First Impressions
Posted on March 13th, 2008 by roarke in Chris Perez, Colby Rasmus, Jason Motte, Joe MatherMy first day in Jupiter afforded me the opportunity to get a first hand look at some of the prospects we write about for the first time. My first impressions are after the jump.
1. Jason Motte needs another pitch. His velocity is impressive, but he was hit pretty hard once hitters were able to time him. Also, his mechanics look painful to me – look at the torque on this picture.
2. Chris Perez is going to be a dominant reliever in the big leagues. His numbers point to this conclusion, but seeing him in person drives the point home. His fastball is special and his slider makes people look foolish. His mechanics, in contrast to Motte’s look pretty clean.
3. Colby Rasmus… what more is there to be said? He stroked a beautiful line drive on a 3-2 pitch when the game was on the line and he threw a runner out at the plate that was trying to score the game winning run in the tenth inning (it wasn’t a flawless play – he bobbled the catch a bit and the throw was up the line, but it got the job done).
4. Joe Mather is going to make the team. It seems to me from the playing time given out recently that Mather is going to play the “Scott Spezio” role for the Cardinals this season. He looks like he is comfortable on the team and he has been producing lately. Here’s a decent picture of the follow through on his swing.
5. Non-Cardinals impression: Fernando Martinez is the real deal. He looked great in his two at bats, turning around a Jason Motte fastball for a double down the right field line his second time up.
I am not travelling to Vero Beach tomorrow to see the Cardinals and Dodgers, but I will be in Port St. Lucie on Saturday.
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since you aren’t going to vero, are you going to check out some minor league action?
My first impression of Motte was that he throws hard but not much movement on his fastball. he does need another good pitch to keep hitters from zeroing in on his fastball. A good
off speed curve would do it.
i don’t think he is throwing a good curve with that arm action. what he really needs is a change or a splitter.
Motte has been throwing a fastball and a cutter exclusively. Every now and then he will break off a plus cutter, he just needs more consistency with it. Also the only torque you are really seeing in that picture is him pronating his pitching forearm, which you will see with almost every throw by a baseball player. Pronating is good for the arm, not detrimental and it along with arm angle contribute to generating movement on the pitch
Did you get a chance to see Perez throw a curve? He had a couple of really pretty ones against the dodgers when I was down there. I was very impressed by both Motte and Perez.
FGC – We did go and check out some minor league practice this morning, but skipped the minor league games for some quality time on the beach (Mrs. Roarke is with me). I got a homerun ball off the bat of Ian Church during BP.
nuhusky: I guess maybe torque was the wrong word to use. My concern was with the way his upper body is tilted to the side and his right hip looks like it is a little behind the rest of his body at this point in the delivery. But perhaps I just grabbed a bad example – I was trying to sift through the 300+ pictures I took yesterday for good ones to post. I do have a nice sequence on film where he fell over during a pitch.
Sleepy: Perez did throw one curve – he spiked it into the dirt, trying to get the batter to chase for the strikeout. The hitter laid off, but it looked like a nice pitch to me. He was easily the most impressive pitcher for either team yesterday.
Hey just curious… is there a way to find score… or a box score of the games that have been going on recently for all the minor clubs?