Some quick notes from Ft. Myers (Fife, Pimentel, etc.)

I’ve been down at the Fort for the past couple of days, and have spent most of that at the Player Development Complex. Here’s some quick notes from yesterday and today:

• Tewkbury’s son was at camp, taking drills at SS, though he looked a bit rough.
• Almanzar still struggling with off-speed stuff. Pimentel completely owned him in the intra-squad.
• Carson Blair looked pretty skinny, definitely needs to add some bulk. Took BP, doesn’t have a ton of present power. Did some catching drills, didn’t look too bad, just inexperienced at stuff like blocking balls, but had a very quick release so I’m guessing that’s what they like about him at catcher.
• Cesar Cabral thinks he’s Dontrelle Willis. 
• Capellan is probably the worst fielding pitcher I’ve ever seen in my life. Also looked to have gained some weight. 
• Chia-Chu Chen impressed behind the plate. Has very good footwork and did a pretty solid job blocking breaking balls from Fife. 
• Caleb Clay threw a quick bullpen, command looked a little shaky, but that’s expected. Didn’t get a good read on him because I think he was only going about 60-70%. 
• Dent showed some decent power in BP, has pretty good backspin and carry on it.
• Exposito has an absolute cannon for an arm. Threw out Hissey from his knees. 
• Fife looked good in live BP, kept the ball low, I’d say he was hitting 93-94. I have some video of him I’ll put on youtube sometime. 
• Chris George has been signed, but I only caught a little bit of him. Side-arming lefty with decent pop. 
• Hissey was spraying line drives to all fields in BP. I think he’ll surprise quite a few people this year. 
• Kalish’s plate discipline is a night and day improvement over last year. Believe the hype. 
• Also got some video of Mike Lee that I’ll put up sometime. 
• Lentz threw in the intra-squad today, had some trouble with command, but missed low in the zone. I kept pitch count/selection that I’ll post later.
• Pimentel had it going on. Flashed all three pitches as plus with decent command. 
• Rizzo looked fantastic. Stroked a 0-2 change-up off Pimentel in the right center gap. Low present power/plus potential power. Watching him take BP, I noticed his ball has a lot of topspin and doesn’t have enough carry quite yet. Right now, he’s more of a line drive hitter. His swing path is pretty level, so I’d imagine they’ll make some changes.
• Still didn’t look half bad behind the plate. Moved well, but his arm is average at best. 
• Strickland threw in intra-squad as well. I couldn’t help but think of him being a RH Lester when watching his delivery, compact but gets good extension on his release. I thought he had very good deception on his change-up and was definitely had solid separation from his fastball. Command is going to be his biggest stone to cross. He’s not like Lentz when he misses, he misses up in the zone and in the scrimmage, got pounded for it. 
• Tejeda impressed in the field. I definitely think he can stick at short, looked fluid but under control.
• Christian Vazquez’s arm was a bit disappointing. There’s a big difference between his game arm and practice arm. He has plus arm strength, but it didn’t/doesn’t transfer well into games.
• Chad Rhoades is in camp, but it seems that he was mistakenly left off the roster due to an administrative error.
• Darren Blocker has yet to report (the mandatory reporting deadline for position players is tomorrow).
• Yahmed Yema will reportedly not return to the team this year after being out since June 2007 with lingering injuries.
• Felix Rodriguez and Chris George have been signed to minor league deals. (Source: Myself and SoxProspects)