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The following entry comes from one of our faithful Knuckleballs readers and regular GameChat participant Lecroy24fan. Lecroy24fan chronicles his recent visit to the Twins Low Single-A Affiliate, the Beloit Snappers. Enjoy.
I was heading to Elkhorn, WI this past weekend to visit my girlfriend, and we decided to head a half-hour down the road to Beloit on Saturday night to catch the Snappers game. Pohlman Field was really easy to find. When we arrived, it was posted that the game was moved up to 6:45 PM because of weather moving in. We walked up to the ticket booth and got Section C, Row 3, seats 1-2 for nine dollars apiece. Turns out the first Row was removed at some point, so we were to the right of home plate, second row. The section was covered by a net, so no foul balls could be had. I got to meet Chrissy Scaffidi, Director of Media and Community Relations, as well as PA Announcer extraordinaire.
The game itself was a bad night for the Snappers, who were playing the Oakland A’s affiliate, the Burlington Bees. An 11-3 loss started ugly in the first and really got worse by the inning. SP Jason Wheeler just didn’t have it. He struggled through 5 innings, giving up seven runs, four of them earned. Tim Shibuya and Bart Carter also looked like they had nothing. Clint Dempster pitched the ninth and I felt like he was very dominant. Other than 2B Adam Bryant, who was 3 for 4 with a double and a triple, the bats were pretty quiet most of the night.
Defensively, there were five errors. C Jario Rodriguez made a low throw trying to catch a runner stealing in the first, with the runner moving to third after the ball rolled into CF. JD Williams dropped a routine fly in RF and SS AJ Pettersen had a bad throw to first.
The player I was there to see was 3B Miguel Sano. He made two errors, giving him 24 on the season. The first one was on a routine grounder he never got his glove down and it went right under and into LF. His second error was on a throw that was about two feet over 1B Steven Liddle‘s head. I saw quite a few things about Sano that concern me. Every throw he makes is very high. Every grounder he stutter steps, which makes turning double plays impossible. He’s looks like he’s using an outfielders glove, which is causing him to have major issues getting the ball out of his glove. That could be leading to the stutter steps he takes. I don’t understand why these issues haven’t been fixed by now.
After the game, there was a fireworks show, which happened as planned. The rain started towards the end of the fireworks, so we headed for the exit. I would recommend Pohlman Field to anybody looking to catch a minor league game.
Thanks for sending in the post, Lecroy24fan! During his post Lecroy24fan mentioned that he had the opportunity to meet Chrissy Scaffidi who, among the other things she does for the Snappers, recently started a blog detailing her adventures in the Minor Leagues. Definitely an interesting read for anyone interested in some behind-the-scenes action in the Midwest League. If you have a guest post idea of your own feel free to email one of us Knuckleballers or reach out to us in one of our GameChats and we will be more than happy to give you an audience.
Interesting observations. Assuming he isn’t promoted after the MWL All-Star game (which I think is relatively safe to assume), I’ll get another look at Sano later this week when the Snappers make their second trip to Cedar Rapids this season. He’s clearly a long way from being a serviceable 3B, but I’m probably not as concerned about that as you are. I didn’t notice a particularly large glove (the picture inserted in the story was one I took earlier this year, I believe), but even if it is larger than usual for the position, there are a couple of reasonable explanations for that. The guy is huge… and so are his hands… and that could make it a challenge to even get a smaller glove on. Also, they’re still working with him on being able to field a ball and if having an extra inch in glove length makes that process smoother for now, I’m ok with that.
I just think it’s premature to worry too much about whether he will or won’t eventually be able to play 3B. I see a lot of struggling defensive third basemen take the field in the Midwest League. Most of them are being converted from some other position (ever notice how few draftees are 3Bs out of school?) and are learning on the job. If it works out for Sano, great… if not, let’s be honest, he’s going to be paid to hit the ball a long way. If he can do that, long term, that’s the important thing.
Interestingly enough, in small sample sizes in 2010 and 2011 Miguel Sano actually played better as a shortstop than he did as a third basemen.
I’m not enough of an expert to know what it means, but he has a strike out percentage north of 28%. Of course he also has a high walk rate, and great power, so he could be trending towards an Adam Dunn type of guy. Or he’s just working things out as any teenager might.
More concerning, in the past 30 days he’s hitting just .117, and striking out 38% of the time. However 9 of his 20 hits are for extra bases, including 4 HR (about 1 hr every 33 plate appearances).