FanPost

Interview with a Dominican Republic Giants scout, part 2 of 4

Apparently I took too long to add another video to that other FanPost, I see the comments are closed on it now. So I guess I'll just make a new FanPost. I think it's better that way anyway, because it's easier to see it, right? Anyway, I finally finished captioning my 2nd interview video, so here it is! I think this is the best one out of the four that I have.

For those of you who don't want to bother clicking "More Info" on the embedded YouTube video or going to the page, I will paste the description here:

I went to the Dominican Republic over the summer, and took the opportunity while I was there to go to a Dominican Summer League Giants game. This scout, Gabriel Elías, drove my friend and me from Santo Domingo to the game in Boca Chica 30+ miles away (completely for free) and even let me bombard him with questions for most of the ride there and back! Here is part 2 of my interview, taken during the final part of our trip from Santo Domingo to Boca Chica. Most of the questions and information came from the fine folks at minor lines of mccoveychronicles.com - I had printed out a list of questions that I referenced while asking questions.

He asked me not to have the camera on him for this recording, so the video starts out in my lap until I realize it would be cool to just have it pointed out the windshield. So this is a pretty nice view of our ride there, and for the last few minutes you can see us driving into the complex.

In this interview, we talk about: what Carlos Valdez needs to work on; the potential of Enmanuel DeJesus and Adalberto Mejia; why Michael Santos didn't play this season; the DSL's comprehensive and differentiated diet program; Ánthony Gómez's strengths and weaknesses; why José Morel has a good chance of getting to the majors; Marvin Barrios and how he'll likely become a reliever; and how Carlos Cartagena's disappointing statistics from last year can be misleading. And, fun fact: apparently the way they say "hit-by-pitch" in the Dominican Republic is "dead ball." Huh.

There were a few parts of it where I couldn't understand/remember what he was saying... so if you happen to be able to fill in any of those blanks for me, I would love it if you let me know, thanks! :)

Note: If you don't want to watch the whole video, open the video on its YouTube page and just click the button to the right of the flag (to the left of the view count) for the transcript (available in English as well as its original Spanish), and then you can just read it.

Enjoy!

A couple things that are not in the YouTube description -

We did a bit more joking around in this video, and there's one interruption which I thought was particularly funny, and I left the whole thing in cause I thought it would be fun to watch. But if you just want the info about the prospects and are just reading the transcript or something, you'll want to choose the abridged English version of the closed captions.

Comment on the diet plan - I will not name any names, but I have been talking to one of the DSL players pretty regularly through Twitter DMs since I got back to the United States. He is on the younger side and pretty skinny, so I'm not THAT worried about him. But he told me his favorite food is Burger King and that he doesn't eat any vegetables while in the DR because he doesn't really like them and they don't make him eat any. (He does eat vegetables at home, at least.) And I can't remember if it was him or another player, but someone told me that they often go out for fried chicken together. This player said the team does provide food for them, but they get sick of it. I think he said a typical dinner was a salami sandwich with plantains. Anyway, just thought that was interesting, since we've discussed nutrition here before, and how the Giants should have better food for their minor leaguers. Maybe the players just wouldn't eat it anyway. But then again, is a salami sandwich with plantains really that healthy to begin with?

OK, that's all I've got for now. I'm planning to transcribe the Ánthony Gómez interview next, since I think it'll be fun to send it to him on his birthday, which is on Friday.

Links to my past DSL FanPosts:
Interview with a Dominican Republic Giants scout, part 1 of 4
DSL Giants Videos: July 19, 2012

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