This is the baseball tonight podcast for Friday, April 3rd, 2006, and today will be better than yesterday.

I'm Buster Only. Taylor Schwink is producing back in the Schwink Studios in Connecticut.

And man, we have big news today.

Connor Griffin, who's considered to be the top prospect in baseball right now,

promoted to the big leagues by the piratesates. He will join the team in time for Friday's game.

And now we bring in Eric Hosmer, who I think is more excited about this news than I am,

Haas. Man, Connor Griffin is someone who's caught your eye.

I saw Connor Griffin for the first time the highlight this

spring. Early on this spring, he had two homers against the Red Sogs over there at Jeff Blue

Park and Fort Myers. And I saw those quick highlights and said, whoa, whoa, whoa, this kid's 19 years old.

I need to lock in and break down this kid and buster everything I've seen film-wise. I mean,

the body, the swing, it's smooth. There's not much to not like about this guy. And good thing he went down for five games before coming up to the big league, though, because he needed those last four or five games to get up before he was big league ready. Yeah. And we'll get into maybe some of the reasons that he might have waited a bit. It does feel like that they're going to work out a, you know, a long-term contract and, you know, it all work out. The thing that jumped out to me, the first time I saw him was, man, this kid is big. Like, I mean, he looks like an absolute beast. He reminds me, you know, way back in the day of Cow Ripkin with the body. I mean, he is a big duty, and yet he's really fast. Yes, he's got all the tools. And that's such a, that's such a difference now. I just got back from Atlanta for opening series and I'm seeing Jack Caglione. And I'm thinking the same thing. Like, when first, when I came up, it's like, man, this kid's six four two, 2-10. If he can just fill out, he's going to have some power, and we'll see, these kids are filled out right now. These kids are 240. They look like they're solid, and they can take on a full 162 game grind of a season. Because when you go to that, like, August and September of this grind of a season, this marathon, the lower body, the legs, everything starts to give out. And that's what these teams are scared of. You create bad habits at the big league level and you're not going to perform. But when you look at these guys, I mean, these guys are built to last for a long time. And again, Connor Griffin, the swings, it's easy moves. It's moves that lineup to be consistent. I'm very excited

to see this kid work and play. And I think Pittsburgh is as well, because Pittsburgh deserves

someone to match Paul Skeens on the position player end. What do you like about his swing and what

kind of impact do you think he'll have in this first year? Knowing you say i mean there's always a learning curve for

young players yeah so first of all when you look at connor i mean he's a big kid big lower half so

you know the strength is there the strength is there he's not going to fatigue over the course of

162 games that's all there then you look at the the mechanics and for me it's like you want

small simple moves because that's going to be repeatable versus something big that you've got to make sure it's on time. All these guys now are messing with timing, these pitchers. So the short move that's repeatable for me is something that tells me he's not going to slump. And if he does slump, it's something that's not going to last very long that's like what hitters really want to focus on when you're good you capitalize on being good but when you're bad how do you get out of that slump fast and for me those short repeatable moves is going to be able to get him out of those slums that he's going to you know eventually take on in the big leagues because you never take on this stuff anywhere else so he's going to be

ready for that because of those short simple moves what it who swing does he remind you of you know

we always ask for comps in baseball uh and a lot of time you know kevin mcgonigal heard a lot about

alex bragman heard a lot about dust and bedroia when it comes to connor griff and swing who do you

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