New 2015 baseball signee
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11 bombs and missed I think 25-26 games at the end of the season with the same injury/surgery Gavin Collins had.
One bomb every 10 AB. 1.291 OPS. #15 in SLG in all of JUCO had he played enough games to qualify. Possibly the best available player in the country to fill Riley's spot IMO. Shocked we found someone with that kind of power still available in the situation we were in.
Believe his uncle played in MLB for awhile too and dropped a good number of bombs there.
Helps with 2 of the 3 biggest 'needs' for next year .. power and a true third baseman. Now if could only give us 4-5 solid innings of relief pitching.**
Oh yes .. can he bunt?** Sorry .. almost forgot**
So the Barfield's have a history of great baseball players...
Jesse, obviously with that exquisite curl, had a decent career for the Blue Jays.
Jesse has two sons, whom both have played professional ball (Jeremy and Josh).
Jacob is Jesse's nephew, and cousins with Jeremy/Josh. Family trees-n-****.
It appears that Barfield's may have a mean streak too. http://deadspin.com/195495/jesse-barfields-sons-are-getting-a-bit-big-for-their-britches#
Look forward to seeing Jacob drop bombs (or sac bunt) depending on the situation at the Dude next spring.
Jesse, obviously with that exquisite curl, had a decent career for the Blue Jays.
Jesse has two sons, whom both have played professional ball (Jeremy and Josh).
Jacob is Jesse's nephew, and cousins with Jeremy/Josh. Family trees-n-****.
It appears that Barfield's may have a mean streak too. http://deadspin.com/195495/jesse-barfields-sons-are-getting-a-bit-big-for-their-britches#
Look forward to seeing Jacob drop bombs (or sac bunt) depending on the situation at the Dude next spring.
Looks like from the Wharton web site that Barfield missed 17 of the last 18 games (believe with some type of hand injury) and hit his 11 HRs in 110 ABs. Plus he had a nice round .400 batting average as well.
Plant me in the "wait and see" corner. Our (bats, coaches, approach, other) seem to take stats like these and make them meaningless.
We haven't successfully recruited the power aspect from JUCO like we have gotten with this guy and Lowe. For reference, Trey Porter hit 9 bombs in 113 ABs in his soph year in JUCO and is the most powerful JUCO I remember grabbing in the BBCOR era of Cohen's tenure. I think it's fair to be cautious -- I just think the law of averages is working in our favor at this point after a handful of worst case scenarios in a row. Good chance we hit on one of those two that help bridge our power gap, Hump develops, and hopefully Collins finally gets back from his injury. May take a little time to adjust. However, Lowe started at Mercer, so it's not quite the same "new" scenario to him that it has been for many of our JUCO guys. This guy has 4 to play 3 I believe. I'd venture to guess that having MLB in his family has him a bit more prepared than the average guy, but maybe not...
Yeah, maybe I'm just being a debbie downer, but it's going to take a lot of actual on the field results before I'll be able to wipe the sour taste of last season from my mouth. I get that we allegedly have some unbelievable class coming in, but...
1) Cohen has struggled to get freshmen ready to play much more often than he has succeeded over the years
2) Our JUCO "studs" have not panned out much more often than they have succeeded over the years
3) We've had one power guy(Renfroe) from the last 4-5 years up up any kind of numbers
I mean, maybe the stars will all align and Cohen gets this ship turned around next season, but once again, I just can't get past the fact that A LOT is going to have to go right next year in order for that to happen.
1) Cohen has struggled to get freshmen ready to play much more often than he has succeeded over the years
2) Our JUCO "studs" have not panned out much more often than they have succeeded over the years
3) We've had one power guy(Renfroe) from the last 4-5 years up up any kind of numbers
I mean, maybe the stars will all align and Cohen gets this ship turned around next season, but once again, I just can't get past the fact that A LOT is going to have to go right next year in order for that to happen.
I don't think "alot is going to have to go right for it to happen". Things simply are going to have to "not go wrong". We're on what virtually amounts to 2 years worth of worst case scenario on stuff. From Hudson and Hump getting injured and missing summer league last year, to Gavin Collins' injury setting him back a year, to Holland not putting it together as quickly as expected, to Britton and Smith's injuries, to Young's injury, to McCord, Gentry, Cox, etc injuries. Prettymuch everything that could go wrong has gone wrong.
As of today, both Houston and Hudson are top 10 in K's and ERA in the Cape. Daniel Brown hasn't given up an earned run yet. Sexton struggled in his first outing but was good in his second. He's the only P that hasn't been lights out in the Cape yet and is the most "sure thing" we have.
I disagree with the sentiment that we haven't hit on JUCOs. A pretty staggering amount of our actual success has been hinged on JUCOs. Detz, Pirtle, Heck, etc. Although I agree that they are tough to count on from day 1 and require an acclimation period in general. The good side of that is -- I don't feel like we should have to count on them from day 1. Hump is going to be at 1B most likely next year to compete with Lowe and Gordon. And we've got Reynolds over at 3B who really was starting to become who he was supposed to be at the end of last season. Our "talent" problem is drastically overstated. Our health and maturity problems are largely being related to talent when they aren't.
As of today, both Houston and Hudson are top 10 in K's and ERA in the Cape. Daniel Brown hasn't given up an earned run yet. Sexton struggled in his first outing but was good in his second. He's the only P that hasn't been lights out in the Cape yet and is the most "sure thing" we have.
I disagree with the sentiment that we haven't hit on JUCOs. A pretty staggering amount of our actual success has been hinged on JUCOs. Detz, Pirtle, Heck, etc. Although I agree that they are tough to count on from day 1 and require an acclimation period in general. The good side of that is -- I don't feel like we should have to count on them from day 1. Hump is going to be at 1B most likely next year to compete with Lowe and Gordon. And we've got Reynolds over at 3B who really was starting to become who he was supposed to be at the end of last season. Our "talent" problem is drastically overstated. Our health and maturity problems are largely being related to talent when they aren't.
Outside of Renfroe we really haven't had anyone hit much for power, HS or JUCO. But if you look at our current signing class Barfield and Lowe are our best shots at adding some power bats. They may not end up being that but they are likely our best chance to get power out of this class as both hit double digit HRs in JUCO (where pitching is at least better than the average HS pitcher). Best chance to have some power in our HS guys were Riley and Pickett and we lost both to the pros so I am VERY glad to get Lowe and Barfield.
If there's one thing I agree on, it's that we'll definitely have a whole lot of talent on the pitching staff next year. If we can catch a few breaks healthwise and get most of that talent ready to roll prior to opening day, that could go a long a way in giving our offense time to gel.
Wait,you mean Andy Rice(20hr's) didn't live up to the message board hype?Matt Richardson(15hr's) was hyped by KB21 and Todd4State on Gene's Page as an all world "talent".When are people going to learn these message board "gurus" pull most of these talent reviews they pimp out right out of their ***!
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And Polk thought Bunky Kateon was the best SS he had ever signed. Good enough that there was no need to chase Zach Cozart. There is obviously no universal truth, but past success is generally the best indicator of future success. And success in JUCO has higher probability of translating than success in highschool. That was a nice decade-old trump card without links/screenshots though.
ETA: Just realized that Nate Lowe is tied for the lead in the Cal Ripken League in HR right now in spite of half the ABs to this point. He's #2 in the league in OPS as of now. Rooker is tied for the lead in the New England League in bombs.
ETA: Just realized that Nate Lowe is tied for the lead in the Cal Ripken League in HR right now in spite of half the ABs to this point. He's #2 in the league in OPS as of now. Rooker is tied for the lead in the New England League in bombs.
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Screenshots of what?Anyone putting much stock into things the baseball message board "gurus" post about incoming baseball signees is just asking for a major letdown.As far as "universal truth"?In this case there is..and the years have proved it,lots of pulling things from their ***.You know a lot about that Engie,want to give us one of your dandy Mullen rants again?
On second thought ..don't!
Nice archive for a guy that wasn't a poster here when any of these discussions were had. You are so remarkably unmemorable that I don't remember destroying you in such a way that you saved a cross-sport "trump card" for 2 years -- but then again -- Todd apparently destroyed you enough to save what very well may be a straw man card for a decade. Of course, you forgot/ignored all the times that these people were right -- which is what provided them the platform to be considered gurus in the first place. But, yes, playing in the CWS finals 24 months ago sucked tremendously. Bunch of message board dumbasses building up those terrible players leading to nothing but disappointment!!11!1
Both of those guys lit the world on fire in JUCO. I wasn't around then, but it was a safe bet that they would be successful at the next level. Until Raffo turned them into slap hitters obviously**
The Genespage archivist bitching about sunshine on sixpack. Show me where we touched you please.
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Barfield is a really good player who will need likely to redshirt due to his injury. That being said, we really missed an opportunity by not looking at a kid who also played at Wharton named Jonathan Silva. Easily a better player/hitter/athlete than Barfield and the best player Wharton ever signed.
Silva has been injured as well. He never got off the bench at Wharton last year because of his shoulder injury which is likely long term. He wasn't on the team at all this year because of a weird cancer diagnosis. Been a bad year and a half all around for the guy. He just came out of nowhere, though, to be signed by the Astros at their local tryouts. He was the only one out of 600 kids there to get a chance. His bat speed/pop on a baseball is absolutely ridiculous. I'll be honest with I've never seen anything like it. He was going to LSU before all of his issues.
American League clubs can take chances on guys like this to be a DH. I wish we had done the same since we need power. Silva is 6'5" 225ish with incredible power. He would have easily taken an offer from us this year.
Silva has been injured as well. He never got off the bench at Wharton last year because of his shoulder injury which is likely long term. He wasn't on the team at all this year because of a weird cancer diagnosis. Been a bad year and a half all around for the guy. He just came out of nowhere, though, to be signed by the Astros at their local tryouts. He was the only one out of 600 kids there to get a chance. His bat speed/pop on a baseball is absolutely ridiculous. I'll be honest with I've never seen anything like it. He was going to LSU before all of his issues.
American League clubs can take chances on guys like this to be a DH. I wish we had done the same since we need power. Silva is 6'5" 225ish with incredible power. He would have easily taken an offer from us this year.
If he was too injured to play this entire season and now has signed with the Astros I'm not following how we missed on Silva. As far as Barfield, I don't really follow how he would need to miss all of next season due to a hand injury that he has already been dealing with for a few months now EVEN if he needs surgery. Could see him being limited this Fall but not following how he would need to be out next Spring. You could heal 3 broken hands in that time span.
Gee,I wonder why you would take issue with the comment about the "gurus" pulling things from their ***.
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