Former Orleans Firebird Marcus Stroman is the Opening Day starter in Toronto.
Day One
Tag Team
In the Cape League’s year of the home run, nobody hit more than Harwich. The 2012 Mariners — perhaps with an asterisk thanks to the juiced balls of that season — hold the modern Cape League record for home runs in a season with 60.
Leading the way for those Mariners were future first-round picks Phil Ervin and Eric Jagielo. Ervin burst onto the scene with a flurry of home runs early in the season and finished with 11. Jagielo actually out-did his teammate with 13.
For the first time since that summer, the power-hitting duo will be together again in the upcoming season.
Jagielo was sent to Cincinnati as part of the deal that brought closer Aroldis Chapman to the Yankees. He joins a system that includes Ervin, who was drafted by the Reds in 2013, the year after his Cape League breakout.
Both sluggers are angling to be part of the Reds’ youth movement. Ervin rates as the franchise’s 10th-best prospect in MLB Pipeline rankings, while Jagielo checks in at 14th.
Ervin had a strong minors debut in his draft year, scuffled a bit in 2014, but righted the ship a bit last season, when he hit 14 home runs between Class A Advanced Daytona and Double A Pensacola, while stealing 30 bases. The Reds have him in big league camp this year.
Jagielo has been limited somewhat by injuries in his minor league career, but has shown pop when he’s played, with 33 home runs in 205 minor-league games.
It’s possible that both Ervin and Jagielo will end up on the same farm team this year.
If the power comes with them, it won’t be a surprise for Cape League fans.
Encore Performance?
It was July 2, 2008 when Falmouth’s A.J. Pollock had one of the best games of his Cape League MVP season and Wareham’s Dallas Keuchel went eight strong innings in spite of it.
It’s always cool to look back at match-ups like that when you know what has happened since. In the case of Pollock and Keuchel, a lot has happened – they’re leading the way for a new generation of Major League stars with Cape League roots.
Keuchel emerged as one of the best pitchers in baseball for the Astros last year, a status that was solidified when the left-hander won the American League Cy Young award.
Pollock, in his fourth year in the bigs, earned an All-Star nod for the Diamondbacks and hit .315 with 20 homers and 39 stolen bases. He’s one of the game’s top emerging power-speed combos.
So what can they do for an encore?
Keuchel is eager for postseason success and figures to be a key part of it. The former Arkansas standout – who spent two summers with the Gatemen – had a steady rise through the Houston system. After a solid, under-the-radar season in 2014, he surged to 20 wins, a 2.48 ERA and 216 strikeouts last season. The K rate saw a significant uptick from 146 the year before.
Whenever a player has a big breakout, it’s tough to be sure what comes next, but FanGraphs, for one, believes Keuchel will come close to a repeat. The K rate may go down, but he still profiles as one of the best pitchers in baseball.
As for Pollock, his breakout campaign included big increases in home runs and extra-base hits. As with Keuchel, projections favor a bit of a regression, but with a young player like Pollock, there’s also the possibility that what came before – two partial seasons and one with 137 games – was just the beginning, as opposed to the mean for him. The former Notre Dame and Falmouth Commodore star could be poised to solidify himself as one of the league’s best outfielders.
Whatever happens, Keuchel and Pollock will continue carrying the torch for the Cape League in the Big Leagues.
Judge key in Yankees plans
Aaron Judge is pretty good with first impressions. In the summer of 2012, he hit a home run in his first game as a Brewster Whitecap. Last year, he was invited to Yankees spring training and blasted a home run on the first day of exhibition games.
Soon enough, the Yankees hope Judge will be making a good first impression in the Bronx.
The Fresno State product and former Whitecap ranks among the best prospects in baseball. He’s the third-best in the Yankees’ system, according to Baseball America, and ESPN’s Keith Law has him at 13th among all MLB prospects. With another invite to spring training this year, Judge is knocking on the door and has been mentioned as a likely big-league starter in 2017, as a key part of the Yankees’ youth movement.
Back in 2012, Judge was still raw, but he cut an imposing figure in the Brewster lineup. His 6-foot-7, 250-pound frame drew comparisons to Marlins slugger Giancarlo Stanton.
Judge hit five home runs in 32 games for the Whitecaps. His summer in Brewster was the juiced-ball summer, so that total only ranked 20th in the league. It was a year in which Tyler Horan hit 16 home runs, after all.
But scouts suspected that Judge’s power – perhaps more than anybody else’s – would play best at the next level, and they’ve been proven right. Judge was selected by the Yankees in the first round of the 2013 draft. In 255 minor league games, he has hit 37 home runs.
Between two levels last year, Judge hit 20 home runs, including eight at Triple A. He’ll likely be back there to start the 2016 season, but that first impression isn’t too far off.
Reed, the hitter, poised for big things
Stuff lasts forever on the Internet. Like this:
That’s A.J. Reed’s Cape League bio. Note the position — P.
He was a two-way guy at Kentucky and did both on the Cape in two years with Harwich, but he pitched better than he hit. On the Mariners’ 2012 home run bashing team, he was but a bit player for the offense, batting .176 in 34 at-bats. On the mound, he made seven starts and had a 2.20 ERA. The next year, Reed — still with that pesky P beside his name — batted .218 while delivering a 3.60 ERA on the mound.
While much of what is lamented as lasting forever on the Internet would be deemed embarrassing or worse, the P is mostly just a funny footnote for Reed.
He’s now one of the game’s best hitting prospects.
It was after his second summer in Harwich, in the spring of 2014, when Reed became one of the best players in college baseball. Still pitching and hitting, he had a 2.09 ERA and a .336 batting average to go with 23 home runs.
Despite his gaudy pitching numbers, scouts liked Reed more as a hitter, and they’ve been proven right. A second-round pick of the Astros in 2014, Reed hit 12 home runs in 68 games in short-season ball later that year. Then last year — probably his first full year as a hitter since T-Ball — Reed officially cemented himself as one of the best prospects in baseball. Between Class A Advanced and Double A, he hit .340 with a .432 on-base percentage and 34 home runs.
Baseball America ranked Reed the best prospect in Houston’s system and Astros fans are clamoring for him to be the starter at first base sooner rather than later.
Not bad for A.J. Reed, P.
Newcomb leads CCBL in Top 100
With players like Kris Bryant, Dallas Keuchel, A.J. Pollock and Kyle Schwarber taking the torch as Major League Baseball’s young Cape League stars, it seems the next wave of alumni to crash on big league shores is still brewing.
MLB Pipeline’s Top 100 Prospects list released Friday is a good place to see what’s cooking.
With Bryant, the former Chatham Angler, now off prospect lists and in Wrigley Field, there’s no obvious next top-of-the-heap prospect with Cape League roots, and the Top 100 list reflects that, with no Cape alumni in the top 20. (Interestingly, there aren’t a lot of college guys in general in that group, so it’s not a Cape League-only gap. Trea Turner and Dansby Swanson are the only former college players in the top 20, and they both were on Cape League rosters before going to Team USA).
The top former Cape Leaguer checks in at No. 21, and it’s former Wareham Gatemen pitcher Sean Newcomb.
The lefty from Hartford was limited by mono in his 2013 season with the Gatemen but struck out 28 in 22.1 innings, flashing his potential. He then delivered on it in a big way with a huge junior season at Hartford, and was drafted 15th overall by the Angels in the 2014 draft. He was sent to the Braves in the Andrelton Simmons trade this off-season.
Newcomb struck out 168 in 136 innings of minor league action last year and is emerging as one of the game’s elite pitching prospects.
From his MLB Pipeline Scouting Report:
There were readings of Newcomb’s fastball touching triple digits in 2015 and he’ll sit in the 94-97 mph range. Big and physical, he maintains that velocity and does so without too much effort. Newcomb’s curve has become a plus pitch, one that misses plenty of bats. His changeup gives him a third at least Major League average offering.
Newcomb does have to cut down on his walks to reach his ceiling, but as a Northeast guy who used to divide focus among two sports, he has more upside than your typical college arm. If the control improves, he could even outperform those Jon Lester comps.
The other Cape Leaguers in the Top 100:
26. Bradley Zimmer – Cotuit – Cleveland
31. Aaron Judge – Brewster – New York Yankees
40. A.J. Reed – Harwich – Seattle
52. Jeff Hoffman – Hyannis – Colorado
56. Aaron Blair – Y-D – Atlanta
60. Tyler Jay – Y-D – Minnesota
65. Kyle Zimmer – Cotuit – Kansas City
68. Sean Manaea – Hyannis – Oakland
70. Mark Appel – Y-D – Philadelphia
76. Ian Happ – Harwich – Chicago Cubs
78. Erick Fedde – Y-D – Washington
MLB Pipeline also has lists of the top 10 prospects at every position. Those lists feature a number of additional Cape Leaguers including 2013 MVP Max Pentecost.
The New Aces
Almost since the day he made his debut in 2007, Tim Lincecum has been the unquestioned king of Cape Cod Baseball League alumni. His career took off immediately. He was 25 when he won his second Cy Young Award. He’s a four-time all-star and a two-time World Series Champion.
And he might be abdicating his throne.
Lincecum struggled last year (although his move to the bullpen in the playoffs helped the Giants win the World Series), and he hasn’t quite put it all back together yet this season.
But that’s only part of the story. Chris Sale and Matt Harvey – two players who were on Cape League fields four years after Lincecum and who are rising just as quickly as he did – are handling the other half.
Sale starred for the Yarmouth-Dennis Red Sox in 2009, earning top prospect honors from Baseball America. For him, the Cape League was everything – he was on the radar before. After, he was a star. It launched him. He was drafted 13th overall the next June by the White Sox, with the expectation that he would move swiftly through the system, and did he ever. Sale played in all of 11 minor league games before he made his Major League debut in August of 2010, just two months after the draft.
In the beginning, he was a dominant reliever. Then last year, he became an ace, going 17-8 with a 3.05 ERA and striking out a batter an inning. He’s poised to cement his status as one of the game’s best young pitchers this season.
Harvey joined Sale on the Cape in 2009 after also playing in 2008. He spent both summers with Chatham, but the Cape was different for him than it was for sale. Harvey was already highly-touted, a third round pick out of high school. In 2008, on the heels of a heavy workload at North Carolina, he pitched out of the bullpen and was named the league’s third best prospect by Baseball America. The next year, he struggled with the Tar Heels and didn’t fare much better in a cameo on the Cape, posting a 6.00 ERA in 18 innings.
But the talent was in there somewhere, and the next spring, Harvey unearthed it. In the 2010 draft, he was selected seventh overall by the Mets. One more college pitcher – Deck McGuire – went before the White Sox tabbed Sale.
Harvey didn’t move quite as quickly as Sale, but he was in New York to stay late last year, when he shined in 10 starts. This season, he’s been one of the biggest stories in baseball. He carried a 0.93 ERA and 32 strikeouts into Wednesday’s start with the Dodgers.
If you’re making a list of the best young arms in baseball, Sale and Harvey both have to be on it. And if you’re making a Cape League list, they have to be at or near the top. Only a handful of 2009 Cape Leaguers have made it to the bigs. Sale and Harvey have made it – and they’ve made it.
Tim Lincecum may yet regain his spot as the Cape League’s best. Either way, it’s going to be crowded up there.
Tim Lincecum’s Bullpen Roots
The emergence of Tim Lincecum, relief pitcher, has been an interesting storyline in the 2012 Major League Baseball postseason.
Lincecum, a two-time Cy Young Award winner, had the worst year of his career in 2012 but has been a valuable part of the Giants’ run to the World Series with his work out of the bullpen. He’s made one start in the postseason and five relief appearances. In the relief work, he’s allowed one run and just three hits in 13 innings. He has struck out 17.
As far as Lincecum’s recent career history, the bullpen success has come out of nowhere. Before these playoffs, he had made two relief appearances in his Major League career, one in 2010 and one in 2008. He made no relief appearances in the minors, and in his final season at Washington, he made five.
But he’s been a relief pitcher before.
In the 2005 Cape Cod Baseball League season, Lincecum was playing for Harwich and was forced to the bullpen because of an injury. He dominated from there, putting up a 0.69 ERA and striking out an amazing 68 in 39.1 innings. He saved seven games.
That was a long time ago, and I don’t know if Lincecum is drawing on that experience at all, but it’s cool to mention.
Tim Lincecum, relief pitcher, is nothing new on Cape Cod.
Blair Turning Heads
Arizona State’s Seth Blair had two pretty awesome summers in Cotuit. In fact, you could argue that no pitcher in his class had a better two-year run on the Cape. He went 4-1 with a 1.72 ERA in 2008 and authored one of the best single pitching performances of the summer. Last year, he went 3-2 with a 2.75 ERA and two complete games. It always seemed like he was steady with one or two eye-catching performances every year.
It was hard to tell if anyone noticed, though. He made the All-Star team in 2008 and got lit up in the game; he didn’t make it in 2009. In both years, he was nowhere to be found on Baseball America’s list of the top 30 Cape prospects.
These days, Blair is consistently turning in eye-catching performances. He has become Arizona State’s Friday starter and he’s 8-0 with a 2.79 ERA. In 71 innings, he has 70 strikeouts and only 16 walks.
Baseball America now says Blair is rising up draft boards. The article is subscription only, but the gist is that Blair has gotten steadily better every season and is now a legitimate prospect. Earlier in the year, his fastball hit 97.