Former GATOR Players

Alonso keeps impressing league - GatorSports.com

 

Also the third hardest hit HR this season (117mph) and he already is tied for the #1 hardest this season. Beast.

 

What is particularly impressive for me is he has begun to hit for average in addition to his power over his last 7-10 games.

 

Prospect Faedo stands out in star-studded Erie
By Jason Beck @beckjason
June 20, 2019
ERIE, Pa. -- The stands were empty at UPMC Park, the stadium nearly quiet, as the Tigers’ Double-A pitchers played catch in the left-field corner on Wednesday morning. The pop of ball hitting glove could be heard well down the line, the one-liners from pitcher to pitcher slightly less so, but Alex Faedo and Matt Manning have a dialogue going.

For all the analytical work and pitch tracking, a good throwing partner can mean the world to a pitcher. Manning and Faedo fit, for reasons that go well beyond being fellow first-round picks in a star-studded rotation.

“Matt's my throwing partner. He's one of my roommates. We do pretty much everything together,” Faedo said. “He does so many things right with his mechanics. When I throw with him, it's just like a nice reminder, not necessarily that I'm ever going to be able to throw exactly like Matt, but just being able to watch how he does this very well, he gets his body in this position when he's throwing, he does this. So, I can just kind of have little reminders how he's staying on top of the ball well, and I’ve got to keep doing that. And then we do a good job of feeding back and forth: ‘Hey, that was good, stay on there. You got a good spin on that one.’”
If it’s possible for a Double-A rotation with three former first-round picks to overachieve, Faedo would be the big reason this one has. While Mize and Manning were rated first and second among Tigers prospects by MLB Pipeline for a reason, Faedo was more of a mystery. His first full pro season last year was an enigma, from early-season questions about his velocity to midseason concerns about his home-run rate, culminating in a 4.95 ERA over 12 starts and 60 innings in Erie. Faedo dropped from 59th on MLB Pipeline’s top 100 list entering last year to 10th in Detroit’s pitching-rich farm system entering this season. (He’s now back up to ninth.)

Faedo worked on his pitches this spring with the help of a Rapsodo machine to measure, along with other things, his spin rate. Like Mize, he used the data from the machine to hone his pitches and try to enhance deception.

“It's a really good tool for us,” Faedo said. “I feel like the longer we use it, the more info we get, and then we start to be able to dissect what we do better. Maybe when you get this kind of spin on the ball, it's a little bit better. Let's see how that feels, and let's keep working on it, stuff like that.”
Prospect Faedo stands out in star-studded Erie

 

Team USA drops 6 4 decision to Japan in Japan All Star Series opener

Team USA drops 6-4 decision to Japan in Japan All-Star Series opener
June 22, 2019, 5:07 a.m. (ET)

SENDAI — Despite taking an early lead in their 2019 international season opener, the USA Softball Women's National Team (WNT) dropped a 6-4 decision to Japan in game one of the Japan All-Star Series. Nearly going hit-for-hit against Japan, walks and back-to-back home runs in the fourth inning proved to be difficult to overcome for the Red, White and Blue.

“I thought we had some pretty good offensive approaches at the plate today,” said WNT Head Coach, Ken Eriksen (Tampa, Fla.). “It was good to see us jump out early, but we have to square some things away on the other side of the ball. Our pitchers have to pound the plate a little bit more and go at batters. By and large, we’re getting better considering we’ve only been on the field together eight days and we’re playing against teams that have been together for six months. So, a lot of bright spots but still some work to do.”
Delaney Spaulding (Rancho Cucamonga, Calif.) led off the second inning by getting hit by a pitch to put the leadoff batter on base and advanced to second on a grounder back to the pitcher. Tagging up on a fly ball to the right fielder, Spaulding was able to reach third with two outs before a walk to Aubree Munro (Brea, Calif.) put runners on the corners. An RBI single up the middle by Kelsey Stewart (Wichita, Kan.) quickly gave the Americans an early 1-0 lead.

 

In today’s current NY METS vs CHCubs / 6th inning 10-0 Mets/ Alonzo has 2 extra base hits/ HR and a double.

Aside from stat stuff, there have been 2 challenges, 1 from each team—
both calls overturned—both calls made by the same umpire—Geez Blue, don’t give up——KEEP GUESSING!.......

 

This could lead to a serious digression in this thread but the SEC Commish was interviewed in the SECT final about replay. The umps got something like 80% of the reviewed plays correct and the reviewed plays are obviously the close ones. I would guess that is a pretty good record in bang-bang plays but 50-50 is just blind guessing so maybe it is a little less good than I think.

As for Alonso, I really hope he can stay healthy. He has a shot to be a special MLB player at the current rate. I would love to see a UF guy be that special. Eckstein is/was amazing but he always lacked the physical special tools. He was as good as he was because he worked harder or cared more. Alonso has real skills even amongst those with crazy good skills.

 

A nice little write-up about Alonso and his possibility of being an All-Star.

Real or not? You can't go wrong picking an NL All-Star at first base

 

gtj;

Honestly there "should" be no doubt that Pete is the Met's All Star this year. Forget what a great half he is having, none of the other Met's stars are having good season thus far. Jacob D. and Noah S. have not pitch to their standards so far. Cano has not hit well, nor has Ramos their catcher. I guess DeGrom could get it because of his Cy Young season last year, but Pete is far and away the correct choice. IMHO.

 

Pete is having a MONSTER year so far.

I gave up on MLB for the most part, but I do look at the Mets box score every day to track what Pete is doing.

 

I am no Mets fan. I am a Stros fan. But I also check the box score every morning to see how he did.

 

By the way, a 454 foot shot today to put him at 27 now. And the pitch was a decent 0-2 pitch.

Plus he walked twice. I didn’t watch it of course but love the patience.

 

Pete homered again today (27) although the Cubs won 5-3.