Devers was a couple months past his 16th birthday when he arrived in Fort Myers, Fla., meaning he would likely have been a sophomore in high school if he had been raised in the United States. He had a strong 6-foot, 185-pound build that was well filled out in the hips and thighs. Although he ran a respectable 7.00 and threw 88 mph across the infield in drills, it was obvious that Devers wasnt your typical tooled-up Dominican prospect. The buzz from the scouts was directed at Devers lefthanded bat and the rest of the tools just had to be playable to support the buzz. Devers batting practice was what you might expect from a 16-year old with all those eyes on him. He had a big coil and uppercut in his approach and spent the entire session trying to pull and lift the ball with only moderate success. The scouting notes in the PG database from BP specifically include the phrase probably not his game swing. Things changed entirely once live pitching took the mound. It was immediately obvious that Devers saw the ball exceptionally well for any age of young hitter, and not only had the ability to recognize what pitches he could drive to what part of the ball park, he had the ability to take close pitches and to foul off pitches he needed to in order to stay alive in counts. His swing was fluid and loose with plus raw bat speed and he hit the ball to left-center field as hard as he pulled it. Devers had one very notable at-bat against Dustin Hagy, a 6-foot-6 righthander who was later a 31st round pick of the Orioles. Hagy was throwing 89-92 mph with a pretty nasty 77 mph curveball and it was pretty evident that he knew who was in the batters box by the way he ratcheted up his stuff and focus with Devers in the box. The at-bat went at least a dozen pitches, with the 16-year old continually fouling off pitches in every quadrant of the plate with Hagy not backing down a bit. The battle ended with Devers lining a hit to left-center field and scouts throughout the stands muttered a collective wow at the quality of performance of both players. Devers went on to sign with the Red Sox for a $1.5 million signing bonus, one of the top bonuses given in the 2013 class. His exceptional season between the Dominican Summer League and the Gulf Coast League in his first season (.322-7-57, 35 walks in 70 games) certainly seems to support the initial impressions of his offensive potential. –
Posted on: Fri, 12 Dec 2014 18:05:09 +0000
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