Another Bruce Article

[cumberlandreds]

John Clay of the Lexington Herald-leader has a nice commentary on Bruce in today's paper.


http://www.kentucky.com/285/story/423473.html

[Sea Ray]

I'll tell you what, after seeing Bruce for myself, I'm sure going to take minor league stats and scouting reports with a grain of salt. I expected to see a Brandon Phillips type free swinger who had no idea of the strike zone and we'd have to stomach a lot of strike outs. Instead I've seen a guy who has taken a lot of close pitches and has racked up the walks without the strike outs.

The minor league reports on Votto's defense being shaky were erroneous too IMO. Just goes to show there's no substitute for eye to eye scouting.

[medford]

I still think Votto's defense is shakey, but he's working hard on it (according to reports the last 2 seasons anyways) and is seemingly improving. He's athletic enough to become an above average defender.

The word on Bruce, according to dougdirt anyways, is that while Bruce's walk numbers we low it wasn't because he was a free swinger, but rather, Jay would patiently wait for his pitch, then he'd take that pitch and drill it for either a hit or an out. In the minors, I imagine most pitchers are not going to pitch around a Jay Bruce like talent. They'd want to see how they measure up and throw him their best stuff, challenging him.

So far, from what I've seen, dougdirt's assertation has held true. Jay makes more "hard" outs than anyone I've seen in a long time, especially somebody so young. Even better, Votto seems to be cut from the same cloth. Could be a good 5 year run in the Nati'

[Sea Ray]

I still think Votto's defense is shakey, but he's working hard on it (according to reports the last 2 seasons anyways) and is seemingly improving. He's athletic enough to become an above average defender.

The word on Bruce, according to dougdirt anyways, is that while Bruce's walk numbers we low it wasn't because he was a free swinger, but rather, Jay would patiently wait for his pitch, then he'd take that pitch and drill it for either a hit or an out. In the minors, I imagine most pitchers are not going to pitch around a Jay Bruce like talent. They'd want to see how they measure up and throw him their best stuff, challenging him.

So far, from what I've seen, dougdirt's assertation has held true. Jay makes more "hard" outs than anyone I've seen in a long time, especially somebody so young. Even better, Votto seems to be cut from the same cloth. Could be a good 5 year run in the Nati'

For Doug to give that sort of report he must have seen Bruce play which makes my point. You can't go solely from stats in order to properly evaluate a player. You need to see them play. Kudos to Doug on the scouting report. I think he is very fair and a trusted source for evaluating talent