The Baseball Zealot

Roll out the red carpet.  It’s time for the 2009 MiLBY Awards which awarded to the best performances in the minor leagues this year. 

You can find the complete coverage of the MiLBYs on mlb.com

A couple awards of note:

Dan Hudson who pitched for the White Sox organization (and actually made it to the bigs for a quick cup of coffee late in the year) won the award for best overall pitcher.  He did so thanks to a 2.32 ERA and a 14-5.  Want a more impressive stat?  He struck out 166 and walked only 34 for a 4.88 K/BB ratio. 

David Cales is someone who I’m looking forward to seeing in a Cub uniform.  For Single-A Daytona, he had a 0.78 ERA in 37 games which got him the Best Reliever in Class A Advanced.  It may not be too long before we see him… he’s already made it to AA Tennessee. 

Speaking of Daytona, Catcher Robinson Chirinos who also plays for them, won the MiLBY award for Best Single Game Performance at the Class A Advanced level.  On May 31, the Venezuelan native hit two grand slams to help the Daytona Cubs to a 11-3 victory over Sarasota.  That’s the second time that’s happened in the Florida State League history.

The Best Team award went to Padre Class A affiliate Fort Wayne Tin Caps.  They won over 100 games (a 101-48 record to be precise) which in the minors, is pretty dang rare.  By the way, their manager?  Former Cubs speedster Doug Dascenzo.

The Best Hitter award will be announced sometime today.

Posted in: Minor Leagues by The Baseball Zealot
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Three months ago, MLB signed Topps Company to a major contract to produce and market baseball cards with the MLB teams’ logo.  This was an exclusive contract to the detriment to other card making companies such as Upper Deck. 

Now, Topps has scored another coup.  They have reached agreement with Major League Baseball Properties in a multi-year licensing deal to produce certain nationally distributed Minor League cards. 

The agreement makes Topps the only trading card manufacturer licensed by MLBP to produce nationally-distributed trading cards of top draft picks and prospects within Minor League Baseball, and will give Topps the rights to names and logos of the 160 affiliated Minor League clubs and current Minor League players in uniform on baseball cards and stickers beginning on January 1, 2010. In addition, Topps will now have the exclusive use of the Pro Debut logo. Its first product will be its 2010 Topps Pro Debut Series 1 to be unveiled in early March 2010.

As it was three months ago, this deal is exclusive. 

Posted in: Baseball Business by The Baseball Zealot
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Woo hoo!  Former Illini shortstop and friend of the Zealot, Shawn Roof has hit his first pro homerun.  It’s worth mentioning because the versatile infielder never hit one during his days as an Illini either. 

Don’t expect another one soon because the Roof waited till the last game of the Erie Seawolves’ regular season for his first dramatic first.

Congrats, Shawn!

Posted in: Minor Leagues by The Baseball Zealot
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Reader DonS sent along this article on about Trevor Bell.  Bell who pitched for the Salt Lake Bees in the Pacific Coast League and has been called up to the majors recently (he’s scheduled to pitch Wednesday), has an interesting side story.  He had been moonlighting as an actor. 

Bell calls it a “hobby” now.  As a child, he did a fair amount of acting especially in commercials.  Nowadays, he spends the off-season in LA where he can get in Hollywood atmosphere.

Acting runs in Bell’s family.  His grandfather is Bob Bell who portrayed the original Bozo the Clown for WGN-TV in Chicago.  Living in Illinois as kid, I remember Bozo the clown and how popular he was. 

Now in the Angels’ organization, Trevor Bell is the real deal.  He was picked by Baseball America as the top 14-year old pitching prospect in the country.  That’s when Bell focused less on Hot Wheels commercials and more on baseball. 

In 2009 between stints with Arkansas and Salt Lake, Bell has gone 7-7 with a 2.70 ERA. 

Can Bell continue his “hobby” while pitching in majors?  Doubtful.  One thing is for sure, there’s no clowning around for him when he’s on the mound. 

Sorry, had to fit that pun in somewhere.

Posted in: Minor Leagues by The Baseball Zealot
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Justice moves slow in the minor leagues. Just ask Julio Castillo.

Julio Castillo was the pitcher who was involved in the bench-clearing brawl during the Dayton Dragons-Peoria Chiefs game in Dayton last July.  During the brawl, Castillo threw a ball into the stands and injured a fan.

Well, over a year later, he’s finally getting his due.  An Ohio judge sentenced him to 30 days in jail and three year’s probation. 

Castillo hasn’t pitched all year and it looks like he’ll have to wait till next year before he throws again. 

Posted in: Minor Leagues by The Baseball Zealot
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Minnesota Twins prospect Rene Tosoni, born in Toronto, put the World up for good with an RBI double to the righfield gap in the 7th inning.  The White Sox Cuban prospect Dayan Viciedo then ripped an RBI double to make it, 7-5 World, which was where it ended.  That was a long way from where the game began, there was a four hour rain delay, which resulted in the World’s starting pitcher, Junichi Tazawa, not being able to throw because he’d stiffened up during the delay, after warming up.

Early on the World had a 3-0 lead, but the USA came fighting back.  The Rockies Eric Young, Jr. (son of former All Star Eric Young, Sr.) put USA on the board with a solo-shot and then an RBI single off the bat of Pirates first round pick Pedro Alvarez cut the World’s lead to 3-2.  The next inning Astros catching prospect Jason Castro ripped a three run blast over the rightfield wall to give the USA a 5-3 lead.

But it wasn’t to be, as the Brewers Brett Lawrie got the decisive inning going with a leadoff double, and Starlin Castro of the Cubs reached on an infield single to put runners on the corners.  A wild pitch allowed Lawrie to score and Castro to advance.  With one out, the Brewers Alcides Escobar sent a bouncer up the middle for an infield single, and A’s second baseman Jemile Weeks’ (Rickie’s brother) error helped Castro to score the tying run.  Then it was time for Tosini & Viciedo to take center stage.

In the bottom of the 7th J.C. Sulbaran of the Reds closed it out for a game shortened save.  The Astros right-hander Chia-Jen Lo, who had worked a scoreless sixth, was credited with the victory.  The win was the World’s 6th in 11 games played against the USA in the Futures All Star games.

Posted in: Minor Leagues by Teddy Ballgame
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The Triple A All Star Game used to be THE showcase of the stars of tomorrow, that distinction has been taken over by the Futures Game.  Still over 16,000 fans crowded into Portland’s Triple A ballpark to checkout the show, and they weren’t disappointed.  Future stars shined as Phillies prospect Drew Carpenter was the winning pitcher, working one inning, striking out the side, disposing of the heart of the PCL lineup on only 9 pitches.  Yankees centerfielder of the future Austin Jackson ripped a hard triple off the wall.  Rays infielder Reid Brignac got himself a double, I remember being impressed with him in the Arizona Fall League.  Catcher Erik Kratz was the hitting star of the game, doubling, and then sending one completely out of PGE Park for a homer, but that one’s got an asterisk, as he hit a 3-0 fastball(?) off knuckleballer Charlie Haeger, he was sitting on a BP fastball & he got it, all of it.  Drew Stubbs also launched one deep into the night, as did Esteban German.  You see, in a game like this, there are prospects, and there are suspects.

Posted in: Minor Leagues by Teddy Ballgame
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Credit: WaPo

I was just forwarded this interesting WaPo piece on Delino DeShields.  After falling off the face of the earth, he’s back in baseball as a hitting coach for the Billings Mavericks.

Things are bit different for Delino in Big Sky country:

“It ain’t the A-T-L, that’s for sure. Billings is all cowboy hats and wide-open spaces, ranchland and large wildlife. It’s the biggest city within a 350-mile radius, which says more about what’s within that radius than about Billings’s own size. And according to the 2000 U.S. Census, African Americans make up about one-half of 1 percent of the population — or precisely 494 folks from a total population of 89,847.

"I’ve seen a couple," DeShields says, laughing. "Let’s just say: I don’t think they were natives."

It’s a good piece.  Check it out.

Posted in: Minor Leagues by The Baseball Zealot
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Seattle prospect Jamie McOwen has a hit streak going that’s starting to get national attention.  McOwen, a rightfielder for the High Desert Mavericks in the Class A Advanced California League, has now hit in 45 straight games.  For the season, McOwen is hitting a nifty .355, one point behind the Cal League batting leader. 

The 45 games is not a record in the minors.  Not by a longshot.  Similar to the majors, the hit streak record seems to be the hardest to conquer.  He has 24 games to go.  You have to go back to 1919 when Joe Wilhoit from Wichita had a 69 game hit streak.  That remains the record today.

By the way, if the name High Desert Mavericks sounds familiar to you, then you probably heard the news story about the incredible 51-run game between the Mavericks and the Lake Elsinore Storm a couple weeks ago.  The Mavericks came out on the losing side on that 33-18 wild one.  McOwen’s 2 for 6 performance in that game contributed to his streak.

Update:  The streak is over at 45.  Bus Leagues Baseball live-blogged what would have been the 46th game and McOwen came up short.

Posted in: Minor Leagues by The Baseball Zealot
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Here’s a fun boxscore to look over.

Yesterday, High Desert had 8 players with a multi-hit game, four players with four rbis and 5 homeruns for the game… and they lost.

No, it was the Lake Elsinore Storm who defeated High Desert Mavericks 33-18 in a Class A California League matchup.  Storm leadoff hitter Brad Chalk had 9 at-bats in the regulation nine inning game.  Six Storm players had four or more hits.  Matt Clark and Felix Carrasco combined for 11 rbis. 

When the eighth inning started, the score was “only” 22-11.  The Storm managed to put across eleven more and High Desert weren’t about to give up.  However, their seven runs in the last two innings weren’t enough. 

Looking at the scoreboard today… no score yet.

Bats must be tired.

Posted in: Minor Leagues by The Baseball Zealot
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