Category: Notes

Cape Cod Baseball League coaches aren’t generally well-known outside of baseball circles or the Cape itself. John Schiffner was made a little famous in Summer Catch and Mike Roberts is a famous baseball dad.

But there will be a pretty famous assistant coach on the Cape next summer.

Ron Polk, the former Mississippi State head coach, has signed on as an assistant with the Wareham Gatemen, according to the team’s twitter. Polk, 67, is the all-time winningest coach in SEC history, across all sports. He also ranks eighth on college baseball’s all-time wins list and is a member of the College Baseball Hall of Fame.

His connection to the Cape League started when he wanted to watch his college players who were in the league. Now an assistant at UAB, Polk has still been making the trek and was featured earlier this summer by the Cape Cod Times.

As he says in that piece, Polk knows Wareham manager Cooper Farris well, and the two will now be together in the dugout. I think that can only be a good thing for the Gatemen. As Polk told the Cape Cod Times in August, “I think there is a good chance I’ll be up here, and help [Farris] recruit some kids from the SEC and Conference USA so we can win this thing next year.”

Hunter Morris hit eight home runs for Falmouth in 2009 and hit 46 in his three-year career at Auburn. In this his first full season of pro ball, Morris is still crushing the ball. A fourth-round pick of the Brewers in 2010, Morris set a new single-season home run record for the Class A Brevard County Manatees this summer. Morris, who batted .271, finished with 19 homers.

The Boston Globe recaps the first season for New England’s newest collegiate baseball league, the Futures League. Four teams played in the inaugural season, including one on Martha’s Vineyard, and the league is hoping to expand.

The site Ballpark Business has two interesting tidbits about summer baseball attendance. The first is a list of the top drawing summer collegiate franchises. The list is topped by the Madison Mallards of the Northwoods League, who demolished all previous summer attendance records by bringing in an average of 6,278 per game. The top drawing Cape League team was Orleans, which ranked only 17th overall. Ballpark Business also has a press release from the Northwoods League detailing its success at the turnstiles.

Jim Callis has a column up promoting Baseball America’s summer top prospect lists. It’s also a nice reminder of how big a step summer ball is on the draft calendar.

Reconnecting with the internet after an Irene power outage . . .

Hyannis operated on a pretty good model this season. The Harbor Hawks lined up a core of talented players from smaller schools and kind of had them as building blocks from day one. You never know how that model will work out, but at least one Cape League manager liked what he saw.

The Norwich (Conn.) Bulletin recently caught up with Chatham manager John Schiffner, who lives in Plainfield, Conn. The Bulletin’s Marc Allard covers a lot of ground with Schiffner, including a potential shift in the Anglers’ approach:

“Wait until you see next year’s roster,” Schiffner said. Out with the high-profile, major conference player; in with the mid-major scrapper.
It’s a strategy that worked in Hyannis, where the Harbor Hawks went from worst to first in the Western Division, turning a 14-30 team last year into a 29-15 squad this season under Chad Gassman.
“They had a bunch of kids from high-profile schools last year, went to the mid-major kid with a few major conference players, and won 30 games (including a playoff matchup) — they had great chemistry,” Schiffner said.
Schiffner said that’s what he will be doing next year: Looking for players “willing to eat dirt.”

Schiffner also said he’s had great kids the last two years, but there’s clearly some frustration about the perils of signing the big boys. It’ll be interesting to see how different the Chatham roster looks next season.

Remember Robert Stock? He played on the Cape after making headlines by enrolling early at USC. He didn’t exactly start a trend, but a few top prospects every year are following in his footsteps. Long Beach State’s Jake Thompson did it and also played on the Cape. Perfect Game’s Kendall Rogers reports that, this year, two big prospects are heading to school early. Catcher Chris Harvey is leaving high school to start his career at Vanderbilt while Taylor Gushue is enrolling at Florida.

Perfect Game is also rolling out its summer league top prospects. Scouting reports are subscriber content, but you can see lists for no charge. Checking out the lists from other leagues can give you a taste of 2012 on the Cape. The top prospects from seven summer leagues in 2010 played on the Cape in 2011.

Former Chatham Angler Kyle Seager made his Major League debut earlier this summer and has started to make a splash. Seager, a star at North Carolina, played for Chatham in 2007 and 2008 before getting drafted in the third round of the 2009 draft. After moving quickly through the minors, Seager was called up to the Mariners on July 7 and went 0-for-4. Seager has heated up lately, though. In a nine-game span starting Aug. 19, Seager went 18-for-36 with two home runs and six doubles. He’s now hitting .289. Seager is joined in the Mariner lineup by former UNC teammate — and former Cape Leaguer — Dustin Ackley, who’s hitting .295.

Baseball America’s prospect hot sheet ranked former Orleans Firebird Gary Brown as the top prospect for the week of Aug. 19-25. Brown, who plays for Class A San Jose in the Giants organization, is hitting .331 with 47 stolen bases in his first full season of minor league ball. The former Cal State Fullerton star earned the top spot on the hot sheet by hitting .556 for the week, including a 5-for-5, two home run, two double day. Brown played for Orleans in 2008 and 2009, hitting .222 his first year before batting .310 with 10 stolen bases the next year. He was selected 24th overall in the 2010 draft. Also on the same prospect hot sheet is Zack Cox, who starred for Cotuit in 2009. Since the end of June, Cox has hit .382 for the Cardinals’ Double A affiliate.

If you type Stony Brook into the Right Field Fog search box, you get plenty of results, but every single one of them comes from 2010 or later. To be exact, June 11, 2010 was the official beginning. Nick Tropeano was mentioned in the Cotuit season preview.

Turns out that beginning was the beginning of something big.

A year after Tropeano made a name for himself and for Stony Brook, the Seawolves invaded. Travis Jankowski won the 2011 Cape League MVP award, Tyler Johnson was an ace for Orleans and Patrick Cantwell was an all-star for Bourne. William Carmona, Tanner Nivins and Maxx Tissenbaum were also on the Cape, earning their keep as major contributors for their teams.

That’s six players having solid summers. You know who didn’t have that many? Texas. Arizona State. South Carolina. Florida. Virginia.

Powerhouses. And little old Stony Brook had more Cape League success than any of them.

It’s pretty amazing. I don’t remember a mid-major having that much success from that many players. Usually, it’s one or two, maybe three. Not six, and not out of nowhere like this. I don’t know for sure if Tropeano was the first Stony Brook player on the Cape, but even if he wasn’t, it hasn’t been a regular occurrence.

The program’s prominence on the Cape mirrors its rise in college baseball. The team won a school-record 42 games this past spring and won its first America East regular-season title. There’s obviously some talent there, and clearly, the Cape League is part of the plan.

After this summer, I don’t think any Cape League GM’s will complain about that.

For at least the the third year in a row, a team from somewhere other than the Cape League was ranked No. 1 in Perfect Game’s final summer ball rankings. This time, it was the Cal Ripken League’s Bethesda Big Train. The California Collegiate League’s Santa Barbara Foresters ranked second, while Cape League champ Harwich was third. The Northwoods League’s Eau Claire Express were the top team last year and the Coastal Plain’s Forest City Owls were No. 1 in 2009. I can’t find the final 2008 rankings, but I think Harwich was the top team. If that wasn’t the case, then it goes back to ’07, when Y-D was most definitely No. 1.

The rankings are part of some great summer ball postseason coverage over at Perfect Game. The coverage includes a summer All-American team that features Cape Leaguer’s Stephen Piscotty, Matt Duffy, Victor Roache, Travis Jankowski, Dane Phillips, Ryan Eades, Trevor Gott, Konner Wade and Chris Overman. Utah’s Shaun Cooper, who played in the Northwoods League, was named the Summer Player of the Year. Roache was selected as the top rising junior and Eades the top rising sophomore.

Perfect Game also has a list of Team USA’s top prospects. The top four — Deven Marrero, Mark Appel, Kevin Gausman and Ryne Stanek — also spent time on the Cape.

One of the top prospects on that Bethesda team was Mississippi State rising sophomore Hunter Renfroe. A catcher, Renfroe hit .305 with a league-best eight home runs. I would expect to see Renfroe on a Cape League roster for 2012.

Baseball America’s Aaron Fitt takes some time to break down the college winners and losers after the MLB signing deadline. He labels Vanderbilt, North Carolina State, Mississippi, Southern Mississippi and South Carolina the big winners.

I just typed Mississippi so many times.

Finally, it’s being reported that 2011 Chatham standout Dane Phillips is transferring from Oklahoma State to Arkansas. He will try for a waiver that would allow him to be eligible in 2012.

A week after the championship, the season Chris Overman (NC State) turned in for Harwich continues to stick out. By getting out of a bases-loaded jam in the clinching game, Overman finished off a summer in which he didn’t allow an earned run.

That’s not an unheard of feat in a Cape League season, but Overman’s performance is all the more impressive considering how many innings he threw. This wasn’t a small sample size — Overman finished second in the league in appearances and, between the regular season and the playoffs, he pitched 33 innings.

Since 2000, only six other players have pitched 20 innings or more without allowing an earned run. Two pitchers did it last year: Marcus Stroman went 25 innings for Orleans and Anthony Ranaudo — the rare starter on this list — didn’t allow an earned run in 29.2 innings.

Ranaudo’s regular-season innings pitched mark beats Overman’s, but Ranaudo didn’t pitch in the playoffs. With the 4.2 innings Overman accumulated in the post-season, he officially has the most innings on the list.

The other guys over 20 innings were Daniel Tillman in 2009, Derrick Lutz in 2005, Ryan Speier in 2001 and Brandon Luna in 2000.

Interestingly, Overman wasn’t the only 2011 Cape Leaguer flirting with a year of zeroes. Falmouth’s John Simms didn’t allow an earned run in 18.2 innings of work. Overman’s teammate Carter Capps allowed one run in 23 innings and Brewster’s J.T. Chargois surrendered one run in 21 innings.

However you shake it, there were some great bullpen arms on the Cape this summer. Chris Overman takes the cake.

The 2007 Y-D Red Sox are the best team I’ve seen since I’ve been doing RFF, and the talent from that club continues to shine through at the next level. Collin Cowgill made his Major League debut on July 26 with the Diamondbacks, becoming the fourth player from that Y-D team to make the bigs. Cowgill joins Buster Posey, Gordon Beckham and Jason Castro. Cowgill has played in 14 games so far and is hitting .171. Cowgill hit .290 for Y-D in ’07.

Another player from that team should be joining the list soon. Grant Green, who hit .291 for the Red Sox before an MVP caliber season the next summer with Chatham, is one of the top prospects in the Oakland A’s organization. Playing for Double A Midland this season, Green is hitting .300 with eight home runs, 30 doubles and 55 RBI.

Fresh off his CCBL Manager of the Year honors, Hyannis head man Chad Gassman has been named the head coach at the University of Pikeville in Kentucky. Pikeville plays in the NAIA. Gassman had previously been the head coach at NAIA Waldorf College in Forest City, Iowa.

Good story on the Georgia Tech web site about Harwich’s Jake Davies. Undrafted after his junior year, Davies managed to hook on with Harwich and had a memorable summer. He hit .370 in the playoffs. Davies, on his summer: “The baseball part is extremely good. Guys are throwing 90-plus fastballs every inning. It’s great competition. The host families are fantastic. The guys are fun, the towns are small and all the fans love it. It’s a great environment.”

Louisville’s Justin Amlung, who was named an all-star with Wareham, left the Cape just before the all-star game, reportedly to sign with the Reds, who had taken him in the 39th round. Amlung, however, did not sign with the Reds and will return to Louisville for the 2012 season.

It was painfully symbolic that the first three days without Cape League Baseball were dark, rainy and dreary around here. It’s probably a good thing that they didn’t have to get in any games in on those days, but it was a sad stretch nonetheless. Onward and upward, though: roughly 298 days until the 2012 Cape Cod Baseball League season.

Some notes to brighten things up . . .

For anyone who was at game one of the championship series: wasn’t that a great one? I love baseball, but if I’m not keeping score and focusing on paying attention, my mind will drift a little bit. It didn’t drift at all during that game. I was hanging on every pitch. Cape League Baseball at its finest.

Mike Garza took home playoff MVP honors and was certainly deserving. But it could have gone to a number of guys because it was a very solid all-around effort for the Mariners. John Wooten had two homers in the championship series, Jake Davies hit .370 in the playoffs and Austin Wilson drove in five runs in the playoffs.

Wilson was a key part of the championship run, which is pretty good considering the start he had. Wilson, perhaps the most highly-touted freshman on the Cape, hit .143 in his first 18 games. After that, though, he steadily built himself up and hit .286 the rest of the way, including playoffs. He had a hit in all but one playoff game.

On the subject of awards, I say this every year but I continue to be mystified by the announcement process. I understand the desire to keep things a surprise and present the players with the awards at games, and I understand the desire to get a full feature story up on the league site about the award-winners, but in between those two things, is it possible to get some sort of news brief announcing the winners? As it stands now, awards get mentioned in game stories and on twitter, and they kind of get lost in the shuffle as a result. In case you missed it: MVP – Travis Jankowski; Pitcher of the Year – Ryan Eades; Top Prospect – Victor Roache; Top Relief Pitcher – Trevor Gott; Tenth Player – Ben Waldrip; Sportsmanship – Patrick Cantwell; Top New England Player – Nate Koneski; Top GM – Bill Bussiere, Hyannis; Top Manager – Chad Gassman, Hyannis.

I was wrong on all of my midseason awards picks. In my defense, Victor Roache was a shoo-in for MVP until his scuffles at the end. And I still like Joe Bircher as much as Ryan Eades.

The deadline for signing MLB draft picks passed yesterday, and the results were interesting to watch, as always. Only one first-round pick went unsigned and he’s a New Englander. Right-handed pitcher Tyler Beede hails from Groton, Mass. He was taken 21st by the Blue Jays but it appears he’ll be heading to Vanderbilt in the fall (and maybe Cape Cod next summer).

Other early high-school picks who were unsigned (with college commitments):

2 (34) – Brett Austin – C – NC State
3 (92) – Kevin Cron – 1B – TCU (brother C.J. played for Cotuit in 2010)
3 (102) – Connor Barron – SS – Southern Miss
4 (133) – Tyler Palmer – SS – Georgia
5 (169) – Andrew Chin -LHP – Boston College
5 (174) – Brandon Woodruff – RHP – Mississippi State
5 (180) – J.D. Davis – 3B – Cal State Fullerton
6 (204) – Derek Fisher – OF – Virginia

Starting pitching hasn’t been overly dominant on the Cape this season, but if that’s a trend, it hasn’t extended to the bullpens. For several teams, if you get to the sixth inning with a lead, it may as well be game over. A lot of relievers have been pretty dominant.

The most dominant among them still have ERA’s of 0.00, even with more than half the season gone. And we’re not just talking about guys with small sample sizes. These are busy relievers who just haven’t allowed anything.

Right now, there are 11 pitchers who have gone at least seven innings without allowing a run. The list:

Carter Capps – Harwich
John Farrell – Bourne
Cody Stiles – Cotuit
R.C. Orlan – Bourne
Blake Hauser – Harwich
Joe Biagini – Brewster
Chris Overman – Harwich
J.T. Chargois – Brewster
Matt Reckling – Y-D
John Simms – Falmouth
Andrew Chafin – Orleans

Most impressive among that group is the Harwich trio. Hauser has pitched 10 innings without allowing an earned run, Capps has pitched 13.1 innings and Overman takes the cake with 15.2 innings. Overman and Hauser haven’t allowed even an unearned run. Imagine facing those three back-to-back-to-back at the end of a playoff game. Good luck.

Chargois, Simms and Farrell have also been impressive when taking innings into account. Chargois has gone 12 innings, Farrell 11.1 and Simms 12. Both Chargois and Simms have six saves.

If we want to call this the zero-one club, then we can add a few more guys — closers Bobby Wahl, Konner Wade and Trevor Gott have all allowed just one earned run.

We’ll stop there, but whatever the cutoff is, it’s been a pretty good summer for the guys in the ‘pen.

A week ago, I tabbed Victor Roache as the Cape Cod League’s mid-season MVP. Since then, Roache has put up even better numbers. He’s 8 for his last 14 with a homer and eight RBI. It’s getting to the point where Roache is having not just a great season, but a historical Cape League season.

So let’s get some context.

Roache is hitting .397. The best season-ending average since 2000 is .388.

Roache has five home runs, which puts him on pace for eight. That’s about the average for a league leader.

Roache has 24 RBI, which puts him on pace for 39. That would be a new high for the 2000s. Daniel Carte had 38 in 2004.

Roache’s on-base percentage is .529. That would demolish the 2000s record of .488, which is owned by Kevin Youkilis.

Roache’s slugging percentage is .667. Only Conor Gillaspie in 2007 finished higher than that at .673.

So yeah, this is quite a season Mr. Roache is having. If he keeps going anywhere close to this clip, we might be putting him in the company of the Evan Longorias and the Kyle Rollers of the Cape League world.

Lots of action on the transactions page today. A few that caught my eye:

Orleans released six players, including Rutgers’ Steve Nyisztor but signed eight to full contracts. I’m sure those eight are very happy to be settling in, and the Firebirds are happy to hold on to them. Among the eight are league home run leader Ben Waldrip and recently drafted pitchers Ryan Carpenter and Andrew Chafin.

Harwich activated Lex Rutledge (Samford), who had some of the best velocity on the Cape last year and should be one of the top prospects in the league.

Falmouth activated Kent Emanuel, who had an awesome freshman season for North Carolina, capped by a shutout of Texas in the College World Series. Falmouth now has two of the top freshman pitchers on the Cape in Emanuel and John Simms.

And a familiar face is on his way to a new place. Vanderbilt’s Jack Armstrong, who pitched for Wareham in 2009 and 2010, has signed a full contract with Y-D. Armstrong has been a intriguing prospect throughout his career and was picked in the third round by Houston in last month’s draft.

Brewster leadoff hitter Andrew Toles, a freshman at Tennessee, has the most at-bats in the league.

He also has the most hits.

Toles is 8-for-18 so far for an average of .444. He’s also scored three runs and stolen three bases. He may not continue to lead the league in at-bats or hits, but I’d bet he’ll stay in the leadoff spot.

Toles should be an interesting player to watch. He hit only .270 for Tennessee this year but stole 21 bases. He was a fourth-round pick out of high school last year.

I keep waiting to see Matt Purke’s name pop up. It might not be happen, but I’ve read speculation in several places that Purke might take the same route as Anthony Ranaudo last summer. Like Ranaudo, Purke — a former first-round pick who was draft-eligible as a sophomore — battled injuries this year at TCU, dropping him from first-round consideration. Purke ended up going in the third round to Washington, and if he’s healthy and looking to prove himself, I imagine the Cape would be the destination. We’ll see what happens.

Brandon Thomas and Kyle Wren both had strong seasons at Georgia Tech this spring, and they’re off to as fast a start as anybody this summer. Thomas is 6-for-12 for Wareham, best in the league, while Wren is 6-for-13 for Cotuit.

As usual, the early part of the season has been full of very good pitching performances. Twenty-one pitchers have seen action without allowing a run. Of that group, 16 have started a game. Luke Farrell of Wareham, Jon Moscot at Harwich and Dace Kime of Chatham have each gone seven shutout innings. Kime, a Louisville freshman who was an eighth-round pick last year, struck out eight and didn’t walk anybody in his start.

Falmouth’s Andrew Heaney has the best single-game strikeout performance thus far, with 10 in a hard-luck loss last night. Heaney struck out 51 in 67 innings this spring for Oklahoma State.

Several familiar names from past summers are making unexpected return trips. Two-year Wareham pitcher Keith Bilodeau, a Sagamore native who was drafted in the 24th round this year out of Maine, is now on the Chatham roster. LSU’s Tyler Hanover, who spent the last two summers with Y-D, is back with the Red Sox again on a temporary contract. Hanover was drafted in the 40th round this year. Nevada’s Shon Roe is back with Orleans.

Brewster’s Taylor Davis has had an RBI in every game and leads the league with seven. Last year’s season leader was Jordan Ribera with 26, so Davis is well ahead of the curve at this point. Davis, who just finished his junior year at Morehead State, was not drafted this year, even though he hit .414 with 13 homers.

Thirteen players took the field for the Y-D Red Sox last night.

Just two of them were on Y-D’s initial roster.

Every team experiences this to an extent, but this seems like a record. I don’t know how the Red Sox found so many baseball players, but good for them. Considering the teams they were drawing from, I guess they knew it was coming. Y-D’s initial 25-man roster has 11 players still alive in the NCAA tournament.

It’s exciting to see that some of the top players in preseason forecasts are already on the Cape. It usually seems like we’re waiting for the best — and we are still waiting for some — but quite a few big guns are already here. Victor Roache of Georgia Southern was the national home run leader, finishing with 30, and he was in the middle of the Cotuit order last night. He hit two doubles. Adam Brett Walker of Jacksonville has the potential to end up as the Cape’s top prospect and he batted clean-up last night for Hyannis. Steve Nyisztor of Rutgers is a big-time prospect and hit a home run for Orleans.

Speaking of Mr. A. B. Walker, he and his Jacksonville teammate Dan Gulbransen give Hyannis two legitimate stars in the middle of the order. Walker hit .411 with 13 homers and 75 RBI this year. Gulbransen hit .370 with six homers and 51 RBI. Interestingly, both Walker and Gulbransen hail from Wisconsin.

In the transactions section, we notice that Y-D is getting at least one guy from its initial roster into uniform — and he’s a good one. The Red Sox activated St. John’s pitcher Kyle Hansen. The brother of former Cape Leaguer and big leaguer Craig, Kyle had a 3.09 ERA this spring and struck out 106 in 107.1 innings. He could certainly be one of the top pitchers in the league this summer.

Also of note, LSU star freshman Kevin Gausman was activated by Harwich. Yesterday, though, he was also named to Team USA, so we’ll see how long he stays on the Cape.

Team USA has now picked half of its 22-man roster. From what I gather, the team should be set around June 15.

The Cape League has a shiny new website, and it looks great. It’s built the same way as the old one, but it’s a major visual upgrade. Kudos to all who worked on it.