We Call Bullshit on Pedro Alvarez Scout Quote in Baseball America

We call bullshit.

A scout goes through a lot of things in his career.  We have massive respect for scouts.  They miss birthdays, their kids’ games, and – God forbid – Anniversaries and Mother’s Day.  We just can’t imagine the life of being a professional scout.

But we were reading an article on our way back from the Washington Nationals “Kick Off Luncheon” (which was really a who’s who of  Pittsburgh Pirates near misses in the Amateur Draft), that set us off.  Being in the midst of an environment where the names Stephen Strasburg and Bryce Harper are being hurled around is tough for a Pirates fan.

Especially when the first article we read after being around a rapidly improved Nats team is a bullshit piece of shit saying Pedro Alvarez is 25 pounds heavy in the wrong place.

Yeah, he is struggling.  We aren’t denying that fact.  No shit.  We’ve been watching the struggles since Alvarez was pushed to the majors.

Yeah,  he is still pulling balls on the outer half of the plate.  No shit.  We’ve seen enough rollers go for a 4-3 putout in the scorebook to last us a lifetime.

Yeah, he swings through entirely too many pitches.  We know it.

But he isn’t overweight, as the scout in the article states.

If you subscribe to Baseball America, the article is found under Scouts View and is penned by J.J. Cooper, a favorite writer of ours from Steelers Lounge.  The premise is built around quotes from one American League scout.  Not three or four scouts, but one.

The scout sent us over the edge with this line:  It’s hard to defend his ‘how bad physically’ he looks right now.   Sorry.  While we aren’t a professional weight guesser at the county fair, we don’t see 25 pounds in weight gain.

And then this line was pretty funny too. “He’s about 25 pounds heavier in the wrong areas, which means he has to start his hands sooner,” the scout said. “He used to be able to wait (on pitches).”

At the end of the article, the scout says this:   “I hope I’m wrong, but if you didn’t know he was Pedro Alvarez, you’d NP him,” the scout said, using scouting shorthand for labeling a player as No Prospect.

Look, there isn’t a person on this earth that hopes they are wrong.  Nobody.  The scout is wrong on this account.  Big time.

If anyone knows J.J.,  get him to give up the scout’s name who made this shit up.
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