Hat tip to Matt, who referred me to these rather awesome videos of Cardinal players in the AFL.
I didn’t see Ottavino or Hill anywhere in there, not yet at least. I’m no scout, and I’ve only watched each video once with the exception of Wallace’s, but I’m asking around for some opinions. Greene looked pretty rough; despite his numbers I don’t think he’s taken a huge leap forward like we may have hoped.
- Shane Robinson went 2-for-5, including a walk off single to cap a three run rally.
- Tyler Greene went 0-for-3 with 2 SO and was hit by a pitch.
- Brett Wallace hit a pinch-hit single.
- Steve Hill went 1-for-2 with a walk.
- Brad Furnish threw two scoreless innings, with 1 hit allowed and 1 K. He seems to be ending on a high note, with 6 K’s in his last four innings and only a walk and a hit allowed.
- Justin Fiske threw one perfect innings, with 1 K.
- James Rapoport went 2-for-4 and was caught stealing.
- Arnoldi Cruz had a pinch-hit single.
- The season ends for Honolulu, as they were eliminated from play yesterday night.
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Furnish’s planting knee must kill him by the time the season is out. It’s all twist and torque on that knee. I don’t see the hitch in his delivery from the first time I saw him in 2007 though, which is good.
Furnish seemed to be all arm, with his body following sometime later. Would this lead to arm problems?
Wallace looked great. He keeps his weight back well, like Albert.
Greene seemed to fall forward on his bad swings, kept shoulders over this hips well on HR.
Of course, I may be wrong.
Greene’s homerun swing was nice…unfortunately there were 5 swings on that video, and only one looked like a major leaguer
I’m no expert, I just play one on the Interwebs but Greene’s hands looked badly detached from his body on his swings. The last swing looked better but this is causing him to swing with his arms instead of his core.
Wallace looked like he didn’t get his hips all the way through which could be caused by it being an outside pitch but it his hard to tell from that angle but he never got up on top his back foot. He is also leaning back toward the catcher a tad but that also could be because it might be an outside pitch.
I would love to see Hill’s swing…Pitchers are boring…
His HR swing looked fine obviously, but everything breaks down when you don’t recognize pitches at all. That was discouraging, but not incredibly surprising.
I really do not see the roughness with Greene everyone is talking about. His home run swing looks the same as the other ones, he took two good cuts then with 2 strikes they were just good pitches that he looked like he was just trying to foul off. Even Albert looks rough with two strikes.
My favorite part of watching the pitching videos was the occasional glimpse of The Walrus in the background. That said, I think any of these guys could be moved to the pen and break out, and be put on a fast track to St. Louis. And does anyone else see a little of Braden Looper in Furnish?
Clark I’m with you. I thought Greene had great balance in most of his swings and overall he didn’t look terrible.
One thing that might help him cut down on swings and misses is if he moved the positioning of his hands. The first thing he does with his hands is move them down and then back. He might be better off starting a little lower and farther back and just taking his hands straight to the ball.