PHOENIX – Rece Hinds has just 10 plate appearances in his minor-league career, but the stories about power are legendary.
During the instructional league last fall, he broke his bat swinging at a 95-mph fastball and the ball traveled 375 feet for a home run. Yes, a homer on a broken bat.
He had another instructional league game, against Los Angeles Dodgers minor leaguers, where he pulled a homer about 415 feet to left-center. Then later in the same game, he crushed an opposite-field homer to right field that went about halfway up on the tall netting that protects the street behind the field.