We just wrapped the MLN Spring Report for the baseball 2007 season and I need a finger masseuse from all of the typing of player reports and notes for the FAB50.
We cover all of the teams in the Grapefruit and Cactus leagues, then digest what we find into the Spring Report to let you know who will be showing up at minor league clubs around North America.
Personally, I cover the Treasure coast teams and the clubs in the Fort Myers area for our publications.
There are times when I'm spring's lone ranger, because few, if any, of the "big league" publications spend much time at the winter pre-camps or even at the minor league pre-season. Particularly after I read some of their reports, generated back over the winter for consumption during the spring, I know that many of them are doing their work from books or Fall ball in the Arizona league or both.
I find that I draw some very weird looks from people when I tell them that I'm not interested in their upper forty players, and that I am there to see lower forty, NRI, and winter campers. 'What do you mean, you're not interested?' is the typical expression. You add the raised eyebrow or the silent, amazed disbelief here and there and you get many of my visits to major league camps.
I do want to take a moment and thank the St. Louis Cardinals for broadening their horizons to understand new media publications better this season. We were able to do a much more enhanced report on their farm this year thanks to Mr. Brian Bartow, the head of Media Relations for the World Champs. On the other hand, the Florida Marlins, who are still a bit pissed off that we called their "move" bluff with our "Fleeing Fish" feature a couple of years ago, still ban us from their spring facility, and the Oakland Athletics still are new media bigots.
I move througha lot of areas that few of the fans visit, pass right by guys like Johnny Damon or Pedro Martinez and don't really give it much thought. I'm more interested in what Glen Perkins has to say, or why even though there are reporters and people from the major league club touting the merits of Lastings Milledge, there are rumors of his impending implosion swirling around the other side of camp.
Being a reporter who covers minor leaguers is like being a music beat writer who hits the small clubs and "discovers" the next Beatles or U2: It is exciting to see some of these guys, particularly ones where the "common wisdom" states that they are going nowhere, take off and prove all of the "official" channels wrong. Actually, that's pretty easy to do. Players with great talent but small or non-existant signing bonuses, or without Scott Boris as an agent, often don't show up on the radar until they have busted out for more than a year. We catch a lot of these guys showing signs of greatness in spring and get them to you early.
It's not always about the numbers either. Truthfully I don't even care how great or awful that a player's spring numbers were. I'm not looking at their stats, I'm watching them like a hawk. Are they relaxed or uptight? Do they worry too much about who is watching them? Can they focus and get down to business with radar guns and a half-dozen coaches, many of whom are just around for spring, up their butt 24-7?
Every last one of these guys was talented enough to get here. Now it's beyond that. It's who can play psychological poker with the big boys, and keep producing in the pressure-cooker that is the run to Major League Baseball. Several players, like Delmon Young, were not ready even when Baseball America was singing their praises. They talk to the same scouts, so someone lacked the balls to say that the guy was having emotional issues over the last couple of years that were compromising his abilities on the field. This year, there are players like Chad Span (see below) who won't scream on to the radar, but they'll come at you stealth and suddenly be big league, because they have started showing the tools to survive the rigors of a major league career.
Frequently our FAB50 takes on conventional wisdom with unconventional wisdom, which comes largely from going out there and seeing what these guys are all about, what they can do, how their emotional state is, how mature they are, how well they work with instructors, etc. Most of our competitors don't bother with much beyond the stats and the scouting reports. You want to know who's going where, though, and you have to know their mind and their heart as well as what comes off the end of their bat, or the tip of their fingers as they release a pitch.
Spring is probably the best and worst time of year for minor leaguers. Every spring brings the possibility to move up, yet it also brings new competition, and trades that block avenues to the major leagues.
Here are a few of my spring highlights that don't show up in this month's edition of MLN Sports Zone:
Chad Span - (Twins) - This is a cool kid. One one visit to the Twins, I watched Span work Roger Clemens. To the untrained eye, Clemens was tossing junk to the rookie and he was struggling to get a piece of it. Yet when I caught up with Span in the locker room, he was quite pleased with himself. He had just finished trying to work Roger Clemens arm a bit longer than the superstar pitcher wanted to bother with him when I caught up with the Twins prospect. When you see him in Rochester, tell him that I said "Hi." By the way, ladies of Rochester, Span is single. He thought that was a strange question to ask, until I reminded him that you female fans always like to know if a guy is married or single. "I'm single! I'm single!" he said in the first time that I saw him lighten up in the interview.
Brandon Webb - (Red Sox) - You have to like Brandon Webb. He is a great guy, and he has one of the best work ethics of any outfield prospect that I've seen. Webb also has some natural talent. He shined in the outings for Spring T where I caught him. It was part giving it everything that he's got, and part "I told you so" to the powers-that-be for signing J.D. Drew, aka Mr. Charm, for ridiculous sums of money relative to his performance history. Webb will have his day at Fenway. Please mark down that I was the one who told you about him.
Mitch Jones - I get a lot of crap from the peanut gallery about liking Jones as a prospect, but I'm sticking to my guns. Watch him: The guy has a killer swing, and loves batting like Picasso was fond of painting. Sure, he didn't exactly shine for the Yanks in Columbus. How excited do you get when you have no hope of advancement? Jones put a lot of energy into proving the point that he's worth a shot this spring. He's been having a much better beginning to his Triple-A season with the Las Vegas 51s than Andy LaRoche, who got the Chavez Ravine call even though his average is hovering in the lower .200s. L.A. fans haven't had a big pure power hitter like this come off of the farm since Mike Piazza. Combine his skills with the fact that he, his wife, and the adorable kid have that All-American look that the Dodgers find very marketable, and his future in the Big Smoggy looks bright as long as he can keep hitting the way that he's been cashing in at Cashman Field.
Brett Harper - (Mets) - Harper was nowhere to be found when I did my tour of the New York Mets, but I was told that he would start with Binghamton's B-Mets. Harper was injured most of last year. This is a power hitter of the kind that, if baseball's had rights, he would be up for murder at least five times a game. His average right around now is .270, but he's pressing a bit to make up for lost time. When he's relaxed, his strikeouts drop and his home runs soar on wings. The unfortunate thing is that he has been hurt so often in his minor league career. This is a guy who can find that sweet spot on the bat that makes that perfect "pop!" of a big league home run hitter. We wish him a continued recovery and a great 2007!
Yes, Yankee fan, pitcher Philip Hughes is the real deal, but as I spell out in my recent Op-Ed "Express Delivery" the Yankees will sacrifice him to the immediate moment of keeping you happy, and set his career back a year or three in the process.
For the full reports on both the Cactus League and the Grapefruit League, click here to go to MLN Sports Zone, our very cool electronic magazine. If you want to see more of what I write, you can find me either here at mlnsports.gather.com, or at the MAJOR BLOGS of Minor League News.
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