Player Name: Nick Bottari
School: Hofstra
Position: 1b/DH
Nick is a 6’1″ 210 first baseman for Hofstra. He is a redshirt freshman, since he transferred from the University of Miami while he was recovering from his Tommy John surgery.
Offensively: He is an offensive force. He is a true power hitter with a max exit velocity of 104 MPH. He put on an absolute display in batting practice at Texas A&M, hitting one OVER the giant scoreboard beyond the left field fence. After the Aggies coaching staff saw that, they simply did not want to challenge him with a fastball.
He bats with a very balance stance, with his legs very crouched and a slightly open stance. He has a slight bat wag. He has Major League bat speed and gets into a picture-perfect power L position. IF you freeze the above video at 0:07, you can see how his head is directly on the ball, with an ideal angle created with his swing.
After his RBI single in the first game, he did struggle with the bat. He struck out four times in the series, but the pitching was at a much higher level than he will see all season.
Two of his outs were sky-high fly balls that he just missed and would’ve been destroyed had he squared it up. In the above video, he struck the ball well, also. He was definitely not over matched. He was also the victim of a terrible check swing called by the first base umpire, which was showed on replay and indicated he clearly did not swing.
With that being said, he will have the benefit of facing lesser competition than the SEC and with the combination of his bat speed and the lineup being filled with solid hitters, he should put up some phenomenal numbers this year. He did get overzealous at times and swing at breaking balls out of the zone, but he typically can handle a breaking ball in the strike zone, you’ll need to locate it to fool him.
Defensively: He shows good hands during BP, but was not in the field during the series. He was the DH all three games.
Base Running: Nick is not a speed burner. He is a competent base runner and displays good instincts while running the bases.
Overall, Nick is the type of player that any coach would love to have in their lineup. I haven’t gotten to see the power in a game yet, but the BP power display was indicative of big things to come for the redshirt freshman.
