That is pretty telling when you rather have dirt.

I'm just glad the story wasn't with a bitter Brooklyn centenarian.

Repko hurt again! Another shocking story out of spring training.

It would seem that most of our youth has turned their nose up at baseball but as bad as it is compared to the past I still find about 3-4 big Dodger fans in the 10 year old age group out of 30 kids every year. In the Mexican community it is much much higher with over 25% of the kids knowing and rooting for the Dodgers. I do a Dodger Geography game in the classroom that is sponsered by the Daily news so that is what I'm basing my unscientific data on.

The irony is that Fox traded Piazza because he was being a little bit outspoken about his contract demands, according to Chase Carey. And who do they get back? Sheffield, who threatened to play poorly on purpose if his contract demands weren't met.

Because Piazza was such a great player and good citizen, his trade could net us a Sheffield-quality player. Because Sheffield was such a first-class jerk, all we could get for him was a broken down outfielder and Odalis Perez.

But that's not what threw my son off. His thing was, I took him to a late-season game in, what, '97? A game that mattered. This was the game when Piazza hit a homerun out of the stadium. His heroics were instantly grasped by my son. So what happens a few months later? They dump him. My son didn't have '81 or '88 or the other great years to balance against that stupidity, like I do. To him it was: Why would they trade him? He was good, so why would you trade somebody who was that good?

Another day, another loss, but another fun day of baseball. Got to the stadium early again, but they weren't doing batting practice outside today so I was left watching Marlins batting practice for an hour or so.

Anyway, here are the daily speed readings:
Schmidt - fastball 84-92 (mostly 87), slider 80-82
Miller - fastball 87-93 (mostly 91), change-up 84-85, slider 83-86
Saito - fastball 87-89 (mostly 88), curveball 75
Broxton - fastball 88-93 (mostly 91), slider 83
Seanez - fastball 92, curveball 85
Tsao - fastball 93-95, slider 85-87

Today I had the pleasure of sitting next to and talking with a scout who gave a lot of opinions on a lot of things. He said he was going to stop by DT and was intrigued when I told him about the emphasis on statistical analysis we tend to lean towards here. He himself posts a lot at perfectgame.org (his name's Ray Shepherd) as well as many other scouting web sites.

Anyway, Schmidt seemed to be simply getting his work in since his approach to each batters wasn't all that intensive (he threw mostly fastballs).

Miller had a good fastball with excellent secondary pitches - his change-up had a nice tail to it and his slider was pretty dang wicked. The home run he gave up was on his slowest fastball of the day (87 MPH) and was left up in the zone.

Saito looked his usual dominant self by keeping the hitters off-balanced even though he wasn't throwing much heat. He made Hanley Ramirez look silly on a normal fastball because he was guessing curveball.

Broxton looked his normal self as well even though he hasn't built up to his normal arm strength.

Seanez looked impressive again, hitting 92 consistently with his fastball while going right after the hitters. It would be nice to see him in the game earlier when most regulars are in to see how well his stuff really works though.

Tsao looked pretty filthy with a very live fastball and a killer slider. If he can continue showing a mid-90's fastball with the way his slider was working he would make an excellent setup man this year. FWIW, the scout thought he was the most impressive pitcher he saw today.

Not much to say on offense or defense that can't be figured from the box score. Gonzo and Nomar had some big hits and the offense fell asleep after the first few innings.

My dad finally got Nomar to sign a ball for my sister, which was the priority signature of the trip. I'm still hoping to get Martin, but he seems a bit reluctant to sign (plus, he wasn't there today). Today I added Miller, Tsao, Seanez, and Saito to my autograph balls and got a cold shoulder from Broxton.

Tomorrow will be the last report, hope you all have enjoyed them!

hes shepster over at the perfectgame message board. eddie bane (angels SD) use to post there as well.

after serveral attempts to let him know i wasnt anyone special, i gave up and just went with it.

lol yea. shepherd was familar so i just went back to the perfectgame board and re-read all those posts.

He called Tsao the best outing of the day, but he also liked what he saw from Schmidt and figured he'd do great this year. He classified Miller as a middle-reliever right now with a 4th starter ceiling, but I believe that was just from watching him today.

TJ Nall and Wesley Wright were two guys he called sleepers in our system, especially Nall's curveball.

On offense, he thinks Gonzo looks great and will have a good year and he thinks Bigbie is looking excellent this spring.

I'm planning to sit next to him again at tomorrow's game and will hopefully pick his brain a bit more. Anyone have any specific questions you'd like me to ask him?

thats basically the same way he posts. small world!

Please ask him if he saw lefties Alberto Bastardo and Marlon Arias pitch for the Vero Beach Dodgers last year, and ask him if he remembers their fastball velocities and what secondary pitches they threw.

if you want, ask him about the 2007 prep scene for the mlb draft. who does he like, who does he think will be top prep prospects drafted from his area.

23 I'll give it a shot, but I'm not sure what his scouting schedule was last year. Seems like he does go to a good amount of minor league games in Florida, but he travels all over the country looking for players to represent so I'm not sure how much expertise he has on any certain team.

he watched a ton on FSL games last year. he did alot of reports on dodger players.

What are your guys' names on the Perfect Game board? It would be interesting to see if he remembers you guys and has anything to say.

"Fallon: uh, me and my friends, we go down to Florida.

Barrymore: You and your buddies go down to Florida for spring break? At your age?

F: No, no, no, not spring break. Spring training with the Red Sox.

B: Oh, you get to train with the Red Sox?Are you allowed to do that?

F: Well, we don't actually - We watch the games.

B: Aren't those just practice games?

F: Yeah, yeah, but there's more to it than that. We scout the players. We-We say which players they should keep...which they should get rid of.

B: And the Red Sox ask your opinion?

F: Well, not yet. But if they ever do, uh-"

I swear I get those same questions when I tell girls that I'm going to spring training.

61ABs

279/395/525 so far

http://tinyurl.com/3294v7

I have always found the media guide a handy resource and I have bought one for the last several years, glad to see they have it ready before the season starts.

it depends on if he keeps improving. he got off to a miserable start earlier this year so he must have been pretty hot lately to get his numbers up to his current line. Odd thing is that he is listed as a 2b/ss but in the majority of games, hes been playing the DH position.

OT alittle bit but im just starting to really get into the prep scene for this years draft and one current player that has really caught my eye is a 6'7 210 RHP from irving texas, Blake Beavan.

the reason hes caught my eye? well in 3 games so far this year, hes 3-0 with 46ks, 2 hits allowed and...no walks.

some scouting stuff from his last game...

Beavan struckout 18 and retired the other three hitters on harmless groundballs. His fastball was clocked from 92 to 95 mph, touching 96 as he overpowered MacArthur high school. Beavan's fastball is obviously a plus pitch, but his slider might be even better. He throws a very sharp, late breaking, mid 80s slider that's a real knockout pitch. Beavan fanned 14 MacArthur hitters in a row, before giving up a ground ball.

this guy sounds like the second coming.

this guys awesome.

Right now, I am liking OF Kentrail Davis as our first pick. If he can stick in center field, he can be another Kirby Puckett, and Juan Pierre's successor.

I understand. The soft bigotry of low expectations rears its ugly head yet again.

There's currently a problem with two of the links (Intro and Players S-Y). I've alerted Josh - I expect they'll be fixed. Inthe meantime there's a few weeks or months reading there.

.333/.333/.389

"That was luck, pure luck," Pierre said. "I was trying to go to the shortstop but the pitch was kind of fading away. Being in a good position to bunt allowed me to do that, though."

http://tinyurl.com/2nnesu

nick akins watch
61ABs
279/395/525 so far
Can we still sign him? I'm praying that we can snag him.

As summarized in a Baseball America article last October.

"One other change to the amateur draft is a uniform signing date of Aug. 15 for all players (other than college seniors), replacing the longtime and clumsy deadline of the moment a player literally attends his first four-year college class.

In addition to creating some order for all involved--from teams to players to college coaches wanting an earlier idea of their incoming class--this also eliminates the junior-college, draft-and-follow rule in which players who attended two-year schools could sign with their drafting club until one week before the following draft."

It will be interesting to see how this new rule effects Scott Boras and other agents but primarily Boras because of his preference of holding players out. Any High School player or College junior like Hochevar or Scherzer would only have until August to sign otherwise they would fall into next year's draft. While it still remains a game of chicken, if that player really wants to go professional, that deadline may force Boras' hand more than he will ever let on.

http://tinyurl.com/38d63n

This is awesome. When I asked earlier whether Pierre's double was a bunt double, I was joking. I had no idea that it actually was a bunt double.

My watch - yes
My alarm clock - yes
(I just changed them on my own)
My computer - yes
My DVR - yes
My BlackBerry - no (it had to be told to change)
The Toaster - not yet

"Eric Hull, Zach Hammes and Mike Megrew wers optioned to minor-league camp this morning, Scott Elbert, A.J. Ellis, Chin-lung Hu, Ken Huckaby, Travis Smith, Fernando Tatis and Dario Veras were reassigned to minor-league camp, and Damian Jackson was released."

The word, "here," should have found its (after people, before who) way into the last comment, amending the one prior to it. I wonder what I'll notice about this one, in five minutes, that I'll decide needs to be corrected.