5 Players We’re Watching in 2020

Let’s be honest. We know we will be watching more than just five players.

But with the baseball season fast-approaching, we thought it would be fun to gaze into our crystal baseball.

One undeniable conclusion: there will be no shortage of storylines heading into 2020 from the professional ranks right down to the community ball parks in Alberta.

Scouting Alberta

Just about a year into its existence, the Alberta bureau of Prep Baseball Report is making strides in building up a “robust profile” on some of the province’s young baseball talent.

Former Lethbridge Bulls pitcher Andrew Maclean sat down with us to talk about what he’s looking for, what he’s seeing and what we should be seeing out of the baseball scene in Alberta over the next few years.

Keeping Score at Home

Box scores are full of loads of information, and while they never lie, they never tell the whole story either.

Take the recent box score from the Toronto Blue Jays spring training game against the Canadian Junior National Team (JNT), for example.

It will tell you that JNT shortstop Cesar Valero stepped to the plate in the top of the first inning against starting pitcher Marcus Stroman and struck out to end the inning.

What it won’t tell you is how smooth and clean Valero’s swing is or how nasty Stroman’s breaking ball can be. It also won’t tell you that Valero, an Okotoks Dawgs Academy product, is just 16 years old, while Stroman is a 26-year-old veteran of four MLB seasons.