Category: 2010 Spotlight

Around this time last year, the Wareham Gatemen had just found a spot for Alex Dickerson. He was initially a non-roster invitee, but roster changes eventually allowed Dickerson to get a permanent spot.

Bringing Dickerson on board was a good move then. He burst onto the scene in his first year at Indiana and was on his way to being named Big 10 Freshman of the Year. The Gatemen were thrilled to lock him up, even if he only hit .224 over the summer.

Now, it’s looking like a great move.

The sophomore outfielder has become one of the top hitters in the country this season and should contend for Big 10 Player of the Year honors. He’s hitting .414 with 22 home runs, 18 doubles and 69 RBI. He leads the Big 10 in the Triple Crown categories. He ranks fourth nationally in home runs, is tied for 14th in RBI and checks in at 44 in batting average. Only a handful of players are up that high in all three.

Pretty amazing for a guy who grew up in San Diego but drew little interest from big-time California programs.

Now they all wish they had him. Just like the rest of the Cape League teams.

Nick Martini had a pretty good freshman season at Kansas State, hitting .336 with 19 stolen bases.

The way he tells it, it could have been better.

“I didn’t know my strengths,” Martini told the Wichita Eagle. “On certain pitches I’d swing and get jammed. I knew I could hit better. This year I only swing at pitches I can hit.”

Apparently, he can hit a lot of pitches.

Martini (Falmouth ’10) currently leads the Big 12 in hitting with a .424 batting average. His on-base percentage is .511 and he has struck out just 16 times in 184 at-bats. He has 13 doubles, four triples, two home runs and 18 stolen bases. He set a new school record with a 26-game hitting streak.

Safe to say his sophomore season is everything he could have hoped for.

Martini wasn’t drafted out of high school, but he had some big offers coming out of the Chicago area. He chose Kansas State and earned immediate playing time as a freshman. Over the summer, he played in the MINK League and was named the league’s third-best prospect by Baseball America.

The way his sophomore year is going, this summer could be even better. Falmouth has had the last three Cape League batting champs. Martini looks like a prime candidate to make it four.

LSU has hit some rough patches as it defends its 2009 national championship, especially lately. The Tigers have dropped nine of their last 11 games and they fell out of the latest Baseball American Top 25.

But there’s one Tiger who hasn’t hit any rough patches. After showing flashes of brilliance as a freshman, outfielder Mikie Mahtook (Harwich ’10) has sustained the brilliance this year and has become one of the top sophomores in the country. He’s hitting .344 with 12 home runs, 18 doubles and 44 RBI. He’s also 22 of 29 on stolen bases.

Those numbers are reminiscent of the junior campaign teammate Jared Mitchell had last year. Mitchell went on to become a first-round pick. And Mahtook is putting his huge season together a year early.

Mahtook was drafted in the 39th round out of high school and started making his mark at LSU a month into his freshman season. His move into the starting lineup was one of the changes that helped LSU catch fire on its way to Omaha. Mahtook earned SEC Tournament MVP honors and ended up hitting .316 with seven homers. In Omaha, Mahtook had the game-winning hit in game one of the championship series with Texas.

Over the summer, Mahtook went to the Prospect League and came home with top prospect honors from Baseball America, despite playing only six games in the league. The scouting report calls him a player “with true five-tool potential.”

Mahtook is already starting to live up to the potential. He’s been invited to Team USA, but hopefully we’ll see his continued progression happen on the Cape.

I decided to spotlight these two together because they’ve got a few similarities. They’re the both the sons of former Major Leaguers (Steve Buechele and Kevin Seitzer), they currently man the corners for Oklahoma and they’re slated to do the same thing for Hyannis this summer.

Also, they’re having fantastic sophomore seasons. Buechele is playing third for the Sooners and hitting .380 with 10 home runs, 11 doubles and a team-best 47 RBI. Across the diamond, Seitzer is hitting .333 with 10 homers, 13 doubles and 38 RBI, which ranks him second on the team. They’re two of the biggest reasons why Oklahoma is 33-12 and in the mix to host a regional.

It’s no surprise they’re breaking out.

After a redshirt year in 2008, Buechele burst onto the scene last season and earned Big 12 Freshman of the Year honors. He hit .353 with four homers, 14 doubles and 40 RBI. This season, he’s got some of the best all-around offensive numbers in the league. Since he’s been at Oklahoma three years, he will be eligible for the draft this June, but there’s still a chance we’ll see him on the Cape.

Seitzer was a true freshman last year and he didn’t have quite as much success as his teammate, hitting .307 with four home runs. With a full-time job this year, though, Seitzer has shined. Standing 6’5 with lots of room to add muscle, Seitzer could emerge as one of the top first base prospects in the 2011 draft.

When you add in the bloodlines and the experiences that come with growing up in a big league clubhouse, there’s a lot to like with Buechele and Seitzer. Hyannis will be happy to have them.

The USC baseball program is struggling. There’s no way around it. The Trojans went 28-28 last year. This year, they’re below .500 at 17-23.

But there’s also no way around this: Ricky Oropesa is not struggling.

A lefty swinger with as much raw power as any sophomore in the country, Oropesa (Chatham ’10) is delivering the production to match his tools this spring. He’s started every game for the Trojans and he’s hitting .342 with 11 home runs, 16 doubles and 40 RBI. He leads the Trojans in all those categories. He leads the Pac 10 in home runs, ranks second in doubles and is third in RBI.

Oropesa was a 24th-round pick out of high school but didn’t sign. His freshman year, he hit .314 with 13 homers. I liked him as a potential freshman star on the Cape last year, but he arrived late to Chatham, only played in 15 games and hit just .171.

He’s poised for a lot more on his return trip to Chatham. He still has some work to do, but based on potential alone, he’ll be a player to watch. If he has a big summer, he could emerge as one of the top prospects in the league.

Austin Maddox (Bourne ’10) was one of the top high-school catching prospects in the nation last year, but he slipped all the way to the 37th round. That was largely because of signability, but there may have been some questions too. Maddox has power and arm strength that rate near the top of the scouting scale, but some wondered if he could stay at catcher. He’d been playing varsity baseball since sixth grade, but the competition had never been very good.

A lot of buts.

This year, not so many.

Maddox is at Florida now and he has become perhaps the top freshman hitter in the country. Thirty-nine games into the season, he’s batting .349 with 12 home runs, 13 doubles and 45 RBI. He leads the Gators in all those categories. Just a year after the ink dried on the freshman records set by teammate Preston Tucker, Maddox is threatening to rewrite them.

He started fast this season, hitting a home run in his first at-bat. He probably didn’t need a dose of confidence, but he got it.

Maddox hasn’t cooled down. In an early-April series with Kentucky, he homered in each of the three games. He currently ranks fifth in the SEC in home runs and he’s in the top 10 in slugging, hits, RBI, doubles and total bases.

There may yet be questions. Maddox has drawn four walks all year and he hasn’t played much at catcher, instead splitting time between DH, first base and third base. But it’s clear that the bat will play. Maddox has a stranglehold on the cleanup spot for the Gators, and he might find himself there again this summer in Bourne.

If his first Cape League season is anything like his first college season, we’re in for a treat.

Trevor Bauer was not the most heralded freshman on the UCLA pitching staff last year. But through the season, it became clear that there was only one reason for that: Gerrit Cole had a lot of hype.

It certainly wasn’t because Bauer’s abilities were lacking.

The 6’1 righty went 9-3 with a 2.99 ERA and was a consensus Freshman All-American. The Collegiate Baseball Newspaper named him the National Freshman Pitcher of the Year, over Cole. He ended up pitching with Team USA over the summer; he was originally headed for Yarmouth-Dennis.

This summer, Bauer is again on the Y-D roster. If he makes it to the Cape, he’ll likely be arriving as one of the league’s top two or three pitchers.

So far this spring, Bauer has teamed with Cole and Cape League alum Rob Rasmussen to give UCLA one of the most impressive weekend rotations in the country. Bauer is 3-0 with a 2.38 ERA. In 22.2 innings, he has struck out 38 and walked only six. Opponents are hitting .165 against him.

His most recent start may have been his best. Pitching against traditional SEC heavyweight Mississippi State on Saturday, Bauer struck out a career-high 15 and allowed two runs on just three hits in eight innings of work. He earned the victory, which moved UCLA to 12-0.

Bauer is doing all of this a year ahead of his classmates. He skipped his senior year of high school to enroll early at UCLA. Baseball-wise, it was a good move. Baseball Beginnings, in a bit of hyperbole, dubs him Tim Lincecum Jr.

Here’s hoping we get to see him on the Cape this summer.