With their second pick in the 2008 draft, the Washington Nationals selected Destin Hood. Hood is a tremendous athlete who prior to the draft had committed to play both football (3 star wide receiver recruit) and baseball at Alabama. His tremendous natural power and athleticism reminds you of a Mike Cameron or a Torri Hunter, but his raw skills make you realize that he will have to work hard to achieve Major League readiness.
Hood played shortstop for his high school, but he will likely be converted to an outfielder by the Nats. He has poor hands and his height and speed really convert perfectly to the outfield. The only thing he will need to do is improve his arm. His power in batting practice is incredible but it has yet to translate to in game success. This isn’t uncommon for pure athletes. Once he better understands the game and how to approach pitch counts, he will start turning on, and driving balls out of the park.
The biggest question is whether or not the Nats will offer enough money to Hood to keep him from going to Alabama and not the Nats minor leagues. Hood Claims to love baseball the most, and a million dollar contract is hard for anyone to turn down. Still, Hood wouldn’t be the first person to turn down a big contract to play in college.
Here’s hood talking about his future after being taken 55th overall in the 2008 draft.
| Destin Hood on draft |
Destin Hood's football highlights, check out the athleticism.
Danny Espinosa is a good fielding shortstop from the shortstop factory of Long Beach State University. His predecessors; Bobby Crosby, Troy Tulowitzki, and Evan Longoria, have all made the conversion to the Major Leagues very quickly and effectively. While Espinosa does not have the flair from the plate that these hitters had coming out of college, he is more then competent from both sides and his glove is already major league ready.
Espinosa is another college player who is very polished. He has experience of three years in college, as well as participating for Team USA baseball and he became one of the only freshman to compete in the Cape Cod league back in 2006. While he still needs to improve his consistency from the left side, Espinosa’s instincts make him a very solid line drive hitter who can someday be a very solid major league shortstop. His plus arm and smart positioning in the field will make his transition that much easier, as he will only need to focus on improving his bat in the minors.
7 comments:
OK, Yard Yoder, I know the nats are painful to watch. But are you abandoning this blog? It was great when you kept up.
As a Nats fan, I need something to make these terrible games tolerable
On the draft picks:
Signing the first pick Crow is apparently not going so well. Bowden is dissapointed.
Hood came by the stadium yesterday and was floored. He blasted some bombs in BP, hung out in the club house, and gave all a rosey feeling about his potential as a 4 spot hitter.
IN OTHER NEWS:
If Nick Johnson was a horse, he would be euthanized on the track.
Lopez? Gone?
Could the arragant ass hat who flipped me off after being heckled, who never has lived up to that one year in Cincy really be gone?
Lord I hope so.
Lucky, we gotta make Yard Yoder buy the beers, since he's clearly abandoned us.
Guzman watch: talk about him being the Nats one and only All Star. Has to help the trade value, but the Post keeps talking about trading Lopez to the O's. That doesn't make any sense, they don't need someone below the Mendoza line.
Since Lopez flipped me off at a game I was heckling him, and he's the laziest bastard ever, if we can dump him to the O's i'd be more than happy.
Other than that, I'm starting to retract my Guzman hatred. Massivly. If we can lock him for another 2 years or so, it could be really good year. he's the only starter from opening day who's still healthy, he's been on a roll, and actually playing decent defense. Considering the rest of our offense, and what we're looking at for next year, he could be a damn good stopplug in the middle until more kids are ready to come up.
I hope we break Chase Utley's arm again. Painfully. Then, I hope he discovers that he can not produce children. I hope that greasy son of a bitch goes back to some hole he came from, and dies a lonely ringless asshat.
this article is pretty interesting too
http://www.fanzak.com/fzrants/Two_teams__The_same_sad_results
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