esque driven opposite-field fly balls. Indeed, I'm willing to bet at least a few of them are Fenway ground-rule doubles that bounce into the crowd that would otherwise be singles in a ballpark with different dimensions (or foul balls if the trajectory was a little different, or outs if the defender had more range or the ball hung up a little longer). Hell, as jimed points out, some might just be infield fly balls that traveled a little farther than average and end up as flukey hits in no-man's land. I do agree that Blengino's analysis is a little squirrely since it relies on non-public data and unclear methodology. For instance, he says he adjusts for park and luck, but is that a uniform adjustment based on park factors or does it take into account Fenway's unique dimensions? When he says that "should have been" is determined based on speed and angle off the bat, is it just vertical angle or also horizontal angle? (similar systems such as Hit Tracker do take into account horizontal angle, and it'd be pretty silly if HITf/x didn't). Does it take into account the hitter's speed? I have a sneaking suspicion that Blengino's articles only seem great because we only get a small peek behind the curtain and can't fully scrutinize the data for potentially countervailing evidence.
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Post by jimed14 on Mar 27, 2014 16:22:03 GMT -5
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steveofbradenton
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Watching Spring Training, the FCL, and the Florida State League
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Post by steveofbradenton on Mar 27, 2014 18:47:51 GMT -5
I have no idea where to put this rumor(?). I was at a minor league spring training game a week ago, and heard news about Kolbin Vitak. I just read Chris' (Hatfield) piece from the Twitter Feed that Vitek was not in camp. According to a Red Sox player's parents, Vitek has decided to retire. I have no idea if this is true or not. If this not true, I'd rather not mention the prospect's name.
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Post by Oregon Norm on Mar 27, 2014 19:26:03 GMT -5
Coming back from a trip. Listening to XM Radio and the Sox game. Mike Hazen being interviewed over multiple innings by the radio team. Lots of good stuff about Sizemore, Bradley, the pitching staff.
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Post by FenwayFanatic on Mar 27, 2014 20:36:33 GMT -5
Middlebrooks having another great game... I hope he quiets his critics this season!
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Post by philsbosoxfan on Mar 27, 2014 20:37:01 GMT -5
Stefan Welch is back in town, he's in the game now. For reference, I also noticed that Denning was playing for team Australia, CF and leading off. Middlebrooks having another great game... I hope he quiets his critics this season! Him and Xander have been on fire, even the outs are loud. Also according to tweeters, Grady's double would have been a HR in Fenway. . . . Maureen Mullen ?@maureenamullen 10m #RedSox roster moves: Breslow to DL mild L shoulder strain, retro to 3/21; Wright to DL sports hernia, retro 3/21. Now have 33 in ML camp. Maureen Mullen ?@maureenamullen 9m With Breslow to DL, #RedSox final pen candidates: Workman, Britton, Cordero, Layne.
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Post by Guidas on Mar 27, 2014 21:42:33 GMT -5
Middlebrooks having another great game... I hope he quiets his critics this season! Second that. Still a believer in Middlebrooks. Especially like what I saw when he came back from the injuries last year. It's just spring but the 3BB and 3Ks through 47 PAs is nice to see. Here's hoping he can get on enough to justify a 6 or so spot in the line-up.
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Post by philsbosoxfan on Mar 27, 2014 22:09:49 GMT -5
Excellent article recapping Grady's path to where he is by Brian McPherson. Who knows, Dr. Dyrek could get himself an honorary World Series Ring. www.providencejournal.com/sports/red-sox/content/20140327-sizemore-s-return-to-majors-followed-a-painstaking-plan.ece Numerous teams came to Arizona to see him work out. Boston initially wasn’t one of those teams. Only when Dyrek traveled to Arizona for a funeral did Ben Cherington and the Sizemore camp arrange an in-person meeting between the outfielder and the doctor.
At first, Sizemore thought it was a waste of time. He already was close to agreeing to a deal with the Cincinnati Reds.
But then Sizemore met Dyrek, a physical therapist best known for his treatment of Larry Bird late in the legend’s career — and everything changed.
Sizemore had spent five years baffling medical specialists with his various injuries. He’d spent five years trying rehabilitation programs that didn’t work. He’d heard “We don’t know what’s going on here” and “I have no idea” more often than he’d heard answers. Dyrek had answers.
“He’s the first guy who has understood not only how it happened but what caused it and how to fix it and how to prevent it from happening again,” Sizemore said.
For Sizemore, neither money nor an opportunity to win topped his priority list. Sizemore wanted to go to a team that would give him the best chance to get back on the field — and the Red Sox understood that.
“If you put yourself in Grady’s shoes — he’s a great player, and he missed this time to battle injuries — what are you looking for in an opportunity?” Cherington said. “You’re probably looking for a place where you know people. You’re probably looking for a place where there is opportunity if things go well. You probably look for a place that is able to put together a program that you feel like makes sense.”
When Dyrek outlined his plan, Sizemore was sold. Nothing he heard from Dyrek about the physiology of his various body parts and the way they interact was anything he’d ever heard before. The rehabilitation and maintenance program Dyrek designed was a complete overhaul of what Sizemore had been doing.
Sizemore was — and still is — completely on board.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Mar 27, 2014 22:21:18 GMT -5
Middlebrooks having another great game... I hope he quiets his critics this season! Second that. Still a believer in Middlebrooks. Especially like what I saw when he came back from the injuries last year. It's just spring but the 3BB and 3Ks through 47 PAs is nice to see. Here's hoping he can get on enough to justify a 6 or so spot in the line-up. There's an argument for this batting order: 1. Sizemore 2. Pedroia 3. Ortiz 4. Napoli 5. Nava 6. Victorino 7. Middlebrooks 8. Pierzynski 9. Bogaerts Which is what Farrell was doing early in ST, except with WMB and X swapped. In fact, in the AL, your worst hitter should hit 8th, and 7 and 9 should be about equal in caliber -- and if push comes to shove, there's an argument that 9 should be better than 7, too. The key thing is that you want the low OBP / high SA guy 7 to knock in the good hitters ahead of him, and the high OBP / low SA guy 9 to help set the table for the top of the order . Back when 6-7-8-9 was going to be Bogaerts, Pierzynski, WMB, Bradley, you had something close to that, with Bradley as the "2nd leadoff guy," but you had AJ and WMB swapped to keep the LR alternation. The above lineup is even better, and it takes pressure off of Bogaerts big-time. Edit: if he's massive, he can swap with Victorino. Note that more recently in ST, Farrell has been batting Victorino 2nd, with Pedroia through Nava moved down one slot each, and the rationale for that is clearly to get more tablesetters up before the big bats, since the 9 hitter in the lineup with Sizemore leading off was not a "second lead-off" type, but WMB. Now, if Sizemore is solid at the plate, but not one of your five best hitters, there are versions of the lineup where Victorino or Bogaerts leads off and Sizemore hits 9 (and Pierzynski and WMB hit 7 and 8 to keep the R/L thing). And there's also Victorino, Bogaerts, Pedroia, Ortiz, Napoli, Nava, Sizemore, Middlebrooks, Pierzynski, a very good but more conventional lineup. It does have Nava back-to-back with Sizemore, but if they bring in a LHP to face the pair, he has to face Gomes. (Which is to say, the one pair of lefties you can hit back-to-back on this team is Nava and anyone else.)
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Mar 27, 2014 22:40:49 GMT -5
OK, just saw Speier's story this afternoon about Farrell's intended lineup to start the season, which gives us: 1. Nava 2. Victorino 3. Pedroia 4. Ortiz 5. Napoli 6. Sizemore 7. WMB or X 8. Pierzynski 9. X or WMB Which is really good. Hope he does bat WMB 7 and X 9, but it's not a big deal, and in fact the determining factor should be player comfort with he slot.
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Post by philsbosoxfan on Mar 27, 2014 22:44:35 GMT -5
Just for fun, tat pic from 1907. Gomes has nothing on her.:
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Post by Oregon Norm on Mar 27, 2014 23:14:30 GMT -5
What a goof! I count five legitimate middle-of-the-order bats if Sizemore can hit with anywhere near the power he used to have, and Middlebrooks can actually make serious contact. Farrell's going to have to come up with some set of fairly stable batting orders, but it is not going to be easy. There's a bit of talent if everything comes together. Truth is that a lot of teams would put Nava/Gomes in that class also.
Mike Hazen, as reserved as he is, could barely contain himself when talking about Sizemore and what they've seen from him so far. He was with Cleveland back when they traded for Sizemore with the Montreal, in the deal that sent Bartolo Colon north. What had been a good player in A+, then turned into a power hitting speed-burner in AA. They thought they had something. Then he showed up and they knew it. He was asked to explain what sort of player he was at that time and he started dreaming out loud. He talked about how some have compare him then to Trout now. Te was quick to say that Mike Trout is the sort of player who's a once in a thirty year apparition, but that Sizemore had that kind of buzz, a physical freak who could do it all.
There was lots more. He talked about Lester, and Lackey, about how Bradley has hit at every level and that he'll hit in the majors also. It lasted four innings I believe, and it was very good.
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Post by philsbosoxfan on Mar 27, 2014 23:53:10 GMT -5
I have no idea where to put this rumor(?). I was at a minor league spring training game a week ago, and heard news about Kolbin Vitak. I just read Chris' (Hatfield) piece from the Twitter Feed that Vitek was not in camp. According to a Red Sox player's parents, Vitek has decided to retire. I have no idea if this is true or not. If this not true, I'd rather not mention the prospect's name. Spot on and still no reason to mention the prospects name, not something we need to know. Alex Speier ?@alexspeier 1m Former Red Sox first-rounder Kolbrin Vitek retires fullcount.weei.com/sports/boston/baseball/red-sox/2014/03/28/former-red-sox-first-rounder-kolbrin-vitek-retires/ … via @weei
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