Cape Week

Instead of sitting around, watching the Home Run Derby and the always boring MLB All-Star Game, 60ft6in headed to Cape Cod for the week. I was able to catch a few games and was lucky enough to see some of the best pitchers in the Cape Cod League in 2010. Here are some notes I took on Jed Bradley, Anthony Ranaudo, Andrew Gagnon, and John Leonard….

First, I saw Jed Bradley pitch on Tuesday night. He plays for the Wareham Gatemen this summer, and will return to Georgia Tech as a junior this fall. Bradley was tremendous, throwing up a 6ip, 4h, 1er, 0bb, 7k line. His only blemish was a changeup that got hammered over the leftfield fence in the top of the second inning.

Bradley showed me an excellent moving fastball and painted the glove-side corner all night. Five of his seven strikeouts were caught looking, and I believe four of those were looking at his fastball. I took a peek at a few scouts’ radar guns and saw that he was at 91 to 92 mph consistently. I also noticed a standard slider and changeup from Bradley, but neither pitch jumped out at me as a special offering on this night. Bradley would most likely have pitched at least one more frame, but downpours washed out the game.

This was also the night of the MLB all-star game, and despite it being a “break”, Red Sox manager Terry Francona was in the stands, as was Lee Mazzili, whose son plays for Wareham.

Thursday night I drove over to Brewster to watch Anthony Ranaudo, who was drafted by the Red Sox this year with the 39th overall pick. Ranaudo battled elbow “soreness” this spring at LSU after selecting agent Scott Boras to represent him. Ranaudo posted some abysmal 2010 numbers at LSU after an incredible 2009 season. Boston still selected Ranaudo high, hoping to get a ‘buy low’ type player with huge upside. Anthony decided to take his talents to the Cape Cod League in order to boost his stock and his bonus money before the August 16th signing deadline.

Ranaudo was a bit up and down. He seemed to battle himself through the first few innings. He allowed some baserunners, but pitched out of jams by relying on his fastball for strikeouts or weak contact. He appeared a little uncomfortable out of the stretch and didn’t want to hold runners. The worse things got for Ranaudo, the more he played with his hat, even doing some strange hat adjustment thing with his forearms (now that is meaningful observation). The turning point seemed to come in the middle innings after he battled through a ten-pitch at-bat against Falmouth’s Matt Skole. Skole fought off numerous curveballs before finally swinging under a 3-2 fastball to end the inning. Ranaudo settled down and dominated over his final two frames.

Ranaudo’s repertoire consisted of a fastball, curveball, and changeup. The fastball was very effective. Batters had trouble making solid contact with it, if they made contact at all. The pitch seemed to have good “rising” action, as he got numerous swings and misses from batters who were simply underneath the pitch. His curveball had really good bite and looked like a plus pitch. Ranaudo finished his repertoire with a straight changeup. At the end of his six innings of work, Ranaudo had produced a 3h, 1r, 0er, 1bb, 9k line. I did not get any velocity readings at this game, but Keith Law was there and has reported that Ranaudo hit 94 mph multiple times and sat at 91 to 93 mph.

The final game I saw featured Brewster Whitecaps pitcher, Andrew Gagnon, and Yarmouth-Dennis Red Sox pitcher, John Leonard. Gagnon, from Long Beach State, entered the game with some gaudy Cape statistics, so I was excited to see what he was throwing. I watched him warm up in the bullpen, which had overhanging tree branches that deflected about half of the return throws from the catcher. Andrew showed an excellent tight slider while warming up, a changeup, and a good fastball. However, when he took the mound, his slider seemed to slow down and became more of a sweeping breaking ball, losing that tight, cutter action, while his changeup proved to be his best pitch. The changeup got good movement, sinking away from LHs and he seemed to have decent command of it. Gagnon’s fastball appeared to be a few ticks slower than Ranaudo’s from the day before, so I’m guessing he was around 89 to 92 mph. Gagnon was also a bit erratic with the fastball, as he walked three and had to pitch out of numerous jams to earn the win.

Lastly, Gagnon was opposed by John Leonard from Boston College. Leonard was taken by the San Francisco Giants in the 36th round of the amateur draft this season. He worked through some shoulder problems this spring at BC and has elected to pitch in the Cape League to help build up his stock. Leonard has responded by pitching very well for the Y-D Red Sox, but struggled a bit Friday night.

Leonard showed me a decent fastball and had good glove-side command of it. He also used a sharp curveball that he threw for strikes. I also saw some off-speed pitches, which had some funny movement, making me think that he may have been throwing a splitter.

In the batters box, a few hitters really stood out to me. Andy Burns (R/R, 3B, Brewster, Kentucky), looked like an aggressive, pure hitter who could run. The same could be said for Cohl Walla (R/R, CF, Brewster, Texas), whose skinny frame was incredibly fast from home to second. Joe Panik (L/R, SS, Yarmouth-Dennis, St. John’s), seemed to tag a line drive every time up. And lastly, Danny Oh (L/L, OF, Brewster, Cal-Berkeley), was the most complete hitter I saw. He hit-and-ran successfully and showed gap power to all fields. The only negative on Oh was that he didn't look very projectable. Defensively, Mike Dowd (R/R, C, Brewster, Franklin Pierce), showed me the best catcher’s arm, by far, in what was some disappointing defense behind the plate overall.