A reader named Dustin was nice enough to send me a couple of nice pics of Pete Kozma at the plate Click on them to enlarge-
Compare that with his draft video-
It’s hard to tell from just one photo, but he doesn’t seem to be extending as much. Maybe some of you can tell me what you think. Thanks for the photos if you’re reading Dustin. I encourage all of you to send in pics like these if you’re ever heading out to a game. They’ve also been added to the FR Flickr account located on the left sidebar.
Cody Haerther was finally freed from AA. He was moved up to Memphis as Joe Mather was put on the DL due to some issues with his back. Mark Shorey moves off the DL and goes to Springfield.
Kevin Goldstein looks at 2005 draftees whose “prospect” expiration date is coming up, Tyler Greene being one of them.
After a stellar career at Georgia Tech, Greene had a mediocre pro debut, and was hitting just .224/.308/.325 in the Florida State League in his full-season debut when he got sent down to the Midwest League and exploded with a .552 slugging and 15 home runs in 59 games. That showing is looking an awful lot like a combination of a mirage and a 23-year-old college product dominating younger competition. Limited to just 65 games last year because of knee troubles, Greene hit just .244/.309/.448 at Double-A, and while he has good athleticism and above-average power for a middle-infielder, his lack of contact is beginning to wash away his prospect status. Back in the Texas League this year, he’s 2-for-19 with seven strikeouts.
Simontacchi sighting: He signed with the indy league Long Island Ducks.
On to the action on the field. A great night for hitters named Tyler. Not such a great night for a couple of pitching prospects. The farm system wins one, drops three. More after the jump.
- Colby Rasmus went 0 for 4 with a strikeout. Just don’t even look at the Raz watch right now, if he keeps this up we’ll have to take it down. That seemed to work last year.
- Jarrett Hoffpauir on the other hand remains red hot. He went 2 for 3 with a walk. Meanwhile, Adam Kennedy is hitting for a .529 OPS. It’s early yes, but both Hoff and AK are just continuing what the were doing last year.
- Cody Haerther picked up his first AAA hit and RBI.
- David Freese tripled, going 1 for 3.
- John Wasdin allowed 4 runs, 3 earned on 8 hits and a walk over 5.2 innings. 6 of the 8 hits he allowed were doubles.
- Cory Rauschenberger allowed a run on 3 hits and 2 walks over 2 innings.
- Hitting in the leadoff spot, Tyler Greene doubled and homered, with no K’s. He did have a throwing error. Last year when Rasmus was slumping so awfully, Warner changed his focuse by moving him to the leadoff role and Rasmus took off. Hopefully the same tactic works for Greene.
- Bryan Anderson went 2 for 4. Mr. Anderson’s average is up to .364.
- Jon Jay went 1 for 4 and was caught stealing.
- Clayton Mortensen was bopping along until he got 2 outs in 4th. He then loaded the bases on 2 HBP and a walk, then a pounding ensued. Final line 3.2 innings, 5 runs, 5 hits, 2 BB, 1 HBP, 5 K. He sporting a 5.19 ERA so far, and I’m kinda wondering if AA was too aggressive of a promotion for him, but it’s still very early.
- Luke Gregerson allowed yet another homer, while walking one and striking out 1 in his 1 inning of work.
- As for the rest of the middle relief, just click on the boxscore. Springfield’s bullpen is so uninspiring, I’m just gonna pass.
Palm Beach 6, Brevard County (Barbara) Manatees 7
- Tyler Henley doubled, tripled, walked and drove in a run.
- Brandon Buckman went 3 for 4 with a BB. He’s upped his average to .375.
- Daryl Jones had 3 strikeouts and a walk.
- Thomas Pham struck out twice, going 0 for 5. He’s fanned in a third of his at bats so far.
- Nicholas Derba doubled, picked a runner off at first and had a throwing error. Four errors total for the PB defense. 2 on Solano, 1 on Cruz.
- Steve Hill homered, going 1 for 5 with 2 K’s.
- Tyler Herron allowed 3 runs, 2 earned on 5 hits on 3 innings. He allowed a HR
- Brandon Dickson threw 2.1 innings, allowed 3 runs, 2 earned on walk and 3 hits. He struck out 2.
- Joshua Dew came in and didn’t allow any of his inherited runners to score. The following inning he allowed a run on 2 hits.
- Kenny Maiques pitched a perfect 9th, fanning 1.
- Pete Kozma had a nifty night. He went 2 for 4 with a double to the opposite field off of top Arizona prospect Jarrod Parker. He also walked, went down swinging twice and had a throwing error. Parker didn’t have his best night, allowing 3 runs on 5 hits and had a couple of wild pitches.
- Luis De La Cruz singled, doubled and drove in two runs.
- Andrew Brown went 0 for 4 with 3 K’s.
- Charles Kingrey went 2 for 4 with a double and struck out twice.
- Nick Additon allowed just 2 hits over 5 innings, one of the hits being a solo blast. He struck out 6. Has anyone seen Additon? I’d love to know how he’s getting such fabulous results in the lower minors so far.
- Brian Broderick threw 4 innings on 1 hit ball, striking out 2 and inducing 7 ground outs.
Filed under: Daily Farm Reports
erik
azruavatar
fewgoodcards
roarke49
theredbaaron
Both of Kozma’s hits came off fellow 2007 first-rounder Jarrod Parker.
Also, it looks like the Additon/Broderick combo could be pretty formidable this year.
mortensen was cruising along until he got 2 outs in the 4th. at that point he hit a guy, walked the next on 4 pitches, and then hit the next guy. from there the bruising began. speaking of bruising, it should be noted that he took a shot off his thigh earlier in the game. i don’t know if it had any effect, but that could have been part of the reason for the loss of control.
Not exactly sure why the minor league powers that be are letting Springfield suffer so much. You would hope some help for the SCards bullpen is coming soon…..anyone….Bueller?
“Tell me how he is better then what we have on the MLB roster right now. You just can’t.”
I guess you don’t like Hoffpauir?
I think you can safely say that a pitcher’s ERA isn’t worth mentioning when his actual earned runs are less than his ERA.
I think Mort will be fine if he keeps his walk-rate at a reasonable level. He’s still missing bats and he hasn’t given up a tater at least.
Ryan-
I’m pretty sure he meant “how he *isn’t* better.”. I could be wrong; if I am, erik, I apologise for putting words in your mouth.
Wow, nothing like coming to the site and seeing you made a slew of typos, misspellings, bad grammar and oversights. Bad blogger! Bad! I was rather tired, but there’s no good excuse. I did have the SF/STL game on the radio distracting me, maybe that was it. I’m sorry about that, I’ll step it up next time for sure. I made the necessary corrections for those who may not go through the comments.
I love that Kozma swing up in the pics, by the way. When you say he’s extending a little less, erik, that may be the understatement of the century. That barely even looks like the same swing.
Look specifically at the tilt of his spine. I know the angles aren’t quite the same, but you can tell what his body is doing in each swing.
In the old, draft video swing, he’s completely vertical, standing up straight, and lunging into the ball leading with his hands. The closest comp that I can think of to that swing is So Taguchi. It’s entirely hands based; he’s just standing there throwing his hands at the ball. There’s no way a player can hit for any kind of power with that kind of swing. Awful. Simply awful.
Now look at the new one. Look at the angle of his spine. See the way he’s tilted back slightly, with his center of gravity back behind the ball? That’s how you hit a baseball. His hips are able to clear properly, and all the torque generated by that move is going to translate into bat speed and power. You could draw a straight line down from his right shoulder through his right knee. That’s the swing of a baseball player who can drive a baseball.
In that first swing, his whole lower body was tending to collapse; again, the only thing he had going for him was whatever he could generate with his hands and wrists. Now his front leg is firmed up nicely, his back leg creates a solid foundation, and he’s free to just rotate through.
It’s tough to tell without a picture of his follow through, but it also looks as if he’s keeping his hands much closer in to his body, keeping his swing ‘connected’ throughout, rather than just throwing the bat handle out there. With his hands in the position that you see in that second shot, he actually has some leverage to his swing also. Whether he’s generating any loft or backspin remains to be seen, but he’s certainly got far more potential for speed and power in the new swing than he ever would have managed with the old one that so upset Carlos Gomez. Speaking of Carlos, it sure would be nice if he were to stop by and see what he thinks of the new positioning in Petey’s swing.
To tell you the truth, it almost looks as if the Cardinals and Kozma have nearly remade his swing completely. Bravo to both parties for seemingly realising what needed to be done, and making the necessary changes. I realise it’s only one picture, but the old draft swing would never produce the position that I see in that new photo. If Kozma’s swing looks anything like that on a consistent basis, he will hit for power, at least of the gap variety, and some over the fence.
Those shots made my morning. Great work, Dustin. Thanks for putting that up, erik.
Thanks for your 2 cents Red Baron. Good stuff. I’ve been trying to go back and read Gomez’s, Albert’s and O’Leary’s stuff online as I want to have a much better handle on this stuff. I never played the game, unless you count wiffleball in the backyard, or sandlot kinda stuff. When I was at the game, I didn’t see Taguchi in Kozma’s swing. I had the crappy swing in my mind and I didn’t see that at all.
On the Kozma swing, agree with insightful comments from Red Baron but also want to know whether he is now releasing is top hand (wasn’t in the draft video). Can’t tell from two pics. Mark McGwire (he would be a great hitting instructor if ever he had the desire) was a big proponent of the top hand release. C. Duncan and Skip are disciples of this technique. I think they go and hit with McGwire in the offseason. Would like to see Kozma add the top hand release to his swing to increase extension on the follow through, thus, per McGwire, increase power. Give Kozma gap power and we might have something.
Kozma looks like a slugger in those current frames.
i don’t know if the cardinals necessarily changed his swing b/c like i said when gomez wrote that article, that video was taken last summer and he could have changed his swing before his high school season started. like i said at that point, it is hard to get a real picture of the player’s current ability from a video that was as old as that one. especially for a player that started climbing up the rankings fairly late in the spring.
Kozma’s swing looks a heck of a lot better in this comparison. I think FGC has it right, in that his swing could have been evolving through his high school season. Videos only capture a point in time and not the fact that these guys are people. Things are going to change depending on cercumstances. Maybe Pete in the video was facing a lot of unkown pitchers, just trying to make contact, and in turn got a handsy.
I am taking a look at him later in May when he makes it to Kane County, but from what Eric and Roark have said the kid is a total athelete. It is just a matter of time…
I thought I had heard that Additon has a killer curveball but doesn’t throw too hard, like mid to upper 80s.
The Kozma pictures are nice but they leave out one of the cheif complaints against Pete: his hands. One of the problems in his swing was that he wasn’t staying back on the ball but almost throwing his hands and the bat at the ball.
Yes he’s leaning back on the pictures but watch the follow through in the video. It looks awfully similar to the one in the photo just with less uppercut from his body’s stance. He could still be all hands (and no power) at the plate.
—————-
How long until Adam Kennedy goes down with a mystery illness and Hoffpauir gets a look? The reality is that Miles will probably end up as our starting 2B yet again with Ryan as the utility man.
Maybe we should start calling Pham “Tommy Fan”. Seems appropriate.
It’s nice to seem some reconsideration of Kozma’s swing in here. Just like the way overreaction to Gomez’s comments awhile back, however, a couple pics in here shouldn’t also make us all suddenly think something totally different about his swing.
I do maintain my argument from that thread of Gomez’s analysis - an athletic 18-yr-old certainly has time to change his his swing mechanics, and bad use of hands shouldn’t be seem as an insurmountable obstacle when it comes draft time. Certainly these photos show he may have improved it already.
I screwed up and posted this under the photo.
Az-
I think you missed the ball on this, literally. If you remember Gomez’s complaint, his swing was more than it was just handsy and he was trying to make contact way in front of the plate. These problems are related. If you look at the photo the ball is behind the catchers glove, indicating not only that he fouled it off but that he made contact at a point closer to the plate and later in the zone than in the draft videos. The photo is taken a couple frames beyond the point of contact.
One of the problems I had with Gomez’s analysis is that is is mostly based on the best video he can find. I think he would agree this isn’t the best method. You need to see players a few times and capture a couple sequences of video. The same can be said about about me saying that he has advanced based on a couple photos, he could have just been late on the pitch. From the information at hand it appears that he has advanced his swing quite a bit. When I see him I will try to catch a couple small videos with my digi-cam and try to break down the differences.
I’m not denying that it looks better in those pictures, BJM. He doesn’t seem be pushing the bat with his hands as much as he did in the video. But I’m reluctant to say much beyond that based on two still shots. Can we really say where he made contact in the zone based on that shot? I don’t think we accurately can.
I’m just not ready to rescind my skepticism of the pick and his swing. I’ll have to wait till I can see him in person a few times this season. Speaking of which, I need to start picking out some dates for a road trip. . .
Next time the River Bandit will be here is June 18-22. I guess I’ll just have bring my video camera.
Does it help if I point out in that pic he fouled off a tough inside pitch from Phillipe Aoumont? He had more of a level swing than from the video but I agree with Az it was just one game and one at bat but the next game I’m at I’ll try to get some more pics of his swing maybe I’ll record a video of it.
As for Additon, I saw his 4 ip 9 k’s performance last saturday and I have no clue what he’s doing but he had a really good curve and nice fastball, not sure of the speed because they didn’t have a gun on. I’m gonna try to make it down to the park the next time he’s scheduled to pitch.
Additon is a mid 80’s type with good deception.
Does anyone know the scoop on Joe Mather?
How did he mess up his back, how long is he on the DL, etc?