March 17 Fort Report: Scouting Notes

Scouting notes from this weekend: The players report to the complex around 8:00 am, hit the field for stretching and drills at 9:00 am, and some players take part in intrasquad games starting around 11:30 am … Brad Penny was at the minor league complex on Friday, hitting 89-93 mph with his fastball with good command … Fabian Williamson also pitched Friday, impressing with his hard-breaking curveball … Old friend Randy Beam is in camp as a spring training invitee … Tommy Hottovy looks to be in great shape, but is still experiencing elbow problems … Terry Francona, Theo Epstein, Ben Cherington, and Mike Hazen were all at the minor league complex over the weekend … David Mailman ripped an inside fastball at 92 MPH down the line for a home run off Penny in the intrasquad game … Oscar Tejeda looks noticeably bigger than he was last season - he is starting to fill out his frame and reach some of the physical projections, and his bat has a more noticeable thump behind it … Tyler Yockey generates some good lift with his swing and has a lot of torque – he has high power potential … Derrik Gibson looked very smooth in the field, showing off great range and making strong, quick throws across his body … Ryan Dent is a lot smoother in the field playing second base … Jay Johnson is swinging the bat smoothly in his BP sessions … Chia-Chu Chen looked a little more filled out and like he is driving through the ball more … Casey Kelly looked smooth on the mound delivery wise - his fastball had some nice pop and sink to it … Caleb Clay impressed in an inning, throwing in the low 90s, but struggled with command a little bit … Jose Capellan’s curveball – already his best pitch – looks to be improved, and might be considered a plus pitch at this point … Jon Lester tossed 4 innings at the minor league complex on Saturday, hitting 90-92 mph on the radar gun and topping out at 94 mph … Mailman was also able to single off Lester, the only hard contact made against the lefty … Mike Jones knocked out four homers in batting practice on Saturday, prompting the other hitters to protest that he was making them look bad … Jeff Natale also looked great in BP, and the ball has been coming off his bat really nicely this spring … Jon Still also hit some deep, deep flies in batting practice … Mike Rozier’s fastball was only hitting 78-82 mph in Saturday’s scrimmage … Luis Exposito and Yamaico Navarro both showed very good bat speed over the course of the week … On Sunday, Bryce Cox pitched really well in an inning of the AAA-AA intrasquad game - we didn't have the gun going, but his velocity looked pretty good, with some solid movement on his fastball ... Exposito continued to impress with his arm strength ... Michael Almanzar put on a show in batting practice on Sunday, at one point hitting five out of eight pitches out of the park to deep left center, and the other three were out deep to the warning track ... Almanzar also looked solid taking grounders - his movements were fluid and his throws to second base accurate, but he can be kind of indecisive on long hoppers … After Sunday’s scrimmage, Exposito was messing with Che-Hsuan Lin, trying to learn some Taiwanese – Expo has made a concerted effort to befriend the Taiwanese players … Exposito then proceeded to play catch with all of the little kids left on the field and sign a few autographs – he has a great personality and should be fun to follow when and if he makes it the big leagues.

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