I headed out to field 1 where a group of us (strategically placed by last name A to E) -- clearly an elite group of baseball players - were going to play some catch, shag some fly balls, and hit some batting practice. We were captained by Kent Hrbek, Milt Cuyler, & Steve Braun - a combined 34 years of major league baseball experience - to guide us on our morning baseball workout. It was a nice work out - spent about 90 mins out there -- groups of 8-9 guys hitting batting practice and the rest of us in the field doing various drills. No injuries reported among the group!! (that's a win down here)
The afternoon is highlight by the rookies playing some games -- it is more or less a tryout as the Pro Staff is watching these rookies play and to get a good scouting report to draft them properly. They were in for a treat -- Bert Blyleven was the pitcher for the entire game so most of the rookie campers were able to get 2 AB's against the Hall of Famer -- Bert was awesome, mixing in curveballs, sinkers, and even a few knuckleballs -- it was fun to watch and many of them did well -- but many of them....well looked like a rookie camper.
The draft of the teams ensues after this afternoon and the 6:20pm (EST) team announcement comes with much anticipation. So here are the teams, names, and coaches and then of course -- my ever popular handicapping of the teams --
Team 1 - Coached by Gene Larkin, Mickey Hatcher, & Juan Berenguer - "12 Ugly Bastards & Abby"
Team 2 - Coached by Rick Aguilera & Phil Roof - "Warriors"
Team 3 - Coached by Dick Stigman, Frank Quilici, & Milt Cuyler - "The Last Chance"
Team 4 - Coached by Bill "Soup" Campbell & Steve Braun - "The Lucky 13's"
Team 5 - Coached by Eric Rasmussen & Al Newman - "In the Bag"
Team 6 - Coached by Tommy Watkins, Tony Oliva, & Lee Stange - "3 Stooges"
Team 7 - Coached by Frank Viola & Jeff Reardon - "Team Game 7"
Team 8 - Coached by Kent Hrbek & Tim Laudner - "Bru-Less"
So here we go with my 'unofficial rankings' -- I did scout the rookies a bit - and I will say I was not overwhelmed with the talent -- definitely some good talent there - but just a small group of them (around 25) so I guess their really shouldn't be a glut of new talent (hehe.....) - these campers are pure wild cards....but with no further avail -- here are my rankings -- I did this on a basic point system -- Hitting, Pitching, Defense, Intangibles -- and of course not knowing what some of these rookies are fully capable of here you go:
The Cream:
-Warriors - plus pitching, hitting, defense and intangibles makes this team an easy front runner
The Contenders:
-The Lucky 13's - plus pitching, hitting & Defense make this team real solid
-Bru-Less - excellent hitting & plus defense will lead this team
The Credibles:
-12 Ugly Bastards - plus pitching and hitting but I think defense will be a liablity
-The Last Chance - plus hitting and defense will keep this team in games, but pitching is very thin
-In the Bag - biggest wild card team, lots of rookies but good ones, not sure of pitching depth here but with coaching tandem of Rasmussen and Newman
-Team Game 7 - plus pitching and hitting is solid, but defense will hold this team back
The Contemptible:
-3 Stooges - This team has zero pitching, zero defense......but a bunch of cool guys - good luck this week! I think Mickey Hatcher was correct as he told these guys at the bar....."You are <
Well the good part is the blog predictions will be looked back on Friday to see how I did -- as always - injuries play a big part so we will see!
We look forward to warmer weather tomorrow - 2 games -- 10am and 1pm at the complex (Centurylink Sports complex) so we look forward to getting out there!
Oh -- my team is the Lucky 13's -- we should have a good week.....
~~ "You can observe a lot just by watching." - Yogi Berra ~~
No comments:
Post a Comment