Backfield Blog: Burghers vs. Alleghenys
By jseiner24
By Jake Seiner / MiLB.com
Another day, another Minor League camp. After hanging out at Orioles’ camp in Sarasota on Monday, Tuesday brought me to Pirate City in Bradenton.
When I visited Pittsburgh’s Minor League complex last year, I came away impressed by the size of the crowd on hand. Tuesday was very much the same, and Minor League games haven’t even started yet. Being from Pittsburgh originally, I know how Yinzers love their sports and are willing to travel to see them. Even still, the fact that the Pirates seem to regularly draw 100-plus folks out to the Minor League complex is impressive. For comparison, I could probably count the fans at Baltimore’s Buck O’Neil Complex on Monday with the fingers on two hands.
I’ve seen similar-sized crowds at Minor League Spring Training games for Boston and Minnesota, but those complexes are located on the same site as the big league camp fields — most of the MiLB viewers are just overflow MLB fans there primarily for Grapefruit League action. Pirate City isn’t on the same site as McKechnie Field, though, meaning everybody who came to the Minors camp today was there just for the youngsters.
Today’s session was a shorter one, but there were some highlights. I got my first in-person look at 2014 first-rounder (24th overall) Cole Tucker and came away impressed. The 18-year-old is a 6-foot-3 beanpole, but his hands and feet seemed to work really well at shortstop during infield practice. I snagged a little video of him taking batting practice too.
Previous reports suggested Tucker was destined for Class A West Virginia, an aggressive promotion for the 18-year-old — one of the youngest players in the 2014 Draft class. I talked with Pirates player development director Larry Broadway about that, and Broadway said Tucker’s destination hasn’t been determined yet. But the shortstop could show he’s ready for the South Atlantic League this spring, and so far, so good.
“It’s the expectation,” Broadway said. “We’ve challenged him to get himself ready to do that and we’ll see how the rest of the spring plays out. But the expectation is for him to answer the bell and go out and do it.”
Speaking of bells, the highlight of the day was easily the 420-plus foot triple Josh Bell rocked off Pirates’ right-hander Charlie Morton during an intrasquad scrimmage (Burghers vs. Alleghenys, which made me chuckle). I got the mammoth knock on tape — you can view it in this notebook I wrote about Bell’s transition from the outfield to first base.
I was interested to see Bell work at first and got to do so during infield drills prior to the scrimmage. Reports I’d read from the Arizona Fall League said Bell was a bit rough on the dirt still. I think those are still fair sentiments. His actions aren’t the smoothest and he still doesn’t look entirely comfortable, but he did make all the plays required of him Tuesday, including a nifty pick on a short hop during practice.
Broadway said the team moved him to first in part because they think he’ll just be too big for the outfield, and I believe him. Bell isn’t just a big guy. He’s very uniquely shaped. I described him in the notebook as having the shoulders and waste of a comic book super hero. The image that kept popping into my head was actually the NBA’s Dwight Howard and his cannonball shoulders. Bell isn’t quite that jacked, and he’s only 6-foot-2. But he’s a very distinctive athlete with tons of raw strength. The swing he used to crack that triple off Morton reminded me a lot of vintage Ryan Howard in the way he leveraged the bat through the zone.
That’ll do it for today. Tomorrow is a lighter day for me — the plan is to head to one of the Fort Myers locations (Boston or Minnesota) and take in whatever games are going on. I’m not sure what Boston has planned for Yoan Moncada this early in MiLB Spring Training, but there’s a chance I’ll catch him in game action tomorrow. Even if not, should be a fun day as the teams get their first game action. I’ll be posting updates throughout the day on Twitter (@Jake_Seiner), so feel free to follow along there.
