Royals eager to see South African throw for first time in WBC

Right-hander Dylan Lindsay is all of 17 years old and won't be done with high school in South Africa until 2010. But that's not the surprising part about the Royals' signing of the 6-foot-2 hurler. No one, at least not among the Royals brass, has seen Lindsay in action.

"Mike Randall's the only one who's seen him," said Royals assistant general manager of player development and scouting J.J Picollo of the scout who discovered Lindsay. "He felt strongly we should sign him. He's more of a projection guy.

9 months ago RoyalsRetro 15 comments 0 recs |

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so his parents...

were they down with apartheid or against it?

just curious

actually, I thought he was from New Zealand for some reason

by royalsreview on Feb 11, 2009 11:11 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

...destroying our international innocence

Bringing you more-or-less replacement level analysis and commentary since sometime in 2008.

by devil_fingers on Feb 11, 2009 11:44 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Permission slip

from parents to participate.

I love the WBC, looking forward to watching the guys from the Italy, Austrailia, and African teams…

by Royal from Queens on Feb 11, 2009 11:29 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

“on the mound for South Africa…Dylan Lindsay!”

“and now batting for Mexico…first baseman…Adrian Gonzalez!!!”

Go get ’em kid!

Founder of the Johnny Giavotella fan club.

by doublestix on Feb 11, 2009 11:43 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

i think it was last year

that someone at BP wrote a WBC piece talking about just how bad some of the fringe teams were, and South Africa was by far the worst

then they almost beat someone good in their first game

by royalsreview on Feb 11, 2009 11:52 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

found it

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=4812

South Africa’s team is similar to China, as far as how hard it is to evaluate, except that I don’t even have stats from a national league to work with. Most of their WBC players also participated in the 2005 World Cup, but that is not an endorsement. They went 0-8 at that tournament, and they were outscored 76-15. By comparing them to the Cubans, the South Africans score at about a 4 on the scale. I ran the tournament out 100 million times; South Africa still never won. Unless they are a lot better than they showed at the World Cup, they are the weakest team in the tournament.

by royalsreview on Feb 11, 2009 11:56 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

then they nearly beat canada

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=4848

The Republic of South Africa’s team, consisting largely of amateurs from a nation with no professional baseball, had just taken an 8-7 lead over Canada, maybe the seventh- or eighth-best national team in the world. A team that would go something like 4-158 in a full season of play among the World Baseball Classic teams was three outs away from being 1-0.

I hope everyone has enjoyed this reconstructed memory of mine.

by royalsreview on Feb 11, 2009 11:58 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

no one saw ~~the Rays~~ South Africa coming!

Bringing you more-or-less replacement level analysis and commentary since sometime in 2008.

by devil_fingers on Feb 12, 2009 12:22 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

But who is THIS year's...

South Africa going to be?

I vote Luxembourg.

"Now…put that in your [BLEEP]ing pipe and smoke it." -Hal McRae

by Sweep_the_Leg on Feb 12, 2009 11:27 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

i have always wondered

what would happen if you took a fairly highly touted high school pitcher (say Mike Montgomery this year or Dan Duffy last year) and just threw him the in the big leagues just to see what would happen. would they get shelled? would they surprise a few hitters with a surprisingly good curve. maybe they would just completely fold under the pressure and walk everyone?

i know there is a bazillion reason why it would never happen right now, but i think it’d be interesting to see.

Founder of the Johnny Giavotella fan club.

by doublestix on Feb 12, 2009 2:31 AM EST reply actions 0 recs

See Clyde, David

http://www.baseball-reference.com/c/clydeda01.shtml

Relive Royals History at royalsretro.blogspot.com

by RoyalsRetro on Feb 12, 2009 9:10 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

i dont think thats really a fair comparison...

just b/c of how much more advance amateur baseball has become…back then clyde likely wasnt spending all summer facing the best hs talent in the country. i honestly think porcello couldve outperformed brian bannister last year by a decent margin. would it have been good for his long term development?…probably not. he’d probably have relied heavily on the slider (i believe) that the tigers wouldnt let him throw in the minors in order to develop his other pitches

TPJ...you're dead to me

by billybeingbilly on Feb 12, 2009 6:32 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

I heard there's a guy in Madagascar

who throws 110 mph. Haven’t ever seen him though.

We should set up those fan-fun radar-gun booths in the Andean highlands and maybe the jungles of Borneo and see what we find. We’ll call it our new “International Presence.”

I'm about to change my username to DannyDuffyfan

by jackie ballgame on Feb 12, 2009 11:06 AM EST reply actions 0 recs