{"id":3218,"date":"2011-03-12T08:28:37","date_gmt":"2011-03-12T14:28:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/?p=3218"},"modified":"2011-03-12T08:37:05","modified_gmt":"2011-03-12T14:37:05","slug":"eric-hosmer-great-hitter-atrocious-bunter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/archives\/3218","title":{"rendered":"Eric Hosmer: Great hitter; atrocious bunter"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Eric Hosmer<\/a><\/strong> is a special hitter; he possesses that rare combination of power and advanced plate discipline.\u00a0 Headed into the 2011 season, the 6-foot-4, 230-pound first baseman has garnered top-prospect honors on nearly every Royals\u2019 prospect list, and been featured on most people\u2019s top-10 \u2013 we\u2019ve got him at #6<\/a>.\u00a0 Simply put: he\u2019s a beast.<\/p>\n

After nearly two weeks of games, Hosmer has been the clear-cut star at the Royals\u2019 camp–an organization that has nine players in Baseball America\u2019s Top 100. (Hat tip to Mitch Maier<\/a><\/strong> who is currently hitting .647.\u00a0 He should try to enjoy it while it lasts).\u00a0 Through Hosmer’s first 14 at-bats, he has six hits, including a double and two bombs, and six RBI.\u00a0 Overall, he\u2019s hitting .429 and has hit safely in five of the eight games in which he\u2019s played.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

And in case anyone missed his grand slam last Saturday against the Cubs, I insist that you watch it, <\/a>immediately.\u00a0 With the Royals down 4-0 in the sixth inning, Hosmer belted a game-tying shot on the ninth pitch of the at-bat. The home run, as well as the entire at-bat, is the essence of his phenomenal approach at the plate.<\/p>\n

Although Hosmer has already shown that he might be as good as advertised, he still has one major weakness: bunting.\u00a0 Okay, I know that he probably will never be asked to lay one down in his career — why would he? — but he certainly should still be capable of doing so. Right?<\/p>\n

As I watched Hosmer\u2019s batting practice video from the Futures Game for what must be the twentieth time, I noticed something that I had always overlooked. On the first two pitches of the round, Hosmer attempts<\/em> to lay down a bunt — the traditional start to any round of BP.\u00a0 Needless-to-say, it went terribly and even invoked memories of Rey Ordonez in the 1999 NLCS.<\/p>\n

<\/embed><\/object><\/center><\/p>\n

Don’t worry, I don’t actually care about his small-ball aptitude. It just struck me as shockingly bad.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eric Hosmer is a special hitter; he possesses that rare combination of power and advanced plate discipline.\u00a0 Headed into the 2011 season, the 6-foot-4, 230-pound first baseman has garnered top-prospect honors on nearly every Royals\u2019 prospect list, and been featured on most people\u2019s top-10 \u2013 we\u2019ve got him at #6.\u00a0 Simply put: he\u2019s a beast. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1300,6,16,11,13,10,14,775],"tags":[25,260,1536,1962,1963,1959,302,1961,580,1050,581,1960],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3218"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3218"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3218\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3245,"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3218\/revisions\/3245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}