Grant Desme becoming a man of the cloth

desmeOakland A’s prospect Grant Desme is going from Arizona Fall League MVP  to the next Billy Sunday. He’s giving up the church of baseball for the priesthood.

Desme had a breakout year in 2009.  Playing for the Midwest League’s Kane County Cougars and California League’s Stockton Ports, he hit 31 homeruns, stole 40 bases to go along with his .288 batting average.

Last fall, the A’s had good words to say about Desme potential:

“If he keeps putting up these kinds of numbers, it’d be hard not to bring him in [to Spring Training],” Keith Lieppman, A’s director of player development, told MLB.com in October. “There’s a lot of good things happening with him right now. At this stage, he looks like the complete package.”

Now A’s GM Billy Beane has nothing to do but to accept the inevitable.  “We respect Grant’s decision and wish him nothing but the best in his future endeavors,” he grumbled.

According to the Huffington Post, Desme is quoted in 2007 as saying, “above all, my faith comes first and I dedicate myself to church.”  Now, we’re seeing just how dedicated he really is.  Desme will plan to enter a Catholic seminary and and says it will be a 10-year process and likens it to  “re-entering the minor leagues.”

Oakland can tell themselves that they probably get along without Grant Desme (the California League is a hitters league, right?).  Most likely, Desme would have been trade bait anyway.

Regardless, he would have been a player to watch.  It wasn’t an easy decision for Desme to make, I’m sure.

2009 AFL Championship Game

tony clarkThe talent was there, the weather was perfect, and the announcers were abysmal.  MLB Network was on hand in Scottsdale, AZ to telecast the AFL championship game, with Victor Rojas & Tony Clark in the booth as the broadcasters.  First up, Victor was assigned the duties of play by play, even though he’s only a fill in at that with the Rangers, color analysis is his supposed forte, if he indeed has one.  One play illustrated Rojas’s (son of Cookie) complete ignorance of baseball rulings (if you don’t know, keep your trap shut).  The bases were loaded with two out, the batter hit a groundball to short, on which the shortstop laid back, rather than charge, the runner at first beat the throw to second for an attempted force out.  Here’s what Victor Rojas had to say, “Tony, they ruled that a basehit.  We’re not here to judge.  They didn’t even try to get the batter at 1st”.  Common sense says, if you can’t force the runner on a short throw to 2nd, you certainly wouldn’t be able to retire the batter at first, the ruling of a basehit was correct.

Then there was former switch hitting, big man, big leaguer, Tony Clark, cliches were in abundance.  Here are Big Tony’s favorite utterings rolled into one sentence, “Brother, No doubt about it, Mister Outstanding, I tip my hat”.  Sheesh, if I didn’t want to hear what they had to say about the players from time to time, I’d have muted the game, rather than listen to their constant chatter, sometimes a little silence is a good thing.

Finally there were three guests brought up to the booth.  Somebody from the charitable organization of Scottsdale Charros & then somebody representing the Cal Ripken, Sr. Foundation (the talking heads went on about the no-talent, egotistical, MLB Network’s own, Billy Ripken), but the worst was when Joe Garagiola, Sr. came up to visit.  Joe started describing in detail his four major surgeries he’s undergone in the past year, sometimes it’s just better to wave to Uncle Joe from a distance.

Back to the game and the talented youngsters performing out on the field.  In the 4th inning AFL MVP Phoenix Desert Dogs slugger Grant Desme, a 30 homer & 40 stolen base guy in A ball for the Oakland A’s showed off his power, nailing a home run inside the leftfield foul pole.  Moments later Tampa Bay Rays catcher Nevin Ashley went “OPPO TACO”, poking one out to right, TC added, “Only growed up men hit balls like that”.  It pains me today to recall their descritions of the game.

Here are some of the things I took away from watching this game.  Little Matt Angle out of Ohio State University, representing the Baltimore Orioles, ripped a leadoff triple for Phoenix to start the game.  Later Matt beat out a drag bunt past the pitcher for a single.  Centerfielder Angle’s hustling play reminded me of another 5’10” centerfielder, Libertyville, IL’s Brett Butler.  Rickie’s little brother, Jemile Weeks of the Oakland A’s, flashed some leather in the field at 2B, was 1-4 at the plate, doubling to right (was almost thrown out jogging to 2nd), and struckout three times.

Batting cleanup for Peoria was the White Sox Brent Morel, who lined singles in two of his four at bats, and looks like the real thing.  Mariners Dustin Ackley, the 2nd player drafted behind Stephen Strasburg, looked good with the bat, 2-5, but very shaky in leftfield, maybe it was the sun.  While White Sox centerfielder Jordan Danks was 0-4, drawing a walk, stranding 5 runners, he showed good baseball instincts, and looked solid in the field.

Pitchers that showed their stuff were Cuban righthander Reidier Gonzalez of the Blue Jays, pitching for Phoenix, with one quick perfect inning of work.  Looking sharp for the Javelinas was lefty Andrew Oliver of the Detroit Tigers, 2 innings, 2 Ks.  But the man on the bump for Peoria was the Tigers Robbie Weinhardt.  Weinhardt is a Tigers 2008 10th round draft taken out of Oklahoma State University, where he epitomized what a power pitcher is, striking out 70 batters in 44 innings.  Robbie brought his gun to town, working two innings for Peoria, striking out the side in the 8th (Corey Brown, Chris Marrero, Grant Desme) in the 8th, going 1-2-3 in the ninth, fanning Weeks swinging to end the game.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the BOMB OF THE GAME off the bat of White Sox secondbaseman C.J. Retherford.  Retherford is a native of Arizona, attended ASU, was a Sun Devil, whom the White Sox signed as a free agent.  With the Javelinas trailing by a run in the bottom of the 8th C.J. stepped in against former ASU hurler Josh Perrault of the Marlins, and absolutely CRUSHED one deep over the leftfield wall, it was a no-doubter, an absolute BOMB!  It proved to be the game winner as the Peoria Javelinas thwarted the Peoria Desert Dogs in their hopes of winning their 6th straight AFL Title.

11/21/09 AFL Championship Game: Desert Dogs vs Javelinas

storen02250802There will be plenty of prospects to satisfy anybody’s appetite in the 2009 AFL Championship game Saturday November 21st in Scottsdale, AZ.  I’m really bummed that I’m not in the Arizona desert to see this showdown between the Phoenix Desert Dogs and the Peoria Javelinas.

Even without Stephen Strasburg, this game will feature alot of talented young baseball players.  For example, Drew Storen was the 2nd first rounder drafted by the Washington Nationals.  He threw up a 0.66 ERA, 2-0, 4 saves, 13 strikeouts in 13″ innings pitched this Fall for the Desert Dogs, and appears to be on the fast track to the Nation’s Capital.  Storen starred at Stanford before turning pro.

A Javelinas star is the 2nd player taken in the 2009 draft out of the University of North Carolina by the Seattle Mariners, outfielder, Dustin Ackley.  Ackley showed off his skills in the AFL, batting .315.  Dustin put up fantastic numbers in college, batting .402, .417, & .417 in his three years in collegiate ball.

Another pitching prospect for the Nationals appearing for Phoenix was Baylor’s Jeff Mandel, 14′ innings, striking out 10, without issuing a base on balls, and a nifty 1.88 ERA.  Mandel was 12-6 this past season, splitting time between A+ & AA Ball.  Two Javelinas pitching prospects were Eric Krebs of the Pirates 19 strikeouts in 13″ innings and the Tigers Andrew Oliver who struckout 16 batters in 16 innings.  One hurler I’m hoping to see pitch in the game is Robbie Weinhardt of the Javelinas and the Tigers, 29 strikeouts in 18′ innings in the AFL.

Some of the hitting prospects I’m looking forward to seeing are the White Sox thirdbaseman Brent Morel for the Javelinas, a couple of Desert Dogs firstbasemen Brandon Snyder of the Orioles & the Nats Christopher Marrero, another Nationals prospect out of Long Beach State SS Danny Espinosa, White Sox/Javelinas outfielder Jordan Danks (brother of John), and AFL home run champ with 11 Grant Desme of the A’s & the Desert Dogs.  Interestingly Morel & Desme, who’ll square off in this contest, were teammates at Cal Poly.

While my heart might be in the desert, the rest of me will be in front of my TV watching some of the best young players, playing a little baseball, can’t wait!

AFL Rising Stars Game on MLB Network Tonight

desmeThe Arizona Fall League has six teams composed of young up & coming baseball players from all 30 major league teams.  Tonight the MLB Network will broadcast the AFL Rising Stars Game at 7:00 PM Chicago time.  Stephen Strasburg was supposed to start for the East, but will be replaced by Tommy Mendoza, Strasburg has a strained neck muscle.  Mike Minor will be on the hill for the West.  One of the Rising Stars is power hitting centerfielder Grant Desme of the Oakland A’s.  Desme hit 11 home runs at Kane County before being promoted to A+ Stockton, where he hit another 20 home runs in 2009.  Grant has already hit ten more long balls in the Fall, while batting .354.

I’ve been going to the valley of the sun the past four years to watch baseball prospects before they reach the big leagues.  Last year I saw AL Rookie of the Year Chicago White Sox thirdbaseman Gordon Beckham and phenom righthander of the Atlanta Braves Tommy Hanson.  It’s also fun to hang with major league scouts there to take in the action.  I’ll be out there again soon, reporting on baseball, possibly with a podcast, or two.