=== Oh Well Whatever Nevermind, Dept. ===

In Hawaii, Catricala played for a cheesy college.   You know, cheesy compared to UNC or Arizona.  He parachuted into the pro game in 2010, and hit very well (about 300/400/500) in full-season A in the Midwest League.

Lonnie, G-Money, and others said eyes slideways on this guy.  Looks like he can really hit.

Catricala, at A+ High Desert, blazed out of the gate like Secretariat and Spec, G, and Co. really sat up.

.......

Go back and look up all the hyperlinks as of June 2011.  The "insider" consensus was ... no, hang on, that isn't fair.  

A "consensus" is general, widespread agreement.  In this situation, insiders were perfectly unanimous:  Vinnie Catricala is a High Desert mirage, an org player with zero, 0%, no chance of playing in the majors.

To paraphrase Brad Pitt ;- ) don't make me point at the articles again.  Not one insider, but every single one of them who talked to local 'net rats, pronounced Catricala DOA -- DOA in the sense that, say, Hunter Brown was five years ago.

The book, as of June this year:  no wrists, no batspeed whatsoever, doesn't keep the bat in the zone, marginal power, and is a 1B/DH.

........

Dr. D respects insiders.  If perfect baseball knowledge is 1,000 light bulbs, and Fangraphs has 250 of them on, a given scouting community has its own 250, and they just don't all overlap.  It's not that scouts aren't great. 

BUT after Vinnie Catricala went to AA Jackson and slugged .600, what's the verdict that "Vinnie Catricala has made adjustments that brought out his natural pitch recognition," quote unquote.  Ohhhhh, he GOT good.

This, gentlemen, is going too far.  

When you take a bad shot, just say My Bad.   Hustle back on defense when your shot is rejected in the paint.  Don't go all Kevin Johnson and look to the ref for a phantom foul.  :- )  The occasional snuff, airball, or clank is part of being a shooter. 

It ain't that Catricala got good.  It's that a 60% prediction rate leads the field.

.........

As detailed last post, Vinnie Catricala is one of the gifted few.  There have been other athletes like this....

If the Gentle Rdr. truly wants to understand, once and for all, plus power with no backswing and all knees, watch this Jack Mankin breakdown of Barry Bonds' bat launch.  

True, Bonds is the prototype, the reductio ad absurdum that makes the point easy to understand.  But watching Bonds' knees, you can see the principle that other hitters exploit in less dramatic ways.

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