Random Observations from my Greeneville Trip

As many of you already know, I just made the journey to Greeneville, Tennessee over the last few days to see the Astros Rookie League team in action. First of all, I'd like to thank GM David Lane, Assistant GM Hunter Reed, the always warm, friendly, charming and welcoming Manager Josh Bonifay (who incidently awaits the birth of his first child any day now and is shown here modeling the fantastic Astros Hawaiian night jersey), and unofficial Team Manager and Super Fan Tiny Thomas Hurley for their hospitality.

There was a huge crowd at Pioneer Park on July 4th and every detail was perfect, including this nice touch from the groundskeeper, providing some stars and stripes for the occasion.

Unfortunately, the crowds were much smaller for the Saturday and Sunday games which is really a shame because Pioneer Park, located on the Tusculum College Campus, is simply a beautiful venue inside ...

and out ...

and the weather could not have been more beautiful for the three games.

I did conduct a few interviews while I was there, but mainly I just wanted to get to know the players a little bit better. A whopping 14 of the 2014 draft picks are on the roster, plus numerous other players that I hadn't met yet. Just getting a feel for who they are was a major undertaking, but I feel like I have a much better understanding of their personalities and the team dynamics.

One thing that really stood out for me was the incredible chemistry on a team that has only been playing together for a very few weeks. It is a tightly knit group. The other thing that stood out was that there doesn't appear to be the typical cultural divide that I often see on teams, particularly young teams, between the Latin players and the U.S. players. Everyone seems to be reaching out across that cultural divide and it shows in the team chemistry.

C Jacob Nottingham is the team character. He works hard, but he's going to have fun in the process. He has taken over Brett Phillips' role from last season in teasing Cesar Cedeño for his habit of throwing his leg over the rail.

OF Ramon Laureano has the best nickname of the bunch. The similarity of his first name to the word Ramen has resulted in this serious-looking young man being dubbed "Noodles."

RHP Brock Dykxhoorn is listed as 6'8" while OF Sean McMullen is listed as 5'9" on the roster. It is slightly jarring to see them together.

It was really good to see former Astros minor leaguer (2004-2011) Wladimir Sutil back in the Astros fold. He is hard at work as a member of the coaching staff in Greeneville.

I was waiting for OF Jason Martin to get a restraining order against me for stalking him with my camera, but those eyes ...

Although Juan Santana (on right) is known as "Smiley" on the club, I fell in love with Ydarqui Marte's broad grin as well.

Speaking of Santana, he is not even close to being the same player I saw last year. His BP that I watched was VERY impressive. I would not be the least bit surprised to see him (and a couple of the other players I met this past weekend) in Tri-City when I get there at the end of the month.

The level of play on the field was uneven, but that is to be expected from a Rookie League club that has been together less than a month. I saw flashes of great things from numerous players (particularly the pitching from Josh James and Zach Davis), but consistency is always the hardest thing to find for young players. Give it time.

The game on the 4th of July was a crazy one. The Greeneville Astros won 14-1 as the Kingsport Mets pitchers were just a tad bit wild, issuing 13 walks and recording seven wild pitches and two passed balls. Things like that happen in rookie league ball. I didn't get to see any fireworks on the field until the next night when "Noodles" Laureano hit his first professional home run, but there were plenty of fireworks off the field that night.

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I hope to have a couple of my interviews up this week (did I mention how much I hate transcribing?) and the other two next week. I have done the initial cut of my photos and have uploaded them to Flickr here. They aren't labeled yet and I still need to cut a couple hundred of them, but if you're feeling adventurous, go for it.