Player Profile: Jaron Long

Jaron Long is a 6’0” 180 lb. Sophomore from The Ohio State University. He was named First-Team Big Ten All-Conference this season. In 2012, Long pitched 101.1 innings (4th in Big Ten), striking out 63 (11th in conference), walking 13 (2nd in Big Ten), and posted a 2.66 ERA (6th in conference). Jaron pitched 2 complete games and had a 6-2 record. He went at least 7.0 innings and allowed two earned runs or less in 10 of his 12 starts. His assistant coach Mike Stafford said, “Jaron fills up the strike zone and works fast. He works both sides of the plate and can throw strikes with four pitches. [He isn’t] a strikeout pitcher- he throws the fastball anywhere from 87 to 90 - but he relies on movement and adding and subtracting speed.”

Jaron throws out of the 3/4 arm slot with a smooth arm action. Like Coach Stafford said, he works very fast. This is an excellent way for pitchers to keep their fielders involved in the game. The first thing I noticed when watching Jaron’s bullpen session: he has solid mechanics and has a nice repertoire of pitches. When I asked him about the slight foot kick after he reaches his balance point, he spoke about how it helped him incorporate his lower body better. He uses a fastball with some late action that sits around 86-88, a cut fastball around 84, a curve around 74, and a good change-up that comes in at 80 mph. I feel like his change-up is well disguised, has very nice tail, and downward movement to a right-handed batter. He works diligently at controlling the running game by varying his looks and keeping his time to the plate around 1.32-1.36. Long pounded the strike zone by throwing 63.4% of his pitches for strikes. To the batters he threw first-pitch strikes to; he retired 89% of them. Jaron Long is a very solid pitcher who understands the finer aspects of his craft. In the video, you can see how the delivery Jaron uses for his fastball and change-up are the same.  Jaron Long has a high baseball IQ and should be a valued part of the Braves starting rotation.

Player Profile: Mike Ahmed

     Mike Ahmed is a 6'2" 195lb. INF/RHP for the College of the Holy Cross. He enjoyed an excellent season this past year batting .295 in 207 AB, and drawing 31 walks. His hitting statistics become more impressive when you note his .396 on-base percentage, and his .488 slugging percentage. Mike finished 4th in the conference in Runs Scored, 5th in the conference in Doubles, and led the conference in home runs. He has started his Bourne Braves season on fire! At a time when the league's pitching is supposed to be dominating, because the hitters are adjusting to the wooden bats, this Brave has been on top everything. Through 4 games he is batting .467. He has compiled 15 at-bats; hitting a triple, home run, 4 RBIs, and drawing two walks. At this rate, he appears to be a fixture at the top of the Braves order.

     After seeing several batting practices and at-bats, I noticed that Mike does an excellent job of finding every hole in  the field. In fact, several people have commented that he flat-out "rakes." This is evident through his hitting chart. Two things to note in this chart: 1. He equally distributes flyballs, line-drives, and groundballs 2. He uses the middle of the field well (biggest hole in the field).  He makes excellent contact because his approach is very balanced. He keeps his front foot open with what I like to call a neutral stance. This means his feet are at a comfortable distance and his weight is distributed evenly. As the pitch arrives: his hands stay high, he uses the landing of his front foot to set his hands, his weight stays balanced throughout his swing, and his hands take a very efficient, direct path to the baseball. I showed the swing three times in slow motion, so the viewer can see how he does an excellent job of "punching" his hands at the ball, and allowing the head of his bat to explode at the point of contact. Mike Ahmed has a quick, compact swing, and has shown the ability to drive the ball out of the park. At this point in the season, all he has done is rake.

Player Profile: Jeff Thompson

Jeff Thompson is a 6’6”, 245 lb. RHP. He enjoyed an excellent year for the Louisville Cardinals. Jeff finished his season tied for first in the Big East with 9 wins, 8th in the league in strikeouts with 73, averaging 8.35/9 IP, and finished second on his team in innings pitched. During the summer of 2011 he pitched for the New England Collegiate Baseball League’s (NECBL) Keene Swamp Bats. He started 8 games during the regular season posting a 1.90 earned run average, finishing 3rd in the league with 53 strikeouts in 38 inning pitched. In the playoffs Jeff was 2-0 with 15 strikeouts and a 0.71 ERA. It was really nice to see that Jeff “rose to the occasion” during the playoffs. This strong performance earned Thompson the NECBL Top Prospect award and he was named to the NECBL First-Team.

This University of Louisville product pitched 5.0 strong innings last night surrendering 2 hits while striking out 2, and not allowing a run to score. The first thing that really sticks out about Jeff is definitely his size. The moment he took the mound at Doran Park you could hear the comments range from “Wow, that’s a big boy!” to “Look at the size of him!” It is easy to say that he is an imposing presence on the mound. Jeff uses his large frame very well to generate power to the plate. He throws from a 3/4-over the top arm angle, and really extends his long arms to the plate. I thoroughly enjoyed his arm extension and the look it gave behind home plate. His fastball was around 89-91 on a 60-57 degree night with a strong 13mph NE wind. His change was around 82-84, and his slider sat around 82. His change-up showed some nice downward drive and it compliments his four-seam fastball well. He did a very nice job of disguising his change-up. The hitters were certainly off-balance when he threw it. In the top of the 3rd inning he struck out Binghampton’s Billy Bereszniewicz on a nasty backdoor slider, that Bereszniewicz really had no chance at. When runners did reach base, Thompson was quick to the plate (1.33-1.35 from the stretch). In the top of the fourth, he showed some pitching moxie by changing his looks with University of Pittsburgh at Bradford’s Derek Smith on first. In this instance, he had two strikes, and he slowed down slightly to 1.51 with a change-up. Overall, I am looking forward to a very strong summer from Jeff.

Player Profile: Chase McDonald

    Chase McDonald is an East Carolina sophomore who has started the Braves’ first two games of the year at first base. Going in to the 2012 season, he was ranked by College Baseball Daily as the #40 Best Player. This ranking was the highest of any Bourne Brave. This is his first season in the Cape League. He played in the Coastal Plains League(CPL) in 2011. In the CPL, he led the league with a .403 batting average, 51 RBIs, and finished second in the league with 13 home runs. So after missing the CPL triple crown by two home runs, McDonald was named to the CPL All-Star game and named the 2011 Rawlings CPL Offensive Player of the Year. Before the summer of 2011, McDonald hit .314 with 4 HRs, 11 doubles, and 31 RBIs. He was on the Conference USA (C-USA) All-Freshman team, College Baseball Daily’s C-USA All-Freshman team, and the Charlottesville All-Regional Team. To read even more about the praise being lauded upon this young man, check out his Baseball Factory Player Page and click on the Professional Evaluation tab.
    After watching Chase in the first two games, and three batting practices, I noticed he has a very good power swing.He keeps his hands at his eye level beginning his swing, and his elbow up. He really gets into the ball well.  I spoke to him about how he generated a lot of topspin line drives in his first couple batting practices and how he did an excellent job of getting inside the baseball while hitting two long drives to right field during the game. He said, “I was trying to hit line drives because it was very windy, and once the wind died down you could elevate the ball a bit more and hit more balls in the gap.” His hitting adjustment was critical in this 3-2 game, because his bottom of the 6th double and eventual run gave the Braves a 2-1 lead. I posted two videos to show a timing adjustment in his swing. The first video was shot at the Impact Invitational on March 6, 2010, the second was on June 15, 2012 at Doran Park versus the Hyannis Harborhawks.  The adjustment made from 2010-2012 is a slight toe tap and leg twist to allow him to set his hands better. You can see in the 2010(top) video his hands move together with his hips, and that his hands drop into his swing. In the 2012(bottom) video, you can see his hips initiate the swing and how the first motion his hands make is directly to the path of the ball. After his hands follow the path, you can see the adjustment Chase made (in the game today). He fouls off the pitch I filmed, but it is very easy to see that he is trying to get inside this baseball and drive it to right field.

Player Profile: Shane Taylor

 

      Shane Taylor is a 6’1 186 lb. pitcher from the University of North Carolina. He is from Mullica Hill, NJ and pitched for Clearview Regional High School. Taylor was ranked as the seventh-best prospect in New Jersey and the 360th nationally by Perfect Game. He finished 5-0 on the season with a 3.48 ERA. Shane was second on the team with 26 appearances. He posted 34 strikeouts and surrendered 17 walks. This New Jersey product was named the ACC Pitcher of the Week after pitching 8.0 innings allowing no runs and only 1 hit against Duke. He only allowed three base-runners total, and retired the last 16 batters he faced.
      In last night’s game Shane Taylor pitched 3 complete innings. He gave up 3 earned runs, walked 4, and struck-out 3. He throws from a low 3/4 arm slot. His arm angle is around the hour hand at 2:00. His fastball was between 84-86 mph with nice tail inside to a right-handed batter, and his Slurve was around 76-78mph. It is important to have an 8-10 mph drop between your fastball and off-speed pitch(s). I think the slurve compliments his tailing fastball well. I am not sure if he was choking his slurve at times or he threw an occasional slider. I posted a video of his mechanics. Taylor really extends and gets good forward momentum towards the plate. It is impressive to see a smaller pitcher generate that much power (his fastball sat around 90-92 against St. John’s at the Regional, 90 according to Perfect Game). Warming up in the bullpen(side view) I noticed how he did an excellent job of finding a slightly high balance point. When warming up at the begining of the second (straight-on view), I noticed his leg-kick became higher. As his leg kick increases his mechanics become quicker and he tends to overthrow a bit (second pitch from straight-on view). His lead arm tends to drift slightly rather than staying tight and tucked under his arm(note picture below). During the third inning his arm angle dropped to a 2:30-2:45 angle. This is when Phil Ervin hit a homerun.

Player Profile: Mason Robbins

 

     Mason Robbins is a freshman at the University of Southern Mississippi. He wants to receive his Bachelors in Construction Engineering. This 6 foot 2 inch 196 pound CF/LHP was drafted in the 20th round (612 overall) by the Mets in the 2011 MLB Amateur Draft. He played his high school baseball at George County High. He acquired quite the reputation as a dominant pitcher and centerfielder. Stan Caldwell a writer for the Hattiesburg American commented on one of Robbins’ hits: "It's the darnedest thing I've ever seen, it had to go at least 420 feet in the air. I'd never seen a ball hit like that." The ball one-hopped a wall 445 feet from home plate.  The 2011 Mississippi Mr. Baseball is an apparent five-tool player.  His ability to hit for power and average was on display when he batted .500 his senior year and hit 14 home runs and 14 doubles. He has been clocked at 91mph from the outfield by Perfect Game USA. On the mound at George County, Mason won 7 games with a 1.83 ERA and struck out 99 batters in 65 innings of work. He was the Conference-USA Freshman of the Year for the Golden Eagle baseball team leading the team in average at .332 to go along with 3 HRs, 36 RBIs. He appears to be excellent on the base-paths because he was second on the team with 7 stolen bases in 8  attempts, and he led Conference-USA in triples with 7. Not to discount, he has a 4.13 ERA as a left-handed pitcher for Southern Miss.

    The video I posted above was taken at the Baseball Factory Under Armour All-America Game on August 14, 2010. Robbins’ slows down and concentrates on fielding the ground ball, but you can notice he is diligent in catching it on the outside of his foot. Even though he is using a small crow hop he shows off an excellent arm from the outfield (0:42). While hitting, he small toe-tap with his front foot. It appears he is an excellent rhythm hitter as the foot allows his hands to hit sharply into the ball. His hands are in the perfect hitter’s slot and move in a direct path to the ball. He does a good job of hitting the ball out in front. I am excited to see him use all of his tools this summer at Doran Park the home of the Braves.

Player Profile: Colin Moran

     The Bourne Braves will welcome back third baseman Colin Moran this year. Last year, Colin represented the West team in the Cape Cod League All-Star game. For the Braves, Moran hit .289 with 10 RBIs in 107 at-bats. In 2011 at the University of North Carolina, he led the team in on-base percentage (.442), average (.335), homers (9), and RBIs (71). His great performance in Chapel Hill earned him Baseball America First Team All-American honors, NCBWA Freshman All-American, Louisville Freshman All-American, First Team All-ACC, ACC Freshman of the Year, and Baseball America Freshman of the Year! Baseball runs in his family as his brother Brian is a pitcher with the Seattle Mariners’ AA affiliate Jackson Generals, and his Uncle B.J. Surhoff was a Major League Baseball All-Star in 1999. The 6’3” 210lb Moran, comes from Rye, New York, and was a preseason Baseball America 2nd team All-American for 2012. He was rated by  Baseball America as the top-rated Atlantic Coast Conference prospect for the 2013 amateur draft. Also, Baseball America rated him as the best pure hitter in the conference. This power-hitting corner infielder has been very impressive his entire career. However, his presence (or lack thereof) has never been noticed more than his 21-game absence from the Tarheels’ line-up. The team scored an average of 5.14 runs (down from 6.72 with Moran) and the team’s batting average was down almost 40 points. With that type of production, I am hoping he is available to the Braves for the entire season.
    I posted a video above of Colin hitting for the Braves during the 2011 season. He has a wide stance and starts his hands high. He prepares for the pitch by dropping his hands into the hitter’s slot and bringing his front leg back and places it into the same spot it began. As the pitch approaches, he shifts his weight back nicely and comes into a neutral hitting position before he starts his swing. His hips begin the swing, and his hands follow. He shows excellent mechanics for a power hitter. When he makes contact, in the video above, his hands do an excellent job of “staying inside” the baseball. I do not see where the ball lands, but by the motion and Colin’s head I believe it was to the opposite field. I hope that is something Colin does with great frequency. I am excited to see Colin this summer, and will monitor his ability to go the opposite way as I post hitting charts of every Braves hitter.