Curtis homers out in the desert
ByKLaw has some interesting nuggets from his recent tripout to Arizona, including this on Austin Romine:
He has plenty of arm and his receiving was adequate, but I’m not sure about the bat. His swing works fine, but he has a big stride and a pretty healthy leak, getting his weight on his front foot early and closing his stance late, so his balance isn’t great and he doesn’t get as much power into contact as he could. He’s still just 20 years old and was young for his level this year, but he has some work to do as a hitter before we can talk about him as successor to Jorge Posada.
Anyway, on the the game…
AzFL Surprise (10-9 win over Peoria Saguaros)
Colin Curtis: 3 for 5, 2 R, 1 3B, 1 HR, 2 RBI, 1 K
Brandon Laird: 0 for 5 – 2 for his last 18 after a 9 for 11 start
Still no Puerto Rican League rosters.
Sounds like Law doesn’t think Montero will stick at C?
Nah, the first part of the post that I didn’t quote was a bunch of stuff about fans emailing him asking if Romine was the catcher of the future. He was just kinda sorta answering that with the last part.
Ah, I see =)
Seems to me that he is sayhing that he has time to tweak his swing.
If it was about Montero’s defense he would say the same thing.
klaw’s not the only one
That is pretty surprising. All we had heard about was how Romine could be the best bet with the bat and behind the plate.
He’s still only 20.
Which makes me feel really fucking old.
Makes me feel old since I’m 28. He was young for his league so that helps Romine. Also catchers usually are slower to develop then other position players so if he takes an extra year to get his bat and glove in order I don’t think that is a problem.
All he said is that there were flaws in his swing so he isn’t sure about his bat. He’s just 20, no big deal.
What I mean by no big deal is that these are things than can be developed.
That’s a disappointing, but not discouraging report on Romine. He’s 20 years old, so he has plenty of time to tweak and refine his approach, especially as the raw ability is there.
What I’d be a little concerned about is the fact that he’s a top prospect, and thus the instructors may be reluctant to do anything other than make minor adjustments, rather than overhauling a possibly flawed approach (if it truly is consistently flawed, and Law didn’t catch him on a bad few nights)
I think his raw abaility is good. It also doesn’t seem as if he has really failed to change anything. It will be a great year next year to see if his prospect status takes a jump, stays the same or plunges.
You shouldn’t be disappointed Accent.
Romine isn’t Montero with the bat. He wasn’t a top tier offensive catcher last season. We all agree Romine handled High-A pitching well , and has earned a promotion to AA; where he’ll likely spend the entire 2010 season. Romine is still very much in play for catcher, since he definitely won’t outgrow the position and he’s shown he can post solid offensive numbers.
If only there was someway to put Romine’s defense and Montero’s offense together…
joe mauer says hello
I think Montero has more power than Mauer, actually. Mauer is more of a contact hitter (career MiL SLG of .426), and the one tool mentioned in all of Montero’s reports is the light tower power.
lol mauers more like johnny bench defense and mike piazza offense together
so he’s pretty good, huh
you mean Matt Weiters?
Ask Scott Boras.
Asked Jim Callis about Montero in hit chat today:
Q: If you were running the Yankees, would you keep Montero at catcher for SWB or would you change his position to something like LF so his bat can get to the bigs faster?
A: I’d try to make catching work going into 2010. But if he’s not making progress there, I’d start thinking about LF so he could help the big league club in 2011.
Think that makes a lot of sense
I could dig that. Montero should be hitting in the major leagues in 2011 or something bad has happened.
sure, it’s just 1-2 years too soon to move him to the outfield
Mike, Wasn’t Romines Slugging much higher then his league average this year. What is your take on what Klaw said…?
Romine hit for a lot of power this year, but if KLaw thinks there are some thing to fix in his swing, that’s good, because that means there’s even more power in there.
If you put much stock in what KLaw has to say which I don’t.
What a surprise. Keith Law doesn’t like a Yankee prospect. Always remember he works for ESPN.
“Always remember he works for ESPN.”
That’s probably the only thing you know about him.
Nah. We are going treat his word as gospel because he worked in the failed Blue Jays front office under Riccardi? Please.
Keith Law is probably the best of the analysts at ESPN, I put weight into what he says. He certainly doesn’t wear a bias on his sleeve like some of the others (looking at you, Gammons).
absolutely. he’s the best guy they have over there. completely unbiased
The only problem I have in a report like this is that its from a small sample size at the end of a season. KLaw doesn’t follow these prospect throughout the season and relys on the opinions of various scouts. That being said, a 20 year old that needs to tweak his swing a little bit is nothing unusual. He is the first to get a shot at replacing Posada.
Shouldn’t that shot go to Jesus? If Jesus is even a mediocre defensive catcher, he’s the Yankees catcher for the next 15 years.
Well as much as we all would love for that to happen. Even if he gets a shot at catcher and is mediocre… he may grow out of the position as he gets older from lack of agility. I think that’s the worry… not that he will be able to start at catcher — that he will be able to finish and how long his body holds up.
My ideal situation for Montero is that he’s our DH/Backup Catcher. Let Romine/Cervelli/another FA catcher catch 3-4 out of 5 days and let Montero catch the rest and then DH on days he doesn’t catch. The only way that is a little problematic is if you need a back-up catcher on days where Montero DH’s.
Exactly – the second coming of Piazza is what we are hoping for, but a right handed hitting Victor Martinez with a better bat would still be fantastic. Even if he is able to catch only 1 day a week, it is a major plus.