Notes From Mesa and Peoria
I didn’t sleep much last night and its 1 am my time, even if I’m temporarily back on the west coast, so no fluffy intro – let’s get right into the interesting things I saw and heard today, in no particular order.
1. Brandon Morrow looked tremendous in Mesa against the Cubs. Perhaps some of it was coming in to relieve Cha Baek, who looked as bad as I expected, but he showed the power arsenal that got him selected #5 overall last summer. In his first inning of work, against the bottom of the line-up, the breaking ball was pretty slurvy and didn’t have much bite, but his fastball was overpowering. He pitched almost exclusively on the outside corner to both sides, Tom Glavine style, but it worked to perfection because the bottom of the Cubs order sucks.
During his second inning, against the meat of the Cubs line-up, he showed a real understanding of setting up hitters. He suckered Soriano with a fastball out of the zone early, then just busted off breaking balls out of the zone to induce a weak chopper. He then continued throwing harder, biting breaking balls to Jacque Jones, Derek Lee, and Aramis Ramirez. The slurviness of the last inning was gone, and his second inning breaking ball (honestly, I don’t know if it was a curve or a slider) was very tight and dove hard, making it a great out pitch to go with his mid-90s fastball.
This is the kind of outing that gets guys noticed in spring training. I had a brief conversation with a scout afterwards and asked him what he thought of Morrow’s appearance, and his answer was essentially “why are you guys sending him to Double-A again?” He could use the work, but I guarantee you he opened some eyes today, and with the M’s bullpen suddenly a huge question mark, Morrow has to be considered a legitimate option to join the pen at some point later this year.
2. Bryan LaHair’s home run binge last year was either the greatest fluke of all time or he just has several different swings and approaches at the plate. The swing he had today couldn’t hit a home run off a tee – his entire focus was making contact and hitting a flare over the outfielder. I’m still a skeptic that he’s ever going to be more than the new Randall Simon.
3. Adam Jones took several good routes going back on the ball. He’s a lot better now than he was a year ago with the glove.
4. If there’s not a job opening for PA announcer at the Peoria Sports Complex, there really should be – the current guy, yea, he isn’t good. He had no idea how to pronounce basic names like Beltre (he says Bell-tree) or Feliz (Fee-lez), screwed up ad announcements, said “uh” about 30 times, and when announcing NCAA tournament scores decided that Weber State knocked off UCLA, generating a huge “ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh” from the crowd before correcting himself. He needs to be reassigned to minor league camp.
5. If you drew up a list of Mariner pitchers I wasn’t interested in seeing, it would probably go something like this: Aaron Small, Jake Woods, Cha Baek, Jarrod Washburn, Jeff Weaver. I got four of the five today. Thanks guys! At least they threw me a bone with Morrow.
6. Betancourt’s bomb got out in a hurry. His home runs last year were all cheapos, sneaking over the wall by a foot or two – not this one. He crushed it.
7. The Cubs got 12,700 fans at HoHoKam park on a Thursday afternoon when the opponent sent one regular – the Mariners couldn’t pull 10,000 for a night game when essentially the regular team was taking the field and playing most of the game. The difference in atmosphere between the two parks was striking.
Back to Peoria tomorrow afternoon, and I’m hoping to spend several hours at the minor league fields, so look for another post like this tomorrow night.
At this rate, it sounds like Morrow is in the process of locking up a spot in the 2008 starting rotation. If Felix can make strides this season, things could be looking up (knock on wood…)
Yeah, that Peoria guy is hoooooooooooorrible.
Still think Miller’s the better pick?
Miller is still the better pick. Looking at what those same teams paid for bad pitching this off-season, passing on Miller makes all five front offices look stupid.
Thanks for the report, Dave. I only saw one of Clement’s AB’s tonight, and he looked like a major league hitter standing in the box. Until he flailed at breaking balls. But it’s good to hear that our two other top prospects are looking good. Can’t be too surprised that Jones is developing well – his ceiling is Cheech Marin high.
Hopefully my “Brandon Morrow? You drafted a reliever” buddies will soon be put in their place.
Hee! One of the most entertaining ballplayers ever.
Nice report, Dave.
I’ve heard that Morrow has a nasty splitter, but the organization is trying to avoid having him overuse it. Did you see it at all while you were out there and, if so, how did it look?
About Morrow: Given the way the Mariners seem to like to zoom prospects through the minors, I don’t think I’m going to listen to anybody who says the M’s aren’t pushing him fast enough. I’m sure that if Morrow continues to look like this, Seattle will stick him in Tacoma for a week and 2 quality starts later he’ll be in the big league rotation. I’m confident that Bavasi will do the… thing.
dola,
Is it okay that I like to pretend that the current Jake Woods is the same Jake Woods we got in the Griffey trade? I mean, I know he’s not, but.
re: Griffey trade
That was Jake Meyer, and he threw with the other hand (about as well though).
Really good to hear on Morrow and Jones.
What’s the deal with Jeff Clement? He looked horrible in the AB that I saw tonight. Is he going to be the next Ryan Christensen or the next Jason Varitek?
fwiw, Hargrove has noticed him– he has mentioned several times that ‘he could be ready to pitch in the big leagues fairly quickly’….
and if you can trust Kirby Arnold: “He probably will pitch at Class AAA Tacoma this year, a big step up from what he was doing last year, but the Mariners are confident he can handle it. And while nobody is willing to say it out loud, the M’s aren’t sure Morrow would be overmatched at the major league level.”
sounds like an ongoing problem– from a 2003 ST note: “the Cubs’ 4-2 win over the Padres, or as the PA announcer at Peoria Stadium called them last Thursday, the Chargers”
I didn’t see any splitters from Morrow – it was all fastball/breaking ball.
ah, Drayer has one of the Hargrove quotes I remembered:
“The plan was to start throwing him earlier in games so he had a chance to see some regulars. Mike Hargrove told us this on the Cactus League Report Tuesday night. That naturally led to the question of what do you do if he gets the regulars out.
Hargrove with some almost giddy laughter and [looking at] Bill Bavasi in the audience, replied: “Then we will talk to Bill Bavasi and his bunch and see if we can’t come to a meeting of minds. I don’t know. That’s one of those things that you look for it to happen. If it happens, it’s great. If it doesn’t, it’s probably the way it should happen. But we’ll see. We want to win this year.””
Wasn’t Simon the guy who attacked the sausage-race girl? I guess if LaHair comes up, the Moose better watch out.