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Red Sox Select Blaze Jordan, 3B/1B, DeSoto Central (MS)
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Post by Chris Hatfield on Jun 19, 2020 15:53:10 GMT -5
Thanks for this, ramireja. Jordan, at age 17, playing at least a level above his age for years, has been considered not just a remarkable power hitter, but a good hitter, “comfortable in the box” and able to “manipulate the bat” for hard contact. Taking what was given by a pitcher or a defense is a skill not all major leaguers possess, and this kid already demonstrates that skill. That he was anticipated to be around the top of his 2021 draft class is not a throwaway line. Being a celebrated prodigy since he was 13 was bound to develop granular scrutiny along with the praise. Yes he could flop. He is a 17 year old high school junior turned professional, a very young prospect. Nevertheless, in a crazy brief draft, the Sox took a likely 2021 first round talent a year early, and will have that extra year to help him develop all elements of his precocious talent. All good. FWIW, just as a point of information, I don't believe it's correct to say that he's been playing "at least a level above his age for years." He only reclassified last May, and he's been playing at age-appropriate levels near as I can tell. Paul Toboni discussed traits he has at the plate that they look for that they think are innate, specifically the ability to process the pitch out of the pitcher's hand and recognize pitches early. And of course, there's the prodigious raw power. But as our conversation with Jim Callis last night (PODCAST NOW AVAILABLE) showed, he's not considered a lock to hit, and Mississippi isn't exactly a baseball hotbed for high schoolers. Jim said there's an enormous gap between possible outcomes for Jordan - he might hit 40 HR a year, or he might fail to get past Double-A. I think that makes sense - if there wasn't, he wouldn't have gotten to pick 89, even if that was in part due to signability.
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Post by ramireja on Jun 19, 2020 16:26:59 GMT -5
Thanks for this, ramireja. Jordan, at age 17, playing at least a level above his age for years, has been considered not just a remarkable power hitter, but a good hitter, “comfortable in the box” and able to “manipulate the bat” for hard contact. Taking what was given by a pitcher or a defense is a skill not all major leaguers possess, and this kid already demonstrates that skill. That he was anticipated to be around the top of his 2021 draft class is not a throwaway line. Being a celebrated prodigy since he was 13 was bound to develop granular scrutiny along with the praise. Yes he could flop. He is a 17 year old high school junior turned professional, a very young prospect. Nevertheless, in a crazy brief draft, the Sox took a likely 2021 first round talent a year early, and will have that extra year to help him develop all elements of his precocious talent. All good. FWIW, just as a point of information, I don't believe it's correct to say that he's been playing "at least a level above his age for years." He only reclassified last May, and he's been playing at age-appropriate levels near as I can tell. Paul Toboni discussed traits he has at the plate that they look for that they think are innate, specifically the ability to process the pitch out of the pitcher's hand and recognize pitches early. And of course, there's the prodigious raw power. But as our conversation with Jim Callis last night (PODCAST NOW AVAILABLE) showed, he's not considered a lock to hit, and Mississippi isn't exactly a baseball hotbed for high schoolers. Jim said there's an enormous gap between possible outcomes for Jordan - he might hit 40 HR a year, or he might fail to get past Double-A. I think that makes sense - if there wasn't, he wouldn't have gotten to pick 89, even if that was in part due to signability. I think Gerry is referring to some of the Perfect Game info I had posted and the fact that he's been playing against older competition on the national showcase (even more impressive than limited to MS) for years. The dude has played a ton on the national circuit, so I wouldn't be too worried about the level of competition in MS alone if that was a concern. Consider that in 2017, Blaze Jordan was 14 and homered at the 14u, 15u, 16u & 17u WWBA and WWBA World Championship in Jupiter. Here is a snippet of his performance at the WWBA World Championship in 2017 where he homered off a guy three years his senior throwing in the low 90s: To be clear, I'm not doubting the range of outcomes or anything. I just think its worth noting what the dude has accomplished on the national showcase circuit because it's possibly unprecedented.
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gerry
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Post by gerry on Jun 19, 2020 19:04:24 GMT -5
Chris, Jordan himself said that he normally played above his age. It’s a badge of honor. I haven’t coached Youth baseball in decades so don’t know today’s rules about age classifications, but he could have been the youngest by a couple of years on his team and league. But from what I have read and heard he was more likely actually a wunderkind who played on teams the next age group up.
We used to do that for advanced players in both youth baseball and soccer leagues. Much like a freshman making the varsity team in HS. Don’t know if it’s still the practice, as leagues and league directors were getting increasingly rule bound-rigid even in the 70’s and 80’s. I suspect that evolved from ever increasing lawsuits in the last few decades of the 20th century. (Sorry’bout that.).
Meanwhile, I agree that his future is unknown, but so is the future of every promising high school senior in the draft. It is possible, even without a 2020 mLB season, that since he “graduated” as a 17 year old junior, even being from MI, he might have a coaching and developmental leg up on his fellow juniors who will wait a year to graduate from CA or FL or TX High schools into the 2021 draft.
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Post by Chris Hatfield on Jun 19, 2020 21:05:35 GMT -5
I stand corrected. Carry on.
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Post by philsbosoxfan on Jun 19, 2020 22:00:09 GMT -5
For what it's worth, I can only think of 3 athletes who gained notoriety at such a young age. Probably more but none that comes to mind.
Bobby Orr Bryce Harper Sean Burroughs
Doc Gooden a little older.
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Post by Chris Hatfield on Jun 19, 2020 22:02:11 GMT -5
Notoriety in the age of social media and YouTube is so much different though. What does "notoriety" even mean at this point? OK, so you've made a video that gets a certain number of views - is that the same thing as LeBron James in high school already being touted as the next great NBA player?
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Post by philsbosoxfan on Jun 19, 2020 22:29:57 GMT -5
Notoriety being relative to the overall picture during the era. I remember hearing about Jordan's 500 foot HRs at age 13. Orr was making the Boston newspapers at about the same age. Harper was turning heads at a So Cal scouting combine when he was 12 and Burroughs led his Little League team to a championship when he was clearly the best Little Leaguer on the planet. Gooden was probably 14 when his fastball was making the news.
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cdj
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Post by cdj on Jun 20, 2020 1:02:09 GMT -5
Prince Fielder was doing similar things at a young age in Detroit when his dad was there
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gerry
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Post by gerry on Jun 20, 2020 4:24:25 GMT -5
Some late nite thoughts re: Chris’s valid point about internet fame. Media evolves with technology. And always, from oral history to broadsides to print publications to Twitter, celebrity requires repetition of notoriety over a period of time.
In music, i.e., one hit wonders fade away even as their music lives on, whereas the Story of the Beatles is told and retold over generations. My kids and grandkids still know their names and sing their songs, thanks to Multi-media repetition over time.
I remember the shock in the publishing world when the editorial staff of a print publication, a N.Y. Times magazine, sent the first fully digitized layout to the printer entirely by modem about 25 years ago. Within a short time centuries of setting type and related gear, no matter how sophisticated, became relics. Such a huge change.
No matter the medium, Fame still requires being a “thing” over an extended period. It seem that 17 year old Jordan first gained national attention in the baseball world when he was 13, and his continuing feats have kept him, seasonally over 5 years so far, in the media (oral, print and online).
If he takes well to pro ball and his Paul Bunyan legend continues to grow he could be very good for baseball and the Sox. We may not dream on him as he starts his pro career, but we can certainly hope on him.
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Post by philsbosoxfan on Jun 20, 2020 5:20:28 GMT -5
We've certainly come a long way since the days when the only way to follow minor league baseball was when The Sporting News hit the newsstands every Thursday.
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Post by bucksmatthew on Jun 20, 2020 6:51:15 GMT -5
I spent a couple summers in the early/mid 70's w my grandparents on Cape Cod, and I could not wait for the Sunday Globe, as they'd do a very thorogh write up of minor league goings on, albeit only for the Red Sox players -
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Post by philsbosoxfan on Jun 20, 2020 8:00:14 GMT -5
I had a paper route for about two years. I'd start every day reading the sports of the Globe, Herald Traveler, Record American and Lowell Sun. Simpler times....
Little League, Pony League, American Legion Baseball, small town teams. Baseball fields with wild concord grapes and rhubarb surrounding them. No bike helmets, knee or elbow pads. You could drink water from a garden hose and live to tell about it.
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jimoh
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Post by jimoh on Jun 20, 2020 8:21:43 GMT -5
I spent a couple summers in the early/mid 70's w my grandparents on Cape Cod, and I could not wait for the Sunday Globe, as they'd do a very thorogh write up of minor league goings on, albeit only for the Red Sox players - Early 90s, Stamford CT: I would drive to a Barnes and Noble to read a week-old Gammons column for this info.
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Post by philsbosoxfan on Jun 20, 2020 9:21:45 GMT -5
I spent a couple summers in the early/mid 70's w my grandparents on Cape Cod, and I could not wait for the Sunday Globe, as they'd do a very thorogh write up of minor league goings on, albeit only for the Red Sox players - Early 90s, Stamford CT: I would drive to a Barnes and Noble to read a week-old Gammons column for this info. That seems strange. Early 90's I could get a Sunday Globe by Sunday afternoon and I was living in So. Calif.
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Post by redsox04071318champs on Jun 20, 2020 9:40:18 GMT -5
I'd spend my college years (early 1990s) running around to any and every convenience store I could find on Sundays in search of Peter Gammons' baseball notes column. That was must have.
Then I'd sit there and devour the stats for each team. The basics. Batting Average, HRs, RBIs, SB, ERAs, W-L Records, saves, etc.
Hell, I did that even after college, but I'd squeeze it in between Sunday morning softball and going to Subway to eat lunch.
That all stopped at some point in the next decade. I think Gammons stopped doing those notes or something. Plus I met my girlfriend (now wife) and the softball on Sundays ceased, too.
What this has to do with Blaze Jordan I don't know, other than the fun of remembering Peter Gammons always hyping up Red Sox prospects.
I remember this with Tony Blanco (who had serious power but wound up in Japan hitting HRs), Donnie Sadler (had me dreaming of what Mookie Betts would turn out to be - except in reality Sadler couldn't hit), and of course "Prime Time" Michael Coleman (had power and speed but couldn't hit enough to be a major leaguer, but at least he got us a couple of years of a good hitting utilty man named Chris Stynes), and of course the big hope, Christopher Trotman Nixon - well he wasn't really a superstar, but he sure didn't disappoint!
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Post by Ryanod1 on Jun 21, 2020 13:27:14 GMT -5
Blaze definitely had plenty of notoriety due to his prodigious HRs at such a young age, but it feels so different than a Bryce Harper type deal. Jordan I have heard of due to the HR power, but Harper I heard of early for being a generational talent. Social Media certainly put him on the board. The same can be said for Luke Little due to his video throwing 105, but it says nothing as far as doing anything but that as an overall ballplayer. More being able to do one rare thing.
All that being said it sounds as though Blaze has a ton of potential. I hope that it all just clicks, and he becomes a masher for us with a decent average. As long as he isn't the second coming of Willy Mo Pena then i'm happy haha.....although a few of Pena's homeruns were video game esque. Ill never forget his HR at Great American or the one he hit at Kauffman into the concession stands lol
Kauffman HR if intersted:
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Post by jbuttah on Jun 21, 2020 13:48:31 GMT -5
Didn't Pena hit a line drive home run that was still rising after passing the Green Monster?
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radiohix
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Post by radiohix on Jun 21, 2020 15:24:04 GMT -5
Didn't Pena hit a line drive home run that was still rising after passing the Green Monster? Hands down the hardest hit I have ever seen! That thing was a bullet! Thank God it didn't hit a fan 😂
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Post by Oregon Norm on Jun 21, 2020 16:38:14 GMT -5
I'm in agreement with Hatfield here. The potential range of outcomes is very broad, because of his age and the long road ahead, and because he's got holes he has to close or he won't advance to the majors. It's going to take real work to get that swing tailored to the demands of the upper minors, let alone the AL East. Hitting a bomb every once in a while is only part of the equation. He has to be able to make enough contact, and to show enough patience, so that the HRs are part of a regular stream of valuable at bats. There are an endless array of 30+ dinger guys who you would not have wanted on any team that has playoff aspirations. There's not enough there to pay them - on a regular basis - for the random long shots.
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jimoh
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Post by jimoh on Jun 21, 2020 21:40:17 GMT -5
Early 90s, Stamford CT: I would drive to a Barnes and Noble to read a week-old Gammons column for this info. That seems strange. Early 90's I could get a Sunday Globe by Sunday afternoon and I was living in So. Calif. I didn’t have any extra money in the Stamford years. I would just read it in the store. But they did not have them on the day of publication.
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Post by dirtdog on Jun 21, 2020 21:58:11 GMT -5
For what it's worth, I can only think of 3 athletes who gained notoriety at such a young age. Probably more but none that comes to mind. Bobby Orr Bryce Harper Sean Burroughs Doc Gooden a little older. LeBron James was anointed the next great thing in middle school. Also David Sills was offered a scholarship to play QB at USC as a 7th grader. He ended up at West Virginia as WR.
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Post by Canseco on Jun 22, 2020 8:26:13 GMT -5
Thanks for posting that Wily Mo Pena home run in KC. My buddy and I absolutely SLAMMED our beers for that one and proceeded to call for two boilermakers. What a blast.
In five or so years, maybe Blaze can inspire a re-enactment of the Pena-inspired beer crushing.
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Post by tyler3 on Jun 22, 2020 15:43:26 GMT -5
I know we still got time but has anyone heard about our guys signing...and specifically Blaze? I wonder if he’s holding stuff up and rumor is York is getting more than we all speculated.....
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Post by Chris Hatfield on Jun 22, 2020 16:06:17 GMT -5
The Red Sox don't announce signings until physicals come back, drug tests, etc.
Given that there's no games going on and no urgency to get deals done in order to negotiate with other players, we're not even close to the point at which there's reason for concern.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jun 22, 2020 20:10:00 GMT -5
I also remember Wily Mo Pena coming to bat after the red sox tied the record and hit four homeruns in a row against yankees. I said to myself we got this record 5, he chased three bad pitches and struck out.
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