Thoughts on the Mudcats (with photos!)

Some quick thoughts after watching the Carolina Mudcats tangle with the Tennessee Smokies this weekend….

Logan Parker, rounding third and heading for home

–It is evident immediately that there is a lot of talent on this Carolina team, even if they didn’t play particularly well this weekend.

–Most impressive hitter: Todd Frazier. Frazier will play in the big leagues at some point. He didn’t even hit the ball that well, but you can just tell that he is a player.

–Hardest hit ball of the weekend: Spotlight Player Logan Parker’s double on Sunday. It was crushed to the deepest part of the ballpark. Parker hit a couple of other balls hard that day, but couldn’t get them to fall.

–Most impressive fielder: Zach Cozart. Wow. He is better than Alex Gonzalez right now.

–Worst fielder: Juan Francisco. Good grief, he is brutal. We saw him get hurt on Friday night, pulling up lame with a bad hamstring as he ran home.

–Surprisingly, Jerry Gil actually looked pretty good on the mound on Friday night. He walked the first batter on four pitches, but then started cooking. He was throwing very hard, and I was impressed. Looks like he has the stuff, but is having a hard time harnessing it.

–Gil and Logan Ondrusek were the only good pitchers we saw (of course, Travis Wood and Zach Stewart both pitched the day before we arrived). Everyone else was just bad.

–Chris Heisey didn’t have a good weekend. He hit maybe one ball hard, though his bat speed looked fine, and he looked pretty bad defensively on Sunday. Heisey does have a good reputation with the glove, though; I hope we just caught him on a bad weekend.

–The Carolina Mudcats front office is very helpful. I didn’t get to do a couple of things I wanted (podcast-related, mostly), but it wasn’t the fault of the Mudcats, who were very cooperative. I especially want to thank Patrick Kinas, the Director of Broadcasting, who was extremely helpful. Patrick, we’ll be coming down to Raleigh later this summer to put together a couple of the things I had hoped to get done this weekend; I’ll be in touch.

–I have been to a lot of minor league baseball games, in a lot of different stadiums. The Tennessee Smokies do it right. Very well-run franchise (only the Dayton Dragons do it better, in my experience). Huge thank you to Rennie Leon, Tennessee’s Director of Marketing & Communications for hooking us up with media credentials.

Now, some pictures. Be sure to scroll to the bottom, because you must see the last picture.