The top three links this week have two things in common. All three come from FanSided MLB sites and all three are essentially prospect profiles. The subjects are Braves C Christian Bethancourt, Royals OF Brett Eibner and Tigers 3B Jason King.
But before I get to those articles, many weeks ago I promised to start providing a quote to lead into the links every week. This time around I make good on that promise with a selection from the great Rogers Hornsby:
"I don’t want to play golf. When I hit a ball, I want someone else to go chase it."
My two favorite positions on the diamond are the two that I primarily played growing up. When I wasn’t patrolling the green expanse of the outfield as a center fielder, I was donning the tools of ignorance. That is, until my high school coach told me there was no such thing as a left handed catcher. As a result of my own experience I’m drawn to articles and rankings covering prospects at both positions and our newest Braves writer Carlos Collazo got my attention with a recent article on Christian Bethancourt.
Clipped from: tomahawktake.com (share this clip)
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Heading into 2011 I was really excited to follow the debut seasons of two members of the Royals 2010 draft class. They were Jason Adam (5th round) and Brett Eibner (2nd). Adam has his share of struggles, including a very poor two month stretch in June and July, but righted the ship and wound up with respectable numbers for a 19-year old making his debut in the Midwest League. On the other hand, Eibner never settled into a groove and struggled all season and wound up falling short of my hopes and expectations. Injuries obviously played a part in his poor season and there’s plenty of reason to believe a bounceback is coming in 2012.
Clipped from: kingsofkauffman.com (share this clip)
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Perhaps you’re wondering why I would link to an article about Jason King. As John Verburg mentions in the article he did not make the cut in their organizational Top-50 so he’s far from a high profile guy and may wind up being just organizational filler. On the flip side, I have an affinity for minor leaguers who played college ball at Missouri, Kansas, Minnesota, Creighton or in the case of King, Kansas State. If you don’t believe me, just click here, and if you enjoy reading that piece from a couple of months ago rest assured that I will be doing some other articles along those lines down the road.
Clipped from: motorcitybengals.com (share this clip)
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Before I close up this edition of Sprouts, I wanted to publicly thank another round of sites that have recently provided feedback, linked to, or promoted our content. Last week I provided 7 links and I see no reason to deviate from that formula this time around so here are your Sprouts Select Seven:
- Baseball Instinct
- Seattle Sports Insider
- Metsmerized Online
- Bluebird Banter
- Talking Chop
- Drunk Jays Fans
- Reds Zone
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