8/4 Minor Athletics

I’m on my phone right now, so I can’t really see the formatting in full effect. It looks like you did a great job, though. I fooled around with it quite a few times.

Also, I see that they gave Adrian Cardenas the day off. He is hitting just .155 at Triple-A and I believe he’s just 0-for-11 since being called back up.

They say if you can play in AA you can play in the majors so his struggles in AAA are a little puzzling to say the least.

I want to add a thought or two to my report from Portland that I posted 2 days ago.

I watched Henry Rodriguez pitch twice against the Portland Beavers over the weekend. I was pretty hard on him last year, commenting that Henry did not seem to be improving during 2008, perhaps not working hard enough at improving his control, perhaps too consumed with his velocity.

After this weekend, there is no question that Henry possibly throws a baseball harder than anyone on the planet. He hit 100mph and 101mph on what appeared to be an accurate radar gun. And too many of his heaters did not just barely miss; they were just wild.

BUT, I saw glimmers of hope. On Sunday, Henry walked two batters and looked in trouble. A visit from the pitching coach caused a change. With Portland’s slugger at the plate, Henry struck him out with two straight 90mph changeups. Think about that. Rodriguez threw two 90mph pitches and the batter was wayyyyyy out in front of them.

What does that mean? It appears that Henry’s reputation for 100mph fastballs precedes him. The hitters are so wound up, wanting to get around on that fastball, that they pull the hair-trigger too fast on the 90mph changeup.

Henry listened that day to his coach and got the crucial K with the THREAT of his fastball, not the fastball itself. I now think that if Henry continues to listen and do a little more pitching, and a little less heaving, he might actually get pretty good.

With all that said, Henry came out Monday and struck out two very agressive swingers on something like 7 straight 99-101mph 4-seam fastballs.

Like I said before, I think he will be in the bigs for someone next year. Maybe for us, maybe as HUGE trade bait.

I’ve been trying to figure out the actual dimensions of the ballpark in Midland, to see whether the park is a factor in Carter’s amazing power numbers. Here’s a picture of the park (Full size version available here)

The wall in LF and left-center does look pretty high, maybe 12 feet or so? This description says, “The serpentine outfield wall, that juts and curves at odd angles, is another contrast to many other contemporary symmetrical ballparks.” It also mentions that the park faces SE so the fans don’t have to stare into the sun; but that alignment exposes the field to a good deal of wind that blows in from the south, limiting HRs.

I’ve been trying to figure out the real dimensions of Midland’s OF to see how much of a factor it’s been in Carter’s amazing power numbers. Here’s a picture of the park:

It looks to me like the LF to LC wall is pretty high, maybe 12 feet or so.

This brief description, along with more photos, is here:

Uniquely, the footprint of the stadium faces southeast to shield the fans from the sun. However the prevailing winds blow in from the south, which limits the number of home runs. The serpentine outfield wall, that juts and curves at odd angles, is another contrast to many other contemporary symmetrical ballparks.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/08/05/SP5A193FVE.DTL

This link if you want to read it. Sounds pretty good.