Jones, draft, and other stuff
posted in Boston Red Sox, Random |Interesting to see that Todd Jones is even hearing it in the media from his manager. Jim Leyland called his decision to have catcher Vance Wilson come to the mound the “kiss of death” and could not figure out why the pitcher would do that with two outs and a strike. Apparently Jones thought he saw something, tried to pitch to whatever he thought he saw, and gave up a two-out single. That set up Kevin Youkilis, who saw the ball over the leftfield wall. Jason Beck also wrote this at DetroitTigers.com, but I’ll link to John Lowe.
“There’s no reason (Leyland said). You’ve got all the momentum. You got two quick outs. You’ve got 800 acres to play with in centerfield. You’ve got strike one. There’s no reason to have any conversation. He (Jones) has done a good job — he’s got 16 out of 18 (saves) — but that’s a no-no, absolutely inexcusable.”
Draft
The Amateur Draft begins Tuesday. I have nothing really useful to add. Baseball America and Jason Beck both think there’s a decent chance the Tigers take a high schooler from Dallas. I’m of the Billy Beane idea that you should take refined college players, such as Justin Verlander, rather than prep kids. In any case, it’s always a bit of a dart toss anyway and such a wide net is tossed that it’s hard to find anything useful to say until a year or two later, except the rare case of Cameron Maybin or Verlander or something. Joel Zumaya was drafted as an 18-year-old in 2002 in the 11th round. It took three years before we really heard too much about him. But obviously, he turned out fine. That was a Randy Smith pick, by the way. I’m no Smith fan [who is?!], but he seemed to get better just before he got fired.
The Free Press has an article about the re-birth of the farm system.Â
TodayÂ
Zach Miner has his Major League debut for the Tigers against a struggling Matt Clement (4-4, 6.91) for Boston.
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