Below are scouting observations from yesterday’s Molloy game. Our reporter, Nick Vecchione, was on the scene providing scouting reports on their top impact players from the afternoon.
Angelo Navetta
It was a much anticipated wait to finally see Navetta up close and personal, and let me tell you, it was a treat. Listed at 6 feet tall, some say that he is an undersized first basemen, however, he still seems to bring an intimidating presence to the batters box. Navetta sports one of the prettiest left handed swings on the island, and has an inmate ability for pitch recognition. In his earlier at bats he waits patiently for the pitchers to come in his wheel house and those pitches are few and far between. The muscular first basemen sometimes expands the expands the zone and will offer at pitches that don’t cater to his success as he tries to force the issue in his later at bats for the simple fact that this kid rarely sees anything that he can drive. He receives the ultimate respect treatment. And for good reason!
Angelo features a balanced approach and a very long stride at the plate, and is, at times, tardy with getting his front foot down. However, he is able to counteract and overcome this with his insanely quick bat and explosive hip action. He seems to be extremely comfortable trying to drive the Baseball to his pull side as he clears his hips beautifully and front foot opens up, just as it should when trying to drive the gaps of the field. He doesn’t cheat to anything!! Which is, in my opinion, a great compliment! He trusts his hands and his balance enough to get to the fastball on any part of the plate, and to stay back on any kind of breaking pitch. Angelo looks to see the ball up, as no part of the field is off limits to him. I believe his skill set can translate to success at the higher levels of the game, and look froward to his progression the second half of the season.
Matt Overton
Overton is in a great spot in the lineup hitting behind Navetta, as he benefits from seeing a ton of fastballs early in the count, as their is constantly traffic on the base paths. He looks to drive the ball early in the count, and boy does he ever! Featuring a basic stance where he consistently gets into his back leg, and transfers weight from back to front as fundamentally sound as you would want, when he gets his pitch, this kid does not miss the barrel! He consistently squares up the Baseball to where even his outs are loud. Overton shoots the middle of the diamond like his life depends on it. A true testament to him to letting the ball travel, and not being overly anxious to make something happen. The outfielder is the definition of taking what the pitcher deals him and making the best of it. He seemed to love the lower portion of the zone where he can drop the barrel and utilize and launch angle bath path to the ball. It’s no surprise that Overton is having the success he is this year given his simple swing approach that he brings to the table.
Elijah Leerdham
The tall and slender outfielder is without a doubt the most raw of the group. He shows flashes of brilliance but that is also countered with glimpses of growing pains. It quickly became obvious that he goes up there with a “grip it and rip it” mentality, often showing aggressiveness early in his plate appearances. Elijah stands tall in his approach and utilizes a toe tap to stride technique with his lead foot, followed up by an erratic long swing, where his bat plane angles differ from swing to swing, vacating simple mechanics. Moreover, there’s evidence in his at bats to where he possesses traits of a prototypical guesser up at the dish, frozen by Middle in fastballs, and chasing 55 foot breaking pitches. However, with that said, he is the ultimate high risk, high reward hitter. He may not have honed completely in on the art of hitting, as not very many ever do in their lifetime, but is absolutely capable of being a run producer, and giving opposing pitchers throughout the conference fits.
Kevin Hiss
The tall and lanky right handed Long Island native was extremely impressive in his outing against Mavericks lineup from Mercy College on Saturday afternoon. Even though the new MLB pace of plays rules didn’t apply to this college contest, Hiss made it a point to work with pace and rhythm, as he very rarely strayed away from the rubber. A technique that I’m sure his teammates behind him very much appreciated, especially on a cold windy day. Hiss may come across as a little unorthodox in his delivery, as he features and incredibly short stride for his height, an aggressive back side where the ball is pointed directly towards the dirt, and an “over the mountain” type release to where his front side elbow actually points towards the sky, but it still doesn’t deter him from missing barrels and forcing weak contact. Because he points the ball down on his back side, hiding it behind his back leg, it actually gets on hitters much quicker than anticipated. He continually worked the inner half to right handed hitters and producing balls in on their fists. Pitches that are damn near impossible to do any sort of damage to. Furthermore, the short stride I believe deters Hiss from his full potential. As he doesn’t explode towards the plate, there is room for velocity on his fastball, and restricted sharpness on his breaking pitches. He didn’t demonstrate great command on his breaking pitches early as he has a rough time getting over that plant leg. To continue that point, his arm action suffers on his secondary stuff, making for easy takes for the batters. Which is why Kevin’s outing was that much more impressive, as his fastball presence on the inner half was dominate. To follow up on that, I did see as they game wore on, that he struggles with glove side command. This can definitely be explained by his arm slot, which is consistently over the top, making it a challenge to come across his chest to reach out and find that outer half of the plate to a right handed hitter. Something that a pitcher with a 3/4 arm slot would have an easier time making an adjustment. Even though harder contact came as he moved through the order for the 2nd and 3rd time, he was in complete control, keeping hitters off balance and never wavered from attacking hitters from the jump. Also, what came as a great surprise to me given his big stature, he was an OUTSTANDING fielder. With his body control and awesome finishing stance on his pitches, he was able to get to balls, cover first base, and make plays that I thought he had zero shot at making. You gotta love PFP’s hard at work! I thoroughly enjoyed his enthusiasm and attacking mentality on the mound, and look forward to his next outing.
