Tanner Mendonca caught my eye late in the season. I filmed this video in late July last year and I was very impressed with what I saw. As you can see, Mendonca has a good repertoire of pitches. His four-seamer reaches a respectable 90-92 mph and he has a gnarly curveball in his arsenal…

The Alaska Goldpanners of Fairbanks made a Facebook announcement yesterday that three 2012 players have agreed to return for the 2013 season. Pitchers Drew Mitrisin and Jake Ham will join outfielder and designated hitter Casey Munoz in a return trip to Alaska. Mitrisin, the 6’1″, 175-pound left-hander out of William Jewell College had a promising [...]

Former Goldpanner Brooks Conrad, a minor-league free-agent this offseason, has come to terms with the big-league Tigers. The Hanshin Tigers of Japan’s big league, Nippon Pro Baseball, that is. Conrad had a “AAAA” season with the Brewers and Rays last year, shuttling back and forth between the majors and AAA. His most notable season came [...]

Bryan Harris will have some big expectations to live up to as skipper of the 2013 Goldpanners, who are saying goodbye to Jim Dietz after sixteen seasons at the helm. According to the press release on Goldpanners.com, Dietz retired at the end of the 2012 season with 585 career wins to his credit. Although best [...]

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 [...]

Mike Ekstrom gets a nastygram from MLB, Weaver is awesome (except when he’s not), Snodgress is pounding away in the Carolina League, and people want to see the Midnight Sun Game. Check out the links to all of these blog posts in the latest blogosphere extravaganza!

Blake Miller came up with the Goldpanners in 2012 and took the league by storm. Upon completion of the season, the Western Oregon junior logged a .365 batting average — good for second best in the ABL, second only to Clint Freeman. Breaking down the video below, his swing looks a little long to me, but he keeps his hands back and stays down on the ball well.

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 [...]

The Saturday portion of the Scout’s Showcase was supposed to feature all six teams, in three games, in one ballpark in one day. I went to this event in 2010 and loved it. Unfortunately, the weather had other things in store. Two games were cancelled outright. What I did see was a portion of a [...]

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 [...]

Finally out from under the pile of game notes I’d buried myself in, I reckon its time to crank out some more player profiles while we have some season left and people are still in the baseball mood. Having given Bucs, Pilots and Chinooks players the spotlight this season I’ll keep things rolling with a Goldpanner next: shortstop Blake Miller.