We’ve got about a month to go until big-time baseball finally arrives in Alaska. The teams should be getting close to having their rosters set up, and several of them have published their stable of players on the web for all to see. So I’m going to go ahead and kick off the 2013 previews [...]

By my count, there were four players with Alaska Baseball League experience who made their Major League debut during the 2012 season. Kirk Nieuwenhuis, a 2007 AIA Fire player and a guy that’s been on the prospect radar for a while, earned a spot in the Mets’ lineup out of spring training in 2012. He [...]

The Chugiak-Eagle River Chinooks have dug down deep to the DIII level in their recruiting for 2013, and have produced a potential gem in a Hendrix College junior outfielder known as Collin Radack. The 6’4″, 205-pounder has risen to prominence over the past few years and, consequently, has punched his ticket to Alaska. In the hierarchy of [...]

Today I’d like to share a video I’ve put a lot of time into, featuring a Chinooks pitcher out of Westmont College: Ryan Sullivan. I chose Sullivan to be my “guinea pig” for rolling out a new pitcher scouting video format I’ve been working on for about three years now, so let me know what you think! Anyway, as you can hopefully see from this video, Sullivan works with a fastball and a good curve. He has good control of both pitches.

As I write this, the 2012 MLB playoffs are moments away from opening, with Atlanta hosting St. Louis for the National League Wildcard one-game playoff match-up. With no margin for error Kris Medlen — the former Goldpanner who has become Atlanta’s unexpected ace in the second half of the season — will get the ball [...]

It’s kind of a weird feeling, not having a bunch of unwritten game-notes looming over my head, so I’ve got to address the elephant in the room and update the Pro Alumni Database while there’s still some pro ball to be played. This is one of those bigger projects that become very time consuming, so [...]

While most of the baseball prospect blogs churn out their Top Prospect rankings in the spring, I am bucking the trend and doing it in the fall. Why? Pretty simple: I spend most of my spring and summer preparing for and covering the ABL season and this stuff simply falls to the wayside. But that’s [...]

With the 2012 Alaska League season in the rear view mirror, and the MLB playoff races building momentum, I’m doing some catching up on the professional players with ABL stints in their backgrounds. In order to do that, I have to update my list of who the guys are who are still out there in [...]

Considering I’d only seen the Goldpanners twice prior to this game, and hadn’t seen them at all in their “semi-ABL” 2011 season, it seemed like a fitting end to the 2012 season to see them one more time. That being said, I have to confess that I was a little anxious to bring this one [...]

It was a beautiful afternoon in Chugiak: sun, 70 degrees and a ball game in which the home town Chinooks hosted the league-champion Pilots. Thats right, I said champion! For those of you who are as ignorant as I was about the ABL rules, the league tiebreaker goes to the winner of the season series. [...]

Upon conclusion of the 2012 Alaska Baseball League All-Star Game, the players selected to the All-League teams and the recipients of the league awards — including Player of the Year and Top Prospect — were announced. The complete list of winners is listed below. Players were selected by a vote of team personnel. 2012 League [...]

The North squad, dressed in gold, secured victory over the blue South in the 2012 Alaska Baseball League All-Star Game. The match-up concluded with a final score of 6-4. The Pilots’ Tyler Spoon broke the ice for the South, putting them on the board by hitting a single, stealing second and third, then taking home [...]

For the nine-millionth time this season, I saw the Oilers face off against the Chinooks. Obviously I am enjoying the fact that the Chinooks offer free general admission to their ball games this season, and it just so happens that the Oilers seem to be in town every time it is convenient for me to [...]

People on the Kenai Peninsula know a thing or two about catching fish. The Chinooks almost managed to swim away with the big win in this one, but the Oilers were able to capitalize on some key lapses in the Chugiak defensive game and reel in victory in come from behind fashion, in the bottom [...]

Since I started writing this blog, I had not been to an Oilers home game in Kenai. Naturally I was pretty stoked to finally be down on the peninsula and checking out their ballpark for the first time. This was the first game of two that I saw while I was down in the area. [...]