Five Players to Watch for 2018
The new year is right here, and one of the most exciting portions of the new baseball season is knowing which new baseball players to watch and discuss. With that in mind, we have compiled the top 5 baseball players to watch for 2018, the guys that may not be familiar to you now but will be by the end of the season.
1. Teoscar Hernandez, Toronto Blue Jays
Teoscar Hernandez is a 25-year old corner outfielder brought over from the Houston Astros in 2017. He has already hit a fantastic .265/.351/.490 and 8 home runs in 88 bats for Toronto. One remarkable thing about Hernandez is that he has above-average speed and can play in all three outfield positions.
However, his downside is his low batting averages and contract rates, which can mean if he doesn’t improve his stats this year, he could be sent back to the Minors. But for now, Toronto is an excellent place for Hernandez to showcase his talent as a home-run hitter.
2. Ronald Acuña, Atlanta Braves
At the age of 19, Ronald Acuña is definitely one of MLB’s players to watch. He is already one of the top 10 prospects in the game. He hit .325/.374/.522 in the top three Minor Leagues. A year ago, however, things were different: he was not even on the MLB’s top 100 prospects and had not cracked Double-A. But after 2016 season thumb surgery, Acuña returned healthily and hit 21 home runs with 8 triples and 44 steals. The 20-year old is expected to play as a center fielder.
3. Michael Kopech, Chicago White Sox
Kopech is another top pitching prospect you can watch in baseball this year. He finished the 2017 season in Triple-A, and by mid-season this year, he is expected to be a mainstay in the White Sox’s rotation, where he may or may not need to contend with baseball’s coming pitching clock. His fastball often touches the low triple digits and usually sits in the upper 90s, but most importantly, he has a developing changeup and nasty slider that have all helped him strikeout 11.5 hitters in 9 innings.
He is a force to be reckoned with, but the 6-foot-3 Texan’s command and control are questionable. In 2015, he was suspended for using a banned substance. In early 2016, he fought with a teammate and broke his pitching hand. Nonetheless, Kopech would be entertaining to watch.
4. Yoshihisa Hirano, Arizona Diamondbacks
Hirano spent the last five years as the closer for the Orix Buffaloes in Japan, gathering an impressive 2.65 ERA and 284 strikeouts in just 271 ⅓ innings.
In March, Hirano will turn 34. He doesn’t throw blazingly fast, and his strikeout rate has been plunging down, yet the MLB’s unfamiliarity with his nasty splitter and three-quarter delivery could help him well in his premiere Major League season.
5. Francisco Mejia, Cleveland Indians
Mejja is known to have a fantastic bat control and has a 50-game hitting streak working too. Over the past two seasons, Mejiaa has hit .318/.363/.497 while climbing from Class A to the Major leagues. He is most likely to start this year at Triple-A, but if the Indians want to get some excellent results into the postseason, they’ll have to include this 22-year-old by August.
There you have it: top 5 upcoming baseball players to watch for the 2018 season.
If you are a baseball player, you probably already know that a lot of things go into when improving your hitting, but one thing you need to master is your timing.
One of the best ways to improve your timing is to practice a lot.
And there are two ways you can practice: live pitching or working off a pitching machine.
With live pitching, you regularly have to worry about being hit by the ball, which can produce a fear that might be very difficult to overcome.
That’s when a pitching machine comes to rescue your day.
Pitching machine allows young and veteran hitters to get comfortable being inside the batter’s box, without having that fear of being hit by the ball.
Batters get the opportunity to hit the ball at consistent strikes, which will help them quickly and easily build confidence.
Building confidence is HIGHLY necessary at the beginning.
So if you are pitching a ball to a beginner, throwing inconsistent strikes will make it very difficult to make contact with the ball.
And as a result, their confidence level goes down.
However, with pitching machines, you can set it to throw the balls at many different pitches at various speeds.
