More Scouting Notes on the Hudson Valley Renegades

After I talked about Renegades starter Matthew Spann yesterday, here are some other notes from the Renegades game on Sunday afternoon.

CF Marty Gantt (7th round 2012)– Gantt stood out in this game for three excellent catches in centerfield, two on dives and one on the run. He is very good at reading flyballs off the bat and glides in centerfield with his great speed. At the plate, Gantt has a little too much movement in his stance pre-swing, but he has a compact bat stroke with solid bat speed. He is patient at the plate but he needs work hitting breaking pitches.

2B Tommy Coyle (16th round 2012)– Coyle had a 3-hit game, showing some nice offensive tools. Coyle has a little Evan Longoria action in his lefty stance, standing tall prior to striding into an open stance, although it isn’t nearly as pronounced as Longoria’s. Coyle features above-average raw power with good bat control. His bat speed is a little inconsistent- he gets into trouble when he sells out for power- but at his best he shows flashes of above-average bat speed with a propensity for contact. He swings aggressively when he sees mistakes and shows power to right-center. Defensively, Coyle moves well, although his actions aren’t so fluid, a big reason that he hasn’t played any shortstop as a pro. He should be fine defensively at second base moving forward.

C Luke Maile (9th round 2012)- The scouting report on Maile is that he is a power hitter, but one that uses his strength more than his bat speed, and the Rays may be trying to make an adjustment with him. He showed a closed stance and a gap to gap approach. Maile is relatively big at 6’3″, 195, but he bent his knees enough that he looked like a smaller player in the batter’s box. He did show a compact swing and solid plate discipline.

DePew against Mateo.

C Jake DePew (9th round 2010)– DePew has an interesting stance where he holds his hands a little high, and he strides towards the pitcher before he swings. DePew is a big guy at 6’1″, 220, but you don’t really see any power despite some flashes of solid bat speed because his swing is very compact. DePew is good at putting the ball in play and is patient on pitches out of the zone, but he really doesn’t hit anything hard right now. DePew looks like he should be hitting for some power, and that’s an adjustment that I’m sure will be made because you don’t find many tap hitters his size. DePew does run very well for a catcher and hustles out of the box, something we know the Rays love.

LF Deshun Dixon (10th round 2010)- Dixon looks completely out of whack in the batter’s box. He has a bat waggle prior to the pitch and also kept shifting his weight from front to back, and his timing was terrible. His bat speed was decent and at 6’0″, 190, he may have a little pop if he can ever get his timing right. Dixon tried to bunt and failed miserably. As a player who incorporates speed into his game, he needs to work on that.

SS Leonardo Reginatto (Brazil, 2009)– Reginatto is a groundball hitter, relying on his legs, and he has a compact stroke and generates decent bat speed, making him able to hit harder groundballs and giving him a chance to have gap power.

3B Felix Gonzalez (Venezuela, 2008)– Gonzalez made a couple of errors in this game at third base, both because he was thinking too much about what he was going to do when he fielded the ball. He moves well and tries to be a little too flashy, getting him into trouble. His tools at third are there- but his bat doesn’t fit there at all as he’s basically a tap hitter.

As a bonus, here’s a couple of Mets prospects from the Brooklyn Cyclones.

RHP Luis Mateo (Dominican Republic, 2011)– Mateo features great control of his two primary pitches at this point, his fastball and changeup. Mateo’s fastball was in the low-90’s but it played way up thanks to great armside run almost every time he threw it and dynamic late sink. Renegades hitters kept swinging over the top of it, and the same can be said of his slider, which looks like his fastball out of his hand with excellent arm action before featuring sharp break, although with maybe a little less depth than you would like, making it almost look like a changeup. Mateo’s true changeup basically looked like his fastball but with a little more sink and run, and it didn’t really fool hitters at all. Mateo’s fastball-slider combination makes him an interesting player to watch as he has dominated the New York-Penn League to a 0.51 ERA, an 11.2 K/9, a 1.0 BB/9, and a 0.5 HR/9 in 3 starts and 17.2 IP.

CF Brandon Nimmo (1st round 2011)– Nimmo remains extremely raw. He features a close stance with a gap to gap approach, and while the bat speed is there, and he makes contact, the pitch recognition skills are not. He didn’t look comfortable in the batter’s box and his swing was almost too compact, leading to weaker contact. Nimmo is very patient at the plate, but other than drawing some walks, that isn’t helping him very much. Nimmo looks fine in centerfield and is extremely fast out of the lefty batter’s box. The five-tool potential is evident, but he’s a long way from that.