Right Field Fog – A Cape Cod Baseball League Blog

Every week, I could pick a Florida series for this little feature. The Gators have 13 players with tickets to the Cape this summer. That’s more players than any other school — by a lot — and more players than any other school sent to the Cape last year.

Every Florida series will be an interesting one, then. This one will have a little extra.

The fifth-ranked Gators will travel south to take on in-state rival Miami, who’s ranked 10th and has a fair share of Cape Leaguers, too. It’ll be perhaps the biggest non-conference series of the season for either team.

Not to mention, the first real tough test.

The Gators started the season 5-0 before a loss on Tuesday to Florida State. The Hurricanes are 6-1, and when they’ve won, they’ve won big, with 12-1, 18-1 and 15-2 victories to their name.

Two 2010 Cape Leaguers are expected to be in the Gators’ rotation this week. Sophomore left Alex Panteliodis (Orleans) is scheduled to start on Friday. It’ll be the first start of the year for Panteliodis, who had a 2.45 ERA in two relief appearances. On Saturday, freshman Brian Johnson (Falmouth) is expected to get the start. A 27th-round pick out of high school, he’s 1-0 with a 2.84 ERA.

The lone Cape League connection in Miami’s rotation is Eric Erickson, who played for Orleans in 2008 before missing all of last year with an injury. He’ll start Sunday.

At the plate, Florida has been led by Team USA vet Matt den Dekker and ‘09 Falmouth Commodore Josh Adams. Three 2010 Cape Leaguers have also had a big hand in the early success. Mike Zunino (Hyannis) is hitting .333, Austin Maddox (Bourne) .308 and Preston Tucker (Orleans) .292. Keep an eye on Maddox, who was rated by Baseball America as the 81st best prospect for last year’s draft. Tucker hit .364 as a freshman last year with 15 homers and 85 RBI.

Miami’s start has been powered by junior-college transfer Chris Pelaez, who leads the ACC with a .650 average. Yasmani Grandal, who played for Brewster in 2008, is hitting .363, while Harold Martinez (Brewster ‘09 & ‘10) is hitting .320 with three home runs. Freshman Stephen Perez (Chatham) is also off to a strong start, with six stolen bases in seven games.

Friday, 7 p.m.
Live Stats

Saturday, 7 p.m.
Live Stats

Sunday, 3 p.m.
Live Stats

2010 Cape Leaguers

Florida
Nick Maronde
Tyler Thompson
Alex Panteliodis
Austin Maddox
Hudson Randall
Ben McMahan
Michael Zunino
Anthony DeSclafani
Steven Rodriguez
Nolan Fontana
Brian Johnson
Greg Larson
Preston Tucker

Miami
Harold Martinez
Nathan Melendres
Stephen Perez

I was doing some Google searches, trying to figure out where Virginia’s Steven Proscia played last summer. Finally, I found out that he didn’t play anywhere. He played all of his first season in Charlottesville with a fractured wrist and sat out the summer. He missed the fall season, too.

Funny thing. I wouldn’t have guessed it.

Proscia had a fantastic freshman season, and these days, he isn’t showing much rust.

Proscia, a 6-2, 215-pound third baseman, is ticketed for Harwich this summer, and don’t be surprised if he’s a star by then. Baseball America’s Aaron Fitt tabbed Proscia as one of three candidates around the country ready for a huge breakout. So far, Proscia is delivering.

In seven games, he’s hitting .400 with two home runs and a team-best 13 RBI. He’s batting clean-up for the second-ranked Cavaliers, and on this talented and veteran team, that really says a lot.

“He’s got great power, and he’s an exciting player, ” Virginia coach Brian O’Connor told Baseball America.

Proscia was a football and baseball standout at Don Bosco Prep in New Jersey, and his football-bred toughness caught O’Connor’s attention. The Twins drafted him in the 39th round out of high school, but he stuck with his commitment to Virginia. His first year in Charlottesville marked the first time he’d focused solely on baseball.

The results were impressive. He led ACC freshman with a .333 average and had 10 home runs, 22 doubles and 58 RBI. He had six hits in Virginia’s three College World Series games.

So the stage was set. We’ll see this season if Proscia can continue to steal the show.

Danny Hultzen (Hyannis), pictured, wasn’t overwhelming on the season’s first weekend, gutting through six innings in a win over East Carolina. He allowed two runs, struck out four and walked three.

This weekend, he was overwhelming. Facing Rhode Island on Friday, Hultzen tossed seven shutout innings, striking out 12, walking none and allowing just two hits. He was named ACC Pitcher of the Week.

If Hultzen’s average falls somewhere between those first two starts, he’s going to have a very, very good season.

Eighteen 2010 Cape Leaguers will be in uniform this weekend when Oklahoma State, USC, UCLA and Vanderbilt gather in Los Angeles for the inaugural Dodgertown Classic.

The real “Dodgertown” part of the event happens Sunday when Vandy plays Oklahoma State and USC takes on UCLA at Dodger Stadium. But all weekend, we’ll have some pretty good match-ups.

In terms of arms, I don’t think it gets much better than Friday’s game between Vanderbilt and UCLA. Sonny Gray, the reigning SEC Pitcher of the Week who’s slated for Cotuit this summer, is expected to get the start against fellow sophomore star Gerrit Cole. The two were both on Cotuit’s roster but ended up as teammates on Team USA instead. Cole is not on the Cotuit roster for 2010.

In their first outings of the year, Gray struck out eight in eight shutout innings, while Cole struck out nine, didn’t walk anybody and allowed just one hit in six innings. Cole and Gray were ranked second and fourth on Baseball America’s list of the top 50 sophomore prospects in the nation.

In all the other Classic games, there is slated to be at least one ‘09 or ‘10 Cape Leaguer on the mound. Tyler Lyons (Chatham ‘09) goes for the Cowboys against USC on Friday. On Saturday, Vandy’s Taylor Hill (Chatham ‘09) gets the start against USC, while OK State’s Thomas Keeling (Chatham ‘09) pitches against UCLA standout Trevor Bauer (Y-D ‘10). In Sunday’s games, Kevin Couture (Chatham ‘07 & ‘08) is slated to pitch for USC against UCLA’s Rob Rasmussen (Orleans ‘08 & ‘09), while Jack Armstrong (Wareham ‘09 & ‘10) gets the start for Vandy against OSU’s Andrew Heaney (Falmouth ‘10).

Whew. In pitching match-ups alone, it’s like a Cape League reunion.

Friday
Vanderbilt at UCLA, 9 p.m. ET
Live Stats
Oklahoma State at USC, 9:30 p.m.
Live Stats

Saturday
Oklahoma State at UCLA, 5 p.m.
Live Stats
Vanderbilt at USC, 9:30 p.m.

Sunday
Oklahoma State vs Vanderbilt at Dodger Stadium, 1 p.m.
Live Stats
USC vs UCLA at Dodger Stadium, 5 p.m.
Live Stats

2010 Cape Leaguers

Oklahoma State
Andrew Heaney, Falmouth
Tom Belza, Chatham
Mark Ginther, Chatham

Vanderbilt
Jack Armstrong, Wareham
Riley Reynolds, Chatham
Aaron Westlake, Chatham
Sonny Gray, Cotuit
Michael Yastrzemski, Cotuit
Grayson Garvin, Bourne
Will Clinard, Orleans
Regan Flaherty, Y-D

USC
Taylor Wrenn, Orleans
Rick Oropesa, Chatham

UCLA
Beau Amaral, Chatham
Dan Klein, Chatham
Tyler Rahmatulla, Chatham
Trevor Bauer, Y-D
Cody Keefer, Y-D

Zack MacPhee wasn’t exactly a bit player for the Bourne Braves last summer. He started at shortstop in each of Bourne’s playoff games and went 1-for-3 with a run scored in the Braves’ title-clinching win.

But in the summer, and the spring before that, MacPhee was kind of easy to miss.

He hit .270 for Arizona State’s College World Series team, batting ninth just as he did for Bourne. After a late arrival because of the CWS, MacPhee hit .146 in 30 games on the Cape.

These days, while you can’t give too much credence to a series against a cold-weather team that got out-scored 44-6, it’s a little easier to notice MacPhee.

He was the star of the Sun Devils’ season-opening series with Northern Illinois, hitting .727 with seven runs scored, eight RBI and six extra-base hits. He earned Pac-10 Player of the Week honors and National Player of the Week honors from several publications.

MacPhee lined up at second base for the Sun Devils and batted second. He’s part of a big and talented group of ASU sophomores, many of whom will make their way to the Cape this summer. MacPhee is expected back in Bourne.

He’ll be an interesting player to watch. He was a 22nd round pick out of high school, but on Baseball America’s list of top college prospects by class, he wasn’t among the top 50 sophomores.

Who knows if that will change by the time summer rolls around, but one thing’s for sure: if MacPhee does anything close to what he did on the opening weekend, he won’t be so easy to miss.

Catching up on some notable performances from 2010 Cape Leaguers . . .

When Florida Gulf Coast travels to Miami tonight at 6 p.m., the Eagles will be pushing hard to get a signature victory.

Really hard.

Chris Sale, the Cape’s outstanding pitcher in 2009, will get the start for FGCU against the 10th-ranked Hurricanes, despite the fact that it’s a mid-week game. FGCU doesn’t have a conference series this weekend, so with the chance for a marquee victory, Sale is getting the ball.

FGCU is in its third year as a Division I program and is eligible for postseason play for the first time. Sale was rated by Baseball America as the nation’s fifth-best college prospect.

Miami has three 2010 Cape Leaguers: Harold Martinez, Nathan Melendres and Stephen Perez.

Naples Daily News: FGCU heads to Miami ready to take on Hurricanes on Wednesday
Live Stats

**In case you missed it, this game got postponed.

Andrew Miller
Chatham 2004 & 2005
Pitcher
North Carolina

My fascination with the Cape Cod Baseball League was sparked by two things: Twinkie Night and Andrew Miller.

The Twinkies might have held sway for a little while — they threw them into the stands! — but my interest was really cemented in the summer of 2004, when I read about a player named Andrew Miller.

I had been a Cape League fan for awhile. The prospect angle always seemed kind of cool — I liked knowing that I saw players before they were Big Leaguers — but it was nothing more than kind of cool. I liked the baseball, I liked foggy nights after sunny days, and I liked sitting on the hill at Veterans Field.

And then Miller. He brought it all together.

He was 6-foot-6, the article told me, and that was kind of a big deal. He was left-handed, also a big thing. His fastball was fast and his curveball dropped off the table. He had been a third-round pick out of high school, and he was coming to Chatham. For the first time, I was excited not just about the baseball, but about a player. A prospect.

I was not alone.

That first summer — after striking out 88 in his freshman year with the Heels — Miller generated a lot of buzz. I even remember reading about him in a Peter Gammons notes column. Miller ended up starting seven games. He went 2-0 with a 2.03 ERA and 48 strikeouts in 40 innings.

That could have been the end of the line, had Miller taken the familiar freshman star path — Cape League, huge sophomore year, then Team USA. Miller had the huge sophomore year — 104 strikeouts — but when summer rolled around, he was back in Chatham.

And he was better than ever. He went 6-0 with a 1.77 ERA and 66 strikeouts in 49 innings. He won both the top prospect and outstanding pitcher awards, a rare feat.

In addition to the impressive body of work, two particular nights stand out in my mind. On July 20, he faced off against Wareham’s Daniel Bard, his North Carolina teammate. The two would end up going 1-2 on BA’s top prospect list, and on this night, they toed the rubber for the best pitching match-up I can remember. I was there, and I have never seen so many scouts at a regular-season game. Miller ended up striking out nine, Bard six. Neither factored in the decision, but it was still a night to remember.

The other night lives only in the memory of those who were there — and in Cape League lore for the rest of us. It happened in 2004. It was a foggy night. Miller struck out the first three batters he faced. Then the next three, and the next three after that. In the fourth inning, he struck out the side again. Twelve hitters, 12 strikeouts — and the game was fogged out, never to be recorded.

It’s a shame that Miller didn’t get to continue, but in looking back, I think it’s kind of cool that it happened the way it did. A foggy night, an unhittable pitcher, no official history of it — it only adds to the legend of Andrew Miller on the Cape.

And it’s only one of the stories. John Schiffner told one to Baseball America in 2005, when Miller was named the summer player of the year: “I’m not going to say this kid’s name, but it was a righthanded hitter. He swung and missed at a slider that hit him right in the thigh. I’d seen him hit guys in the back foot on slider strikeouts last summer, but this thing was thigh-high and he swung as it hit him. He had no chance. We kept it very calm (in the dugout) because we didn’t want to show him up. But some guys had to bite their sleeve to not laugh out loud.”

The legend just kept growing, and it’s the reason Andrew Miller is the Right Field Fog Player of the Decade.

“He’s the Randy Johnson of the Cape League,” Yarmouth-Dennis manager Scott Pickler told Baseball America in 2005. “There’s a fear of facing Andrew Miller among the kids. There’s no one else like that in the league.”

And no one else like that in the decade.

After the Cape

Miller was a candidate to be the No. 1 overall pick in 2006, but he ended up dropping to the Tigers at the sixth spot, largely because of his high asking price. He made his Major League debut the same year, but he has had an up-and-down big-league career so far and has spent parts of every season in the minors. In 2007, he was traded to the Marlins in the Miguel Cabrera deal. Pitching for Florida in 2009, Miller had a 4.84 ERA with 59 strikeouts in 80 innings.

Evan Longoria
Chatham 2005
Infielder
Long Beach State

In the last four seasons, anybody who’s having a great offensive summer — especially if he’s a shortstop — is bound to draw an Evan Longoria comparison. Longoria’s 2005 season is the first one that pops into my head when I think of great offensive seasons; his name is the first that pops into my head when I think of offensive stars.

It’s not surprising that so many get compared to him. That’s what happens to great players.

The things is, no one really compares.

Sure, some guys ended up with better numbers. Grant Green — a West Coast shortstop like Longoria — comes to mind. Gordon Beckham’s 2007 season was also on par.

But for every criteria that matters when it comes to defining a Cape League star — from buzz to national attention to perception to statistics — Longoria remains a step above.

In the 2000’s, he was Cape Cod’s brightest offensive star.

Longoria came to Chatham from Long Beach State. He had started his college career at Rio Hondo Community College. After a year there, he made his way to Long Beach, where he moved to third base and played alongside star shortstop Troy Tulowitzki. I’m not sure anyone could have guessed then that, by the next spring, Longoria would be a bigger star than Tulowitzki.

Longoria’s summer on the Cape paved the way for that to happen. He had hit .320 for the Dirtbags with five home runs. On the Cape, he rocketed into another orbit.

After getting off to a 1-for-11 start, Longoria hit his stride in Chatham’s fourth game, going 2-for-4 with a homer and three RBI. The next day, he went 4-for-4, and from that point on, his name was a fixture on pretty much every leaderboard. In one six-game stretch starting on June 20, Longoria hit .440 with two home runs, five RBI and a slugging percentage of .800.

By July, it was clear that Longoria’s emergence was going to be one of the year’s biggest stories. He played three different positions for the A’s, but wherever he was, he kept hitting. For much of the summer, he was a legitimate Triple Crown candidate.

In the end, his average dipped slightly, but the numbers were still more than enough to earn him MVP honors. He hit .299 with a league-best eight home runs and 35 RBI. He also led the league in slugging percentage, finished third in hits and second in extra-base hits.

The most remarkable thing might be that Longoria was doing this in a league dominated by power pitchers. When I look back on it, I don’t think of 2005 as a year like ‘07 or ‘09, when a dearth of power arms helped set the stage for gaudy offensive numbers. Longoria was the only player in his class having a big all-around offensive summer. In a pitching-heavy all-star game, he had two of the game’s 10 hits.

Scouts took notice, of course. He was rated by Baseball America as the league’s third-best prospect, and his scouting report included this gem from Falmouth manager Jeff Trundy: “He’s a scary hitter.”

And these days, judging from how often his name still gets mentioned, I think everyone remembers just how scary he was.

After the Cape

Longoria was drafted third overall by Tampa Bay the next June. When he hit 26 homers in his first full pro season, he became one of the game’s top prospects. He was in Tampa by 2008, and he hit 27 home runs en route to A.L. Rookie of the Year honors. In 2009, he cemented his status as one of baseball’s brightest young stars, hitting .281 with 33 home runs and 113 RBI.

Tim Lincecum
Harwich 2005
Pitcher
Washington

Well you definitely know who he is.

No Cape League alum in recent years has become as big a star as Lincecum, who has won two Cy Young Awards in three Major League seasons. And I’m not sure any Cape League alum has ever become a star so quickly.

Could we have seen it coming? I don’t think anyone foresaw this much success, this soon.

But Lincecum had one heck of a summer in 2005. It flew under the radar a bit, and scouts still weren’t sure about him.

In retrospect, though — whether you let his later success color the perception or not — it was pretty amazing.

Lincecum came to Harwich in ‘05 after striking out 131 batters in 104 innings at Washington. He was one of the nation’s best pitchers, but he was somewhat of an enigma because of his stature and his small frame. He didn’t look like a power pitcher. As a draft-eligible sophomore, Lincecum had lasted until the 42nd round in June of ‘05.

In his first Cape League appearance, he came out of the bullpen and struck out all but one of the batters he faced in two innings. A few days later, he made his first start and struck out 11 in eight innings.

It looked like he was on his way to a special summer, but after making two more starts, an injury forced him to the bullpen.

It did not stop him from having that special summer. In fact, it may have enhanced it. Lincecum ended up making a total of 19 appearances. He saved seven games and finished with an ERA of 0.69, best in the league.

And that, amazingly, wasn’t the only leaderboard Lincecum found himself on. Despite logging about half the number of innings as his counterparts, Lincecum had 68 strikeouts, good for fourth in a stacked league. He reached that number in 39.1 innings. That’s a K/9 of 15.7. If he had stayed as a starter — even with the strikeout rate invariably going down — he might have gotten to 90, a number no one’s come close to in a long time.

As far as dominance goes, few Cape League pitchers have ever been better.

“He just makes guys look silly,” Harwich manager Steve Englert told Baseball America that year. “I’ve never seen kids of this caliber look this bad like they do against that breaking ball.”

Englert knew what he was talking about it; I’m not sure the rest of us quite understood. I wasn’t blogging in 2005, but I followed the league. Like many others, I was more intrigued by Miller, Longoria, Norton and Bard, the stars of a pretty special year. That’s why Lincecum isn’t No. 1 on this list. I considered him — the numbers are good enough — but that summer, the buzz wasn’t quite there yet. Baseball America ranked Lincecum as the Cape’s 18th best prospect, couching the praise for him with this: “But because he’s just 6 feet tall and has an over-the-top delivery, scouts wonder if he’ll hold up and project him as more of a reliever.”

Yeah, about that.

After the Cape

Lincecum got drafted 10th overall in 2006. He made 13 minor league starts, allowed seven runs and struck out 104. He started 2007 in Triple A then made it to San Fran, where he was pretty awesome from the start. He won the Cy Young in 2008 and again in 2009.