the missing batting champ, etc.

It’s entirely possible that a professional baseball player will end up being this year’s Cape League batting champ.

Entering play Sunday, the league leader was Falmouth’s Jimmy Cesario.

Thing is, Cesario is not Falmouth’s anymore. He’s Casper’s.

Cesario, a 46th-round pick this June, signed a professional contract with the Colorado Rockies soon after the All-Star game. In fact, three days after the All-Star game, he was making his debut with the Rookie Pioneer League’s Casper Ghosts.

But while Cesario is on to the next chapter of his career, the Cape League chapter is kind of still open. Cesario left a .387 batting average in his wake, and he’s going to have enough plate appearances to qualify for the league lead. That number sits at 119 every year. Cesario is ahead of that number just in the at-bats category, which means he’ll have more than enough to qualify.
And that .387 clip is going to be tough to surpass. Cesario’s former Falmouth teammate A.J. Pollock was at .385 heading into Sunday’s action. With five games left, there’s a chance he’ll leapfrog Cesario, but I think there’s a better chance that he sees his average drop.

So we would be left with an inactive player winning the batting title. I don’t know if the league would make some kind of exception and give it to the second-place guy or what, but either way, it’s a weird situation. You can’t say Cesario didn’t earn it. And yet . . . he’s already a pro.

I don’t ever remember seeing anything like this in past summers. Occasionally, a hitter near the top will head home due to injury but in general, if you’re near the league lead in hitting, you’re going to do your best to stick around util the last out of the season.

It’s a different situation for Cesario, who took an opportunity and ran with it. He’s still running, too. Through five games with Casper, he’s hitting .412. That’s a pretty good start, though as far as this season, I don’t know if Cesario will have had enough service time to earn any awards from the league.

But I guess he might get something in the mail.

Youth Is Served

Perfect Game Crosschecker had some interesting stuff up this week. They took a look at the top velocities in the Cape League All-Star game and also came out with a list of the top 20 performances of the summer across all leagues.

One thing you can take from both pieces is that the Cape League pitchers we’ll hear the most about in the next few years are the league’s youngest pitchers.

Of the top 10 radar-gun readings, four belonged to freshmen — Brandon Workman at 95, Sammy Solis at 93, Brian Dupra at 92 and Martin Viramontes at 92. The other feature puts three sophomore Team USA pitchers atop the summer performance list.

That means next year’s draft may be a little lighter than normal on Cape League pitchers. A few will certainly crack the first few rounds, but they may not be among the real upper echelon.

There’s a good chance that changes in 2010. Workman was a third-round pick out of high school, and with his near no-hitter and his tremendous strikeout numbers this summer, he’s been arguably the most impressive pitcher in the league. Much like Missouri’s Kyle Gibson did last year, Workman has used his Cape League summer to put himself way up high on early draft lists.

Solis probably isn’t too far behind Workman, and he’s got the advantage of being left-handed. Dupra has been lights-out as a reliever and he’ll probably get a chance to do big things next spring at Notre Dame. Viramontes struggled in the All-Star game and his first start since then was rough, too, but he’ll be fine. He’s another big kid, and a few bad outings aren’t going to hurt him too much.

And it doesn’t stop with those four. Matt Harvey, Kyle Blair, Seth Blair, Drew Storen, Evan Danielli, Graham Stoneburner, Rob Rasmussen, Robby Broach — all those guys have made an impression.

We’ll see come 2010 how big an impression it is, but for now, we’ve got quite a crop of young pitchers on our hands.

Notes

• Last summer, when the playoffs rolled around, Falmouth could trot out two 2008 first-round picks and a potential 2009 first-rounder in a three-game playoff series. Now? Well, suffice it to say the Commodores are not in first place because of a dominant starting rotation. Chad Bettis has been their ace. He’s got a 2.27 ERA. Reliever-turned-starter Chris Gloor comes in with a 2.78 ERA. After that, nobody in the rotation is under 3.00. And yet, Falmouth has found a way. Starters like Nate Karns, Rex Brothers and Jorge Reyes have gotten the job done when needed, and the bullpen has been great with Ben Tootle at the back end. Mostly, though, Falmouth can thank its offense. The Commodores have scored the most runs in the league.

• Going into Sunday, Hyannis closer Russell Brewer still had an outside shot to break the saves record. With 12 saves and the record at 16, he needs the Mets to go on a winning streak. Though they can’t win too big.

• It should be an interesting final few days in the Western Division, especially for Hyannis. Of the Mets’ last four games, three are against teams that are alongside them in the divisional race. They’ll host Bourne Monday, they’ll visit Cotuit on Wednesday and on Thursday, they’ll close out the regular season at home against Falmouth. If the Mets can sweep those three games, they’ll probably win the division.

• I stumbled across a cool new web site you should check out. It’s called Breaking Bats, and it’s devoted to baseball prospects. I e-mailed the site’s founder, Matt Grabowski, and it sounds like he’s got some pretty big plans. It’s definitely worth keeping an eye on.
  

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