Scouting Videos

May 31, 2007

One of the more remarkable things about this year’s draft is the fact somebody has been working very hard to make sure videos of certain players are not freely available on the web.

Take Beau Mills, for example. One day there were 5 or 6 videos at a well known scouting website and the next day they were all gone. Even more curious is the fact all his videos all over the web seem to have been removed, from TV stations, to CSTV, even the NAIA site. Not even the Minor League Baseball draft page has a video of Mills.

That’s very strange.

I did manage to find one video that makes Mills seem like he is the best thing since Kevin McClatchy and I’ve included it so you at least get a look at him. But I wanted to show you the error-prone third baseman who strikes out all the time in between the gap shots and home runs he hits in the weak league he’s in. Obviously somebody else doesn’t want the world to see those types of things.

So far I have Porcello, Main, and Vitters you can watch, as well as the heavily slanted Mills film. I didn’t interest myself in Brackman, Weiters, or Price because it’s becoming pretty obvious we aren’t going to have a chance at Price, Brackman is falling off the charts, and we won’t take Weiters because of slot money.

I’m assuming if Vitters is available the Pirates are going to take him because it solves their potential PR nightmare. I don’t personally think he will be the best player at the time, but that’s neither here nor there.

Instead, I focused on the two pitchers I think the Pirates are probably going to be hard pressed to pass up on if available – Main and Porcello.

Porcello will probably be gone but if he isn’t, he has a clean delivery and throws over the top. He has three plus pitches, including a 93 – 95 mph fastball, but they really aren’t polished. What makes Porcello attractive is that he has easy mechanics like, say, Lincoln did and Duke does.

Main is another lanky right hander I’ve seen in action with a few scouts around me. The one thing everyone wonders about with Main is if he can stay healthy. He’s missed parts of two seasons with tendinitis issues but he has a very strict pitch count that might have led to part of his problems as a two-way player.

Main has hit 99 mph in tourney games and has good late tail on his fastball. He throws with a long arm and some scouts worry about that because history has showed long arm pitchers don’t necessarily get good action on their offspeed stuff. But if your throwing 95 – 97 mph consistently, that may not matter.

The other thing scouts seem to worry about Main is that his delivery motion is less than smooth and has so many different pieces to it that it will require an advanced pitching coach to work with him on it.

But one thing is for sure, every scout I talked to liked Main’s stuff better than Porcello’s and everyone agreed if Main stays healthy he has a chance to be a legitimate #1. I heard the term tandem slot over and over with scouts watching him thinking he would be a great candidate for the next few years for such a slot (pitch four/five innings starting them next outing pitch the last 4 or so).

All of these are in Windows Media format:

Main  —  Porcello — Vitters — Mills

If you are aware of any other videos out there, send me an email and I’ll include them here. If there’s someone you want to see, let me know and I’ll see about adding them.

Written by twofus Posted in Dailies Tagged with 2007 Draft