By Jason A. Churchill

By 03-18-2010

Greg Halman continues to tease the bejeezus out of me, looking overmatched for four of six pitches in one plate appearance, but crushing a 94 mph heater on a 3-2 pitch from Blandford.

Big-time raw power, runs well, plus arm, zero instincts for the breaking ball, even in breaking ball counts. Hmmm.

Kyle Seager has made one adjustment with his swing since the college World Series, loosening up some, which could give him more pop and a better ability to cover the plate.

I haven't seen enough of a few guys to tell for sure, but Seager may have the second-best strike zone judgment and plate discipline of anyone in the system except former Tar Heels teammate Dustin Ackley.

If Seager can play a legit second base, he may be a regular.

Shaver Hansen generated solid power out of his mini coil stance in BP, but the same setup may prevent him from ever hitting for average. He's a little more athletic than I anticipated -- this is the first time I have seen him live.

Alex Liddi has gained 20 pounds since the end of the 2008 season, it appears, which is a good thing. Nothing wrong with the swing mechanically, but his front side is a tad soft and showed a tendency in BP to either inside-out his swing, or get out in front, as if he was trying to do something specific with the pitch before it was thrown.

In the intrasquad game, he sat back better, kept his weight back and balanced and the swing was more consistent, though it still appeared he was making a point to go to right-center. He has double power to all fields, but his home run pop is to his pull side and he had that chance at least three times Wednesday and didn't do it.

Carlos Triunfel, had a day Wednesday that was his career in a nutshell. He scorched several BP pitches into the gaps, hit the wall... line drive after line drive, and to all fields, including right down the right field line.

But in one round of BP the instructions were to swing at the first pitch as if it was a hit and run -- yelled out in English and Spanish both. Liddi and company all followed suit -- Triunfel took the pitch. To his credit, it was high and away, but he was scolded a bit after his turn.

He did, however, appear to take it well, and had a good exchange with the coaches before jumping back in and tearing the cover off the ball. For a kid that's 5-10 or 5-11 and 190 pounds or so, he hits the ball with a truck load of authority.

Rich Poythress put a charge into one Tuesday that almost got out, and showed the ability to stay back as he was facing Ryan Feierabend, who topped out at 90, sat 87-88 and threw several useful changeups.

Poythress appears to be in great shape, too, which could help his defense a little bit at first.

Nick Franklin and Gabriel Noriega share the same position and have some of the same characteristics as defenders. But they couldn't be more different after that.

Franklin is a quiet, confident kid that looks the part as much as any player in the system. Everything is smooth, fluid and short, swing, arm action and lateral movements included, but I'm not the only one that sees him glide from both sides of the plate. It was the first thing Keith Law told me a few days ago after seeing Franklin and Noriega.

Noriega is a little bit more athletic than is Franklin, but even the athleticism is raw. His swing needs revamping -- some wasted movements, stiff front arm, mostly right-handed, and a long path from start to finish. It helped him hit for power against rookie-level arms, but will hinder his ability to hit decent fastball at all in the future, and the swing plane is not engineered for power at all.

Steve Baron has changed his entire stance from the shoulders up, and catching instructor Roger Hansen, who is always positive (should we expect anything else?) but went out of his way Wednesday to say Baron is "no doubt going to be a very good defensive catcher, maybe even a great one."

Now, Hansen has said positive things about every catcher I have ever asked him about, but he was very aggressive in complimenting Baron's advanced skills for a kid his age.

So the pre-draft word on his defense is probably legit, and one Reds scout that roamed around the field said "if he can hit, he's going to be unbelievable. Might be the best set of physical tools on a high school catcher I have seen in at last three or four years."

I did not see Dennis Raben either day -- he wad the DH Tuesday and I didn't pay as much attention to the AA/AAA game as the A/A+ game Wednesday, but he fully expects to be 100 percent and ready to go for the season.

The AA and AAA clubs head out to Goodyear Thursday, but I will stay back and catch the A and A+ games -- not intrasquad, actual ST games for these kids.

Subscribers will get the video from the trip by the weekend, and any audio I get from any players I can get to at the end of the game's, if I have time.


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