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SnakeBytes: Funday edition

We're off to the Japanese festival in downtown Phoenix - see what you're missing, Masahiro? While you wait with baited breath for the SnakePit Video Roundtable tonight, have some links.

By Jim McLennan

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  • [Fox Sports] Pollock has gone from odd man out to D-backs' inner circle - "In the beginning of the year I was getting hits and doing well but pitchers didn't know me or what to pitch me. Then they made their adjustments and I struggled halfway through the year, and then I adjusted. I'm just pretty pumped to get going. I know it's an adjustments game, and I feel like I made a lot of those adjustments last year. There's new adjustments to be made, but I know where to go from here."
  • [AZ Central] Wade Miley enters 2014 in healthy position - If there are gains to be made, they involve Miley’s mental approach. The pitches in his arsenal are fine — he’s just fine-tuning what he has — but the big project has been his in-game focus. Too often early last year, Miley said he lacked such tunnel vision... "At some point every game you’re going to struggle for the most part," Miley said. "But there were times where I almost felt like I didn’t know what I was doing out there."
  • [dbacks.com] Prospect Marzilli gets assist in camp from Parra - Watching Gerardo Parra, that's one of the coolest things about being up here," Marzilli said. "He's one of the best, if not the best, at it in the game. So getting to see a guy like that, and talking to him about what he sees and what he thinks out there, you learn a lot from him. He's always so relaxed. He's never focused on failure, he's always thinking about getting someone out. He won't sit back on his heels; he's always doing something proactive. It's really cool to see a guy like that in action."
  • [AZ Central] Diamondbacks pitchers all ears when Dave Duncan instructs - "Duncan’s new role calls for less day-to-day responsibility than a normal pitching coach. There’s less of the stuff he considers a "headache" — the planning, the minutiae — and more of the stuff he enjoys: observing pitchers, sharing philosophies, exchanging ideas. The Diamondbacks seem to have almost turned their entire pitching operation over to Duncan. In a team meeting, Harkey encouraged the staff to take advantage of him as a resource."

Elsewhere in the West

And the rest

  • [krmg.com] Babe Ruth World Series watch auctioned for $700K - "The pentagonal 14-karat gold watch was bought Saturday by a telephone bidder who is remaining anonymous. The timepiece was part of a set given to Ruth and his Yankees teammates after they beat their rivals, the New York Giants, in the 1923 World Series. The Ruth watch is engraved with a picture of a pitcher, hitter and catcher and a ball in flight. It is inscribed, "Presented by Baseball Commissioner to George H. Ruth." Another highlight of the auction was a 1911 game-used bat from "Shoeless" Joe Jackson. It sold for $956,000."
  • [Reddit] Players with the highest and lowest BMI's - "All this talk of players reporting overweight and who the skinniest player is made me wonder - who ARE the fattest and skinniest players?" Interesting. Might have to do something similar for the D-backs.
  • [NY Daily News] Despite Mets GM talking up Chris Young, he probably wonders about Nelson Cruz - "If Sandy Alderson were completely honest about it, he’d probably admit he never expected Nelson Cruz’s price to drop so dramatically, to the point where the Orioles signed the power-hitting outfielder to a one-year, $8 million contract on Saturday. Likewise, although Cruz has significant flaws, the Mets GM probably would also admit that for about the same price he signed Chris Young, he’d prefer to have taken his chances with the newly signed ex-Ranger. But that wouldn’t be very GM-like."

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