2018 International League All-Star Set Part 2

Part 1 of the set can be found here. 

Back half of the set has a little more star power than the first half. 

Good first pair of cards to start out the second half.  Meadows actually finished the year with the Durham Bulls.  He was traded to the Rays as a part of the Chris Archer deal.  Seems like he's at least a good everyday Major League player.  Not counting on him being in Durham next year, it was fun watching him for the last few weeks of the season.  

Mejia is one of the best catching prospects in the game.  Consensus top 20 prospect, with Baseball Prospectus ranking him in their top 5.  He started the year with the Clippers, but the Indians included him in the Brad Hand trade, so he is now with the Padres.  They have called him up to the Majors to finished out 2018.  

Riley is a top 100 prospect.  He spent the majority of 2018 in Triple A with Gwinnett, but he is just 21.  He is a really good defensive player, had a good year with the bat, but could probably use a little bit more polish.  Riley will be back in Triple A next year, at least to start the year, but he is not far away.  

Rainey had a good year with Louisville.  Definitely deserves a place in this set, not sure where he fits on a Major League roster.  He's probably a middle reliever.  Lots of swings and misses in the Minors, not sure if he can replicate that in the Majors.  

Victor Robles is a top 10 prospect no matter what prospecting website you are reading.  He just turned 21 this year, I know he had been up twice with the Nationals and not done much, but be patient.  He gets a lot of extra base hits, doubles and triples, that are going to find there way over fences in a few years as he continues to work and fill out.  

Stolen bases are good too.  Victor steals bases.  

Romero has been up for awhile with the Twins.  Seems like he is going to be an end of the rotation starter.  Pitches to contact, not a lot of strikeouts, but he seems to keep his team in the game.

Tanner Scott only pitched 10 games with Norfolk this year.  Not sure how he got into this set.  The 10 games were really good, he had an ERA of 0.75.  Tanner Scott is now a reliever on the Orioles.  The Orioles have over 100 loses and there are two weeks left in the season.  Tanner's ERA is almost 6.  It's probably not entirely his fault.  

Which brings us to Nick Senzel.  Early this summer I got to see Nick Senzel.  I sat in front of a Reds fan who told me he's the second coming of Scott Rolen for six or seven innings.  I like Nick Senzel, he is a good player, he's not Scott Rolen.  Senzel gets on base, plays good defense, and has some pop.  Less pop than Scott Rolen, less defense than Scott Rolen too.   

Stephens is a nice pitcher.  He's a college pitcher out of Rice, given the White Sox current slate of pitchers, I am not sure why he isn't up already.  Stephens is not a Top 100 prospect, not even sure the White Sox sites rank him in their Top 10.  He eats up innings, he gets some strikeouts, avoids big innings, and keeps his team in games.  I like him better than 50% of the pitchers currently on the White Sox.  

Sheffield is a pretty big prospect.  He's a top 100 guy, Yankees fans will probably tell you he's better than that.  Could be.  He's got good stuff and he misses bats.  At worst he is probably a solid Major League starter.  Hopefully that is good enough for Yankees fans. 

Two players I saw in college.  

D.J. Stewart has a crazy batting stance. 

One of my student's parents once blamed D.J. Stewart for messing up their batting stance.  I think it's a bad left handed version of Jeff Bagwell.  I have my doubts about D.J..  

Christin Stewart does not have a crazy batting stance.  He was one of the better power hitters in the International League this year and think he will be a good Major League player for the Tigers.  Really good plate discipline for a younger player with power.  He is a starting outfielder for a long time. 

Last pair.  

I like Sam Travis.  He hustles, plays hard, and puts up some decent numbers.  That's all I have got.  

Gleyber Torres is really good.  He will be on the Yankees for a very long time and will be a good player.  All-Star games, the whole nine yards.  

That's the set.  Hopefully you are not reading this five years after I posted it because I was horribly wrong about something I said here. 

ACC Baseball Championship: Florida State vs NC State

                       

I spent my Sunday afternoon taking in the ACC Baseball Championship at the Durham Bulls Athletic Park.  The game featured the 16th ranked Florida State Seminoles versus the NC State Wolfpack.  Obviously, I have a pony in this race, so I was a little disappointed in the end result.  Nonetheless, it's always great to take in a game in Durham.  Here's a look at the sight and sounds of the ACC Championship.....

WOLF PACK Chant #NCState #WPN #ACCBase

A video posted by The Snorting Bull (@thesnortingbull) on May 24, 2015 at 11:02am PDT

There have been several NC State baseball games in Durham over the years and they are always really well attended.  Today's game had almost 10,000 in attendance which set the record for the ACC Conference Championship game.  Florida State traveled well too, plus they have a good deal of alumni in the Triangle (Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill) area.  Their fan base tends to show up for a lot of their sporting events against State, Duke, Carolina, and Wake Forest.  Still, the crowd was heavily slanted in favor of my Wolfpack.  

I decided to venture around the ballpark a little bit more today then normal.  Usually I get my seat and I sit in it and my pictures are from that perspective.  Today, I traveled a bit.  Before the game started I watched the warm ups and the first half inning from the first base side of the field.  State was the visiting team, by seeding not proximity, so they were on that side of the field.  Here are some pictures.......

FROM 1st Base.......

Not to be too biased here is picture of Florida State warming up before the game.  Neither team took BP, but both teams took infield practice and the pitchers and outfielders were working on various drills.  I went and watched outfielder D.J. Stewart for a few minutes.  I saw him last summer playing for USA Baseball.  While much of his acclaim (projected first round pick) is for his bat he has a nice throwing arm too.  He made several throws during warm ups that were strong to the plate and accurate.  More on the batting down the page....

The NC State players were also working on a few drills when I arrived at the ballpark.  I had a few players on the team I wanted to watch today.

First up there is Joe Dunand.  He is the freshman third baseman on the team and decided to attend State after he slid to the Indians in the 35th round out of high school in the Miami area.  He's also ARod's nephew.  It should not really mean that much, but for some reason it does.  He's a fun player to watch and I think he's going to be good in time, but he definitely has a few things he needs to fix.   State has been batting him in the middle of the order and he has hit 7 home runs, 12 doubles, and a triple in starting almost every game as a freshman.

I also wanted to watch sweet swinging first baseman Preston Palmeiro.  He is a sophomore at State and I think he had a great year with a .316/.393/.471 line to go with 7 home runs, 12 doubles, and a triple.  He seems to have trouble laying off of breaking balls out of the zone, so I am eager to see what he can do when he figures out how to lay off of those pitches.  While, he does also get some love for being Raffy's kid, at the moment he is more famous for doing this to Miami Friday night.....

Here's one more picture of State taking infield practice.........

I watched State bat from the first base side during the first inning.  Their first two batters, Logan Ratledge and Ryne Willard both reached, but the Florida State pitcher Bryant Holtmann pitched out the jam.  Here is Ratledge on first.  This was his only hit of the day.  He has been really instrumental in helping State get into the ACC Tournament, improve their seeding, and advance to the Championship game.  Florida State did a great job of keeping him off of base today.

FROM 3rd Base....

For the bottom of the first I moved and sat on the third base side of home plate specifically to get a good view of D.J. Stewart.  There was a section that was mostly empty too.  Here is Stewart on deck. I was trying to get a picture of him next to someone, but failed.  He's not a really tall player, but he is muscled.  Also of note, John Sansone is batting in this picture for the Seminoles.  His third inning home run made it 3-0 for Florida State and was the ballgame in my opinion......

Here's a close look at Stewart's first at bat in pictures.....

Stewart's stance, style, and stature remind me a lot of Jeff Bagwell.  Bagwell did not have a leg kick, as shown in the bottom picture, but the squatting and explosion up are certainly reminiscent.  Stewart ended the year with 13 home runs and 52 RBIs.  Besides being a big guy with a big swing he also showed off a little speed by stealing a base in the first inning.  He had ten entering the game.   Some forget, but Bagwell had surprising speed too....

While I was on the third base side I also spent a little bit of time watching Preston Palmeiro bat.  The Wolfpack first baseman had a quiet day with an 0-3 with 2 Ks.  That swing looks familiar though....

Sansone's homer and a 3-0 Seminole lead took me to another location in the park......

From Left Field

Hello friend.  I decided the name sake of my blog would be a cool place to watch for awhile.  State did end up picking up two runs to narrow the lead.  The play which lead to their first run was one of the most bizarre things I have ever seen.  I think this tweet best explains the play....

#sources FSU and Mike Martin's view of the NC State dugout after that weird Infield fly play in the fourth #ACCBase pic.twitter.com/XarG8EoVoQ

— James Alverson (@JamesAlverson) May 24, 2015

 

or in summation: an NC State batter popped up a pitch with the bases loaded.  The Florida State infielders let the ball drop, no one called it, and they then threw home and forced out the runner on third.  The ball went back to the pitcher, everyone was returning to their places on the field when the Florida State coach pops out of the dugout to argue the fact that the infield fly rule should have been called.  Well, he won the argument (see highlight video at the end of the post), but allowed an NC State run in winning the argument because their catcher tagged home and not the runner.  On an infield fly rule the runners advance at their own risk and must be tagged, not forced out....

That was wordy.  FSU got out of trouble and brought in this guy........

Boomer Biegalski who slammed the door on NC State.  His 4 2/3 innings got Florida State through the 8th inning.  He struck out 5 Wolfpack batters and only allowed one hit.   He also took home the hardware as the Championship games MVP.  Nice.

From Behind Home.....

I was slightly off center.  Mainly I was trying to avoid a big glob of Seminoles fans.  Here's that D.J. Stewart at bat I promised earlier in the post.  This was a ground out, but you can see the whole squatting batting stance in motion......

DJ Stewart groundout in the 7th inning #ACCBase #FSU #Seminoles

A video posted by The Snorting Bull (@thesnortingbull) on May 24, 2015 at 12:27pm PDT

 Here are a couple other cool pictures from the bottom of the eighth and the ninth innings......

and the video highlights including the weird infield fly rule play and a really cool catch by a Florida State outfielder.