In the latest installment of the SombreroCast, Griff and Dee reflect on a recent Farmington Cardinals game, discuss hitting philosophies, talk about some players and player development and touch on ideas regarding coaching theory.

Click here to listen to Part I

Click here to listen to Part II

Griff and Dee weigh in on Farmington High School players selected in the MLB Draft, the North/South series and Stephen Strasburg.

Click here to listen to the podcast

Yesterday the Florida International Panthers fell to Ivy League Champs, Dartmouth College, for their second, and eliminating, loss at the Miami regional.  Three-hole hitter and infielder Garrett Wittels had a 3 for 5 day with a double to end the season hitting .413/.463/.541.  Wittels closed the season with a 56-game hitting streak intact, ready to continue it in 2011.  Luckily for baseball fans, Wittels is only a sophomore this season, so the only threat to this streak outside the game between the lines is injury.  Were he a junior, he surely would be drafted early and sign, right?  With a 56-gamer?  The all-time record holder for longest hitting streak is Robin Ventura with 58, and he went 10^th overall in 1988.  I’m not so sure about Wittels.  With the draft set to begin tomorrow and to continue through Wednesday, let’s use Wittels as an example of some important things to keep in mind as we scratch our heads as guys like Chevez Clarke, a Georgian outfielder with tools to drool over but with mediocre high school statistics, are taken ahead of proven collegiate hitters like Wittels, who will be lucky to be taken inside the first 20 rounds next year.

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June 2, 2010

I recently told Arlo that I would attempt to make more frequent Sombrero posts, but this weekend was a busy one for me.  I was in Denver attending the Calcote/Lucero bachelor party.  Jason Calcote is a lifelong friend of mine and was kind enough to invite me to be one of the groomsmen in his upcoming wedding.  Garret Lucero is another friend of mine, and the two decided to have a combined party up in Denver so that we could catch part of the Dodgers/Rox series.  It was a fun weekend.  I’m going to leave it at that.

A lot of baseball stuff happened over the weekend, though, so I’m going to attempt to condense it all into a reasonably brief post.  Probably the sweetest thing for New Mexican baseball that took place over the holiday weekend was UNM’s at-large bid into a regional.  The selection, which took place early Monday morning, was the program’s first selection in almost half a century.  They open up against Stanford as a three-seed in the Fullerton regional.  I truly believe they have an honest to God shot at making it into the round of 16.  With wins against Texas, TCU, and a couple other schools that have spent time in the top-25, this group appears to have all the requisite preparation for games of this magnitude.

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May 25, 2010

A friend of the Sombrero has had quite a month of May (and parts of April).  He accepted a job with a large scouting agency to analyze prospect statistics for a summer, he earned his masters degree from a very high-ranking economics program, and he is currently in a long interview process with a certain desert-located big league team named after a snake.  If I seem like I am being a little cryptic, it is because our friend, who will be referred to as Eat-a for the remainder of this post, has not been given the job quite yet.  Eat-a has been kind enough to include me a little in the process and has enlightened me as to what is expected from realistic applicants for jobs in the big leagues.  I personally found some of it surprising, but the majority of his process has been largely what I would have expected given how coveted these jobs surely are.

Eat-a played ball in college with most of the Sombrero writers and appeared on numerous All-MWC teams as a Pioneer.  He captained the team as a senior, and threw professionally in Australia after his graduation.  Essentially, Eat-a had a very successful career in the game and we all greatly benefitted from being his teammate.

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