Had Nolan Cain on yesterday's radio program. He had a lot of good things to share. We discussed the transition of Deichman from 1b to rf. He said Deichman has really surpassed what they had hoped for. He mentioned the fact that with him in rf we have a very strong arm to maybe throw a runner out or two. He also said that Deichman is one of the fastest players on the team and really can go get the ball. Likes to play shallow and go back on balls. The coaches are very happy with him in rf.
We went over some new names for our listeners. He said offensively two new names to know are Josh Smith and Jake Slaughter. He said Smith will be the ss in years to come but this year he will play 3b. Said he is an excellant left handed hitter and runs well. A plus glove also. On Slaughter he said the ball just jumps off his bat unlike most hitters. Said he has real good pop and will be a definite plus hitter. He mentioned four new faces for pitching. He said probably the guy most ready to go now is Eric Walker but the two guys with probably the most upside are Zach Hess and Todd Peterson. He even mentioned Hunter Kiel because he was touching 97 mph in the fall. Basically he said the Walker may be more ready now because of control and his off speed pitches but the others are big kids who can really light up the gun and have good breaking balls.
One last thing that was interesting was we were talking about the college game and the use of the minor league ball. He said Ryan Shimpf was hitting the other day and was using the college ball and was getting no carry but after a bucket of those balls he hit about 15 major league balls and was serving them up to bleachers in right on almost every swing. He said the major league ball is much harder, almost feels like a cue ball vs the college ball where you can really feel the leather more so.
We went over some new names for our listeners. He said offensively two new names to know are Josh Smith and Jake Slaughter. He said Smith will be the ss in years to come but this year he will play 3b. Said he is an excellant left handed hitter and runs well. A plus glove also. On Slaughter he said the ball just jumps off his bat unlike most hitters. Said he has real good pop and will be a definite plus hitter. He mentioned four new faces for pitching. He said probably the guy most ready to go now is Eric Walker but the two guys with probably the most upside are Zach Hess and Todd Peterson. He even mentioned Hunter Kiel because he was touching 97 mph in the fall. Basically he said the Walker may be more ready now because of control and his off speed pitches but the others are big kids who can really light up the gun and have good breaking balls.
One last thing that was interesting was we were talking about the college game and the use of the minor league ball. He said Ryan Shimpf was hitting the other day and was using the college ball and was getting no carry but after a bucket of those balls he hit about 15 major league balls and was serving them up to bleachers in right on almost every swing. He said the major league ball is much harder, almost feels like a cue ball vs the college ball where you can really feel the leather more so.
