I attended the Brooklyn Cyclones vs. Staten Island Yankees game on July the 12th and despite putting up a great record and being in first place I saw more negatives prospect wise with the Cyclones than positives.

Mark Cohoon, who at the time was leading the league in wins and strikeouts, had his worst outing to date and did not look good at all.  He has some deception in his delivery, which is the likely cause for all his success at the lower levels.  He has a fringe fastball sitting 85-89 with some movement I believe he hit the 90′s only once coming in at 91 in the first inning.  He has a solid curveball in the mid 70′s that he rarely uses, but uses effectively.  His change up was his worst pitch by far.  It was around 83 with almost no late movement and it got hit hard by the Yankees line up.  He is either going to have to take more off the pitch or get more movement for it to be effective. He uses two different pickoff moves, 1 which is a little check over move and the other the typical lefty balk pickoff that he used to pickoff two batters, but one of them made it to 2nd safe thanks to an errand throw from Alex Gregory.

The offense wasn’t too impressive at all.  The hardest hit ball came from John Servidio who hit it into the left-center gap for a double berfore being thrown out at 3rd base.  My favorite Cyclone Nick Santomauro is a great athlete.  Has a pretty solid lower half, but more room for growth in his upper body, has a nice swing, and great approach at the plate working the count on 3 different occasions despite having littel success.  If he keeps up this same play though he should see serious improvemnt in his nubmers.  One thing he must work on is his throwing accuracy which was terrible.

The most exciting player on the field for either team was Brooklyn’s Luis Nieves.  He is extremely small probably slightly below his listed 5’11, but plays amazing defense.  He made an error on a routine play, but came back the very next play and turned an amazing double play jumping over the incoming Yankee and throwing a bullet to the first baseman.  He then made a play going to his right, taking him into left field, and making another perfect throw to the first baseman in plenty of time.  At the plate he is a pesky hitter, think Luis Castillo at short, he has to hit more to be a real prospect.

Other notes:

• Doc Doyle was 2-3 with a walk, but both were blop hits that he was jammed on.  He wasn’t very impressive.
• Mike Lynn looks like Dylan Owen v2.0
• Luis Rivera is listed 6’1 190, but looks more like 6’0 215+ lbs.
• The picture is of Robbie Shields who was at the game, but didn’t play.