Brewers workout a top cricket player

[Mass Haas]

So we'll see what comes of this...

 

Kieran Powell, Major League baseballer?

 

West Indies cricket: Kieran Powell worked out for MLB team the Milwaukee Brewers

 

Be sure to scroll all the way down on the article -- the placement of photos may lend you to think the article finishes early on...

 

http://resources0.news.com.au/images/2016/01/06/1227699/221196-c7e5c29a-b413-11e5-8950-280d9b0d7866.jpg

 

http://www.espncricinfo.com/db/PICTURES/CMS/181700/181757.jpg

 

"Privileged to be in the presence of my top mentors from the New York Mets, Cincinnati Reds and Milwaukee Brewers"

 

 

Powell's Wikipedia page

[Outlander]

Funny, I just watched Million Dollar Arm yesterday. They were pitchers though. One of them still is in the Pirates organization.

[Mass Haas]

A new full Q&A here, includes this text:

 

Sporting News: What did you learn from that first individual workout, with Milwaukee? What did you take out of that first experience?

 

POWELL: It was good. They just had me take some balls in the outfield, see how I move around and how I react to fly balls. They had me do some base-running work. Their guy had seen me hit before, so that wasn’t necessary on that particular day. He had seen me hit consistently for a week prior to that, so he’d seen the changes and the progression I’d been making. And fortunately enough, there was a current major-league player there that I was actually taking fly balls off when I was doing my workout. I don’t want to mention his name, but he was doing batting practice and I was taking fly balls for my workout with the Brewers from him. That was a massive advantage. That was amazing.

[Jenkins5]

I'd take a chance on him in a heart beat. The hand eye coordination you need in cricket is unreal & he is considered the best batsman in the world. I'm sure he can adjust to a baseball & bat with his natural gifts.

[brewmann04]

Yes why not it worth a look.

[jerichoholicninja]

I'd take a chance on him in a heart beat. The hand eye coordination you need in cricket is unreal & he is considered the best batsman in the world. I'm sure he can adjust to a baseball & bat with his natural gifts.

 

That's what I was thinking. The real question is how well it translates to baseball. I would guess he would be a line drive doubles hitter at best, very little in terms of homeruns. I'm not sure if there is an equivalent of balls and strikes in cricket but that could be an issue. Or not since I think in cricket you often times hit the ball off the bounce. He could have a Vlad Guerrero approach at the plate. Defense might be an issue but that hasn't bothered this franchise before. I say go for it. Stearns might have discovered that world class cricket players are the new market inefficiency.

[anglotiger]

I'd take a chance on him in a heart beat. The hand eye coordination you need in cricket is unreal & he is considered the best batsman in the world. I'm sure he can adjust to a baseball & bat with his natural gifts.

 

That's what I was thinking. The real question is how well it translates to baseball. I would guess he would be a line drive doubles hitter at best, very little in terms of homeruns. I'm not sure if there is an equivalent of balls and strikes in cricket but that could be an issue. Or not since I think in cricket you often times hit the ball off the bounce. He could have a Vlad Guerrero approach at the plate. Defense might be an issue but that hasn't bothered this franchise before. I say go for it. Stearns might have discovered that world class cricket players are the new market inefficiency.

 

It's a very different skill set, but some of those may translate in time. On the plus side, he has a "good eye" for seeing the spin on and hitting the ball, as YoungGeezy1 says, some athleticism and a good arm (which mean that he should probably have little problem in the outfield). Although he's a fine batsman - and you have to be very, very good to be successful at the international level in cricket - I don't think anyone other than his mother considers him the best.

 

As you say, in cricket you usually hit the ball on the bounce but any half-way decent player is usually going to crush a ball that doesn't bounce (a.k.a. a "full toss"). That said, in cricket you have 360 degrees in which you can hit the ball and have it be in play, which makes me wonder if he's going to foul off a lot of balls and be facing two strikes very quickly.

 

It'll be interesting to see, wherever he ends up, how well he makes the transition. I know that I didn't make it terribly well, and I was a great cricket player...

[dlk9s]

There's a user named "crickets" browsing this forum right now.

[3and2Fastball]

Defense might be an issue but that hasn't bothered this franchise before.

 

Ouch!!!!

 

Let's hope that is a thing of the past

[crickets]

There's a user named "crickets" browsing this forum right now.

 

I am Kieran Powell.....pretty upset you guys don't think I can play defense