I’m not supposed to open this gate till 1:00, but…
Posted on March 18th, 2008 by roarke in Brandon Dickson, Brian Barton, Kyle McClellan, Pete Kozma, Tyler GreeneMy father and I got an almost-private showing of morning practice for the minor league squads on Monday. We were lucky enough to run into Brandon Dickson‘s father outside the gates to the minor league side of camp. He got a guard to let him and us into the practice facilities at about 10:00am. Brandon was undrafted out of Tusculum College and was Quad Cities Pitcher of the Year in 2007 (according to his father). His numbers look pretty good, with a nice K rate, although his father said he was more of a grounball pitcher than a strikeout pitcher.
More observations from Monday after the jump.
While watching minor league practice in the morning I got an up close view of Tyler Greene and Pete Kozma going through middle infield drills. They both have very good hands, but I would give the edge to Kozma on his footwork around the bag. Greene didn’t look bad, but Kozma seemed to be a little smoother and had quicker feet.
Greene Kozma
During the game, Kyle McClellan closed out the ninth and looked pretty impressive. He had nice pop on his fastball and his breaking pitches looked sharp. Here is a sequence of four pictures that show McClellan’s motion:
Brian Barton continues to impress, although each game he seems to make a mistake (like getting picked off today) and then almost immediately doing something to compensate (like scoring from second on a shallow single to rightfield).
Note that during the aforementioned pickoff, Brendan Ryan strayed off of third during the rundown and the Braves threw him out trying to get back to third (he was safe from my vantage point). Ryan was extremely slow in getting up and held his elbow gingerly as he walked back to the dugout, but he did come back out and finish the game at shortstop.
Tuesday: no big league game, but we will see what is going on with the minor league camp.
Entries (RSS)
that’s pretty impressive if kozma has better footwork than greene b/c greene is quite a bit older and he is generally considered to be a very good defensive shortstop.
Just me or does Kozma look small in that picture.
It’s too bad Greene was never able to get going with the bat. If he could make better contact, he probably would be a league average SS.
i’m not the only one who loves the St. Patrick’s days unis, am i?
FGC: that was my understanding, as well. I was really impressed with Kozma yesterday, which really isn’t an indictment of Greene. Greene looked good, too and made all the plays, but I thought that Kozma looked better.
Az: I saw Greene take BP this morning and was not impressed. Again, he looked ok, but he didn’t do anything that made me say ‘wow’.
Erik: I love the St. Patty’s unis. I had to stop myself from taking hundreds of pictures yesterday.
Roarke-
Did you see Kozma swing? Has he changed his swing at all? I know the knock on him was he has no chance to hit for any real power.
I would like the Cardinals to have one Middle Infield player who has a shot to consistently hit 10 homeruns per year. That is not too hard to ask for this day and age.
kozma could hit 10 homers in a year. he hit 2 homers in less than 150 at bats in his pro debut. now i know that’s not great power, but its also not zero power.
as for middle infielders that could hit 10 homers, tyler greene obviously has a lot of power if he can make enough contact. jose martinez has pretty good pop, and romulo ruiz cranked quite a few in winter ball this year.
another possibility is gordon beckham, a shortstop at georgia who could go in the range of the cardinals first round pick. he already has 9 homers this year in his first 15 games. now i don’t think they would take a shortstop in the first round for the 3rd time in 4 years, but you never know.
Count me in the camp that doesn’t like the Irish…..uniforms.
See what I did there?
Anyway, the green is a little to harsh with the specks of red still in the uni. The fact that they do it for St. Patrick’s Day feels a little gimmicky to me too. Just another set of merchandise to sell.
I agree. The Cardinals don’t have green in their scheme–why bring it out and make hideously ugly uniforms out of it?
I’m not a big fan of those uni’s either. The red and green gives off more of a Christmas feel than St. Pat’s.
Green caps would have been plenty.
St. Louis Cardinals are to SS as Detroit lions are to WR?
St. Louis Cardinals are to SS as STL Rams are to offensive linemen?