Some notes and observations from the past 2 days

Garin Cecchini looks like he's on track to stay back in XST and then head to Lowell when their season starts.  He's been taking reps over at 3B and definetely has the body type of a 3B.  Not a good handle on how he's transitioning over to the hot corner as of  now.  Offensively, he has a pretty sweet swing from the left side of the plate with some good loft.  Cecchini does have some work to do with how he uses his hands and leads a lot with his bottom hand right now.

Oscar Tejeda's work with cleaning up his swing mechanics and quieting himself down at the plate has helped his balance a lot.  He's on every ball thrown at him right now, especially fastballs.  Today, he cleaned out a fastball middle in with lightning quick hands to drill a deep home run out to LF.  Plenty of batspeed and lift.  He also looks very comfortable at the plate and relaxed.  We'll see how he initially adjusts to more advanced breaking balls, but his offensive skills are becoming very polished.

First initial look at Lucas Leblanc is intriguing.  He's a bit more advanced than I expected and he has a nice, easy swing that generates some good batspeed.  Leblanc's better getting good wood on the ball in the early going and drove a ball well to the opposite field into the right-centerfield gap.  Shows plus speed running down the line and accelerates well around the bases.  Haven't gotten a great look at him out in the outfield yet.

Drake Britton threw 2 innings yesterday against Baltimore's High-A group.  His fastball had a lot life, sat about 93, and touched 95 in his first inning.  Curve looked sharp and in line with the reports from last season.  He only threw a couple of them though.  Britton is much more physically filled out and has followed the trend with some of the other guys in his age group that have taken big physical steps in the last couple of seasons.

Ryan Lavarnway caught half of the Triple-A game today and looked in line with how he looked at the end of the season with Portland.  He's made some good strides catching, but still has some work ahead of him to go with his footwork and receiving skills.  Doesn't control the balls in the dirt overly well and can get tangled with his feet when throwing down to second.  He did look a lot more relaxed behind the dish and was more vocal out there in terms of managing the game.

Stephen Fife threw 2 innings today.  First inning he was a bit up with his fastball and gave up some good contact, but they were hit right at people and he got out without any damage.  In his second inning he was better with keeping his fastball down and threw a real nice hook to pick up a swinging K.  The key for Fife will be limiting the instances where he has trouble keeping the ball down and forced to throw his fastball in the middle of the plate in a hitter's count.  His fastball has much better movement down in the zone and his curve can pick up some swings/misses when its breaking down through the strike zone into the dirt.

Got a good look at Xander Boagerts in the field this morning.  He's a bit rough at shortstop.  Tends to drift a bit with his footwork and come up early on balls.  Not quite as natural looking at the position as Jose Vinicio for example.  Bogaerts is young and has improvement in front of him, but I see it more as a when rather than if that he is going to move off the position down the line.

Right now, Jose Vinicio's lack of strength holds back his bat.  He tends to drag the head of the bat when he swings, which zaps his batspeed a bit.  As he fills out some and starts to mature physically, I'd expect him to get the head of the bat quicker through the zone.  He does it well for his age now, but the physical development is going to be the key to his offensive game progressing.  Just based off what I have seen of him since last ST, I don't really expect power to be a big part of the his game and him to be a single digit type of home run guy as a projection.