Link Report for Games of Wednesday, June 4th

[dadofandrew]

he was HBP, which does not count as a PA

 

 

By the way, a HBP counts as a PA, but not an AB.

[markedman5]

Ok Joe have it your way.

 

Hardy is average. Always was always will be and no matter what anyone else says Escobar will be considered average until he gets to the majors and proves otherwise.

 

Happy now?

 

You know some of those same people also said Fielder had a little bit of power and Braun was a pretty good hitter.

 

Just because they may have overhyped Hardy's defense a bit doesn't mean every other evaluation they make is wrong.

[DHonks]

one thing to note is that if you're going on prospect handbooks of years past, Corey Patterson and Alex Escobar are annually among the league MVP vote leaders while Toe Nash is an all-star pitcher AND hitter.

 

Sorry, just adding some sarcasm there. I guess my comment Joe is to realize that it's easy to be enamored with players and overhype certain skills. We've all made mistakes with mis-using words to describe players.

[Mass Haas]

Final: St. Lucie (Mets) 8, Brevard County 4

Brevard County Box Score

Manatees trailed 6-0 after seven innings, tried late to no avail; Stephen Chapman with the only Brevard walk as patience is out the window as of late; tough day defensively as well -- four errors, including two by the normally solid Taylor Green; Chuckie Caufield with two doubles, Green two singles and little-used Anderson de la Rosa a home run pretty much all you can hang a hat on in this one; John Axford with a Josh Butler impersonation -- I know, that's harsh, sorry...

 

Brevard County Game Log

[Mass Haas]

Final: West Virginia 8, Kannapolis (White Sox) 5

 

West Virginia Site Game Summary:

 

POWER SECURE SEVENTH CONSECUTIVE ROAD WIN

 

The West Virginia Power used a three-hit performance from Zelous Wheeler and six strong innings from Amaury Rivas to defeat the Kannapolis Intimidators 8-5 at FieldCrest Cannon Stadium on Wednesday night to secure their seventh consecutive road victory.

 

The first five Power batters reached safely in the second inning. Steffan Wilson began the inning with a walk and got to third on Wheeler's first of two doubles on the night. Caleb Gindl walked to load the bases before Eric Fryer singled in Wilson and Wheeler. David Fonseca followed with a base hit to score Gindl and complete the three-run inning.

 

Wheeler's second double of the night scored Wilson in the third inning. Kannapolis scored their first run on Christian Marrero's solo homer in the fourth inning.

 

The Power answered with a three-run fifth. Jonathan Lucroy scored the first run on Dale Mollenhauer's errant throw before Gindl singled in a pair of runs. Kannapolis got two more in the bottom of the fifth inning on a solo homer from Sergio Morales and Luis Sierra scored on Mollenhauer's groundout. Wheeler struck again in the eighth inning with a two-out RBI single to plate West Virginia's final run. The Intimidators came up with two runs in the ninth inning. Jim Gallagher's sacrifice fly scored Mark Fleisher and Sierra singled in Logan Johnson but it was too little and too late.

 

Rivas (5-1) allowed three runs, two earned on six hits and struck out six to get the victory. Corey Frerichs (3) retired the first six batters he faced and surrendered a pair of unearned runs on two hits over three innings to get the save. Jason Rice (1-5) gave up four runs on five hits over three innings and was tagged with the loss.

 

The Power improved to 25-33 with the win and the Intimidators fell to 25-34 with the loss. West Virginia has not lost a road game since May 21st when they dropped back-to-back one run games in a double header against Lake County. They have improved their road record to 17-15 after losing six of their first eight on the road.

 

Every Power player hit safely at least once. Wheeler paced the Power with his three-hit performance and Wilson chipped in with a pair of singles. The Power struck out a season high 17 times, however.

 

The Power will continue the three game series against Kannapolis Thursday night. Left hander Dan Merklinger (0-4, 6.35) will get the start for the Power and the Intimidators will counter with right hander Miguel Socolovich (0-2, 6.91). The first pitch is scheduled for 7:05 PM (6:05 Central).

 

West Virginia Box Score

Everybody in the lineup had at least one hit and struck out at least once -- OK, you retrosheet.org types, how many times in a full major league yearly schedule would that happen, huh? Amaury Rivas zero walks, six K's -- we likey, we likey...

 

West Virginia Game Log

[JoeHova]

All I said was that I hope Escobar's defense is not being oversold. I didn't mean to get into a big thing. We all realize that prospect lists aren't perfect for many reasons and just because an analyst or fan missed on one player doesn't mean they will miss on every player.

 

markedman5- I'm not sure where you get that I said Escobar was average. For all we know he could end up being great or poor. When you said we won't know "until he gets to the majors and proves otherwise", that was kind of my point. Like DHonks pointed out, AAA is littered with guys that were can't miss prospects and had great tools. We can make (educated) guesses as to who will become a great player, but there is uncertainty even in trying to project offensive ability, which we have much more reliable data for. When you realize that defensive numbers are much less advanced and defensive ability is much more subjective anyway, I think it's easy to see how mistakes can be made in trying to project a guy to the ML level.

 

when I mentioned JJ's name, I merely was using him as an example of someone who had defensive scouting reports that he hasn't quite lived up to. My opinion is that he's further away from living up to those reports than most of you feel he is, but that's fine. As I said, defense is pretty subjective and the advanced stats often don't even agree with each other.

[filthyfrog]

I think uwisfan was right to point out that Hardy has lost some range and footspeed after his ankle injury. He probably had average range before, which, when combined with the hands, instinct, and the rocket, would make the minor league reports right. You can't blame the prognosticators for failing to predict that an ankle injury would cost him a step.