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 [...]
Robert Barr, a filmmaker who “grew up at Mulcahy Stadium”, has decided to chase his dream of telling the story of the Anchorage Glacier Pilots on screens big and small. And he’d like you to be a part of his project. In 2001, Barr followed the Pilots on what would become their most recent National [...]
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 [...]
Tanner Rust is a two-year Alaska Baseball League player, coming up with the Oilers in 2011 before making the move to the Bucs with GM Shawn Maltby for 2012. Rust has served primarily as a catcher in his ABL tenure but has played around the field as well. In 2011 he went to the NBC World Series with the Oilers, where he had a homer and 5 RBIs in 7 games. Check out his scouting video below:
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 [...]
There’s a lot of voodoo involved in player-watching but timing runners with a stopwatch is one of the few pursuits I’ve found which gives you hard data. That’s why I’ve had a stopwatch with me every time I’ve gone to a game from day one at this blog. 2012 was no exception and I got [...]
The 2013 Peninsula Oilers’ roster is coming together, and the team has slowly been releasing names to the local media. James Clark, the team’s GM, has been using his Oilers Corner column in the Peninsula Clarion to feed his fans players’ names and summary background, one or two guys at a time. For the quickest [...]
Swick, the infielder out of Southern California, is a guy I really like. He’s a junior headed into the 2013 MLB Draft and I am very confident he’ll get drafted. He had four tools that I thought were above the curve. He made solid contact for average, showed some pop in his bat, and he could run and throw well. Perfect Game ranked him #17 on their 2012 Alaska top prospects list and for good reason.
Jake Alvarez came up to Alaska with the Oilers in 2012 and struggled a bit at the plate before going home with an injury. While his stat sheet up here isn’t pretty, I think he’s a player to keep an eye on for two reasons. First, because he’s signed to come back up with the Oilers in 2013, so for those of you fans who didn’t pick him up on your radar last year…
Swick, the infielder out of Southern California, is a guy I really like. He’s a junior headed into the 2013 MLB Draft and I am very confident he’ll get drafted. He had four tools that I thought were above the curve. He made solid contact for average, showed some pop in his bat, and he could run and throw well. Perfect Game ranked him #17 on their 2012 Alaska top prospects list and for good reason.
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Jake Alvarez came up to Alaska with the Oilers in 2012 and struggled a bit at the plate before going home with an injury. While his stat sheet up here isn’t pretty, I think he’s a player to keep an eye on for two reasons. First, because he’s signed to come back up with the Oilers in 2013, so for those of you fans who didn’t pick him up on your radar last year…
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I really wanted to highlight Cullen’s speed in this video, because I think that he has excellent footspeed which might have gone unnoticed by folks who just look at the SB column of the stat sheet. I split and counted the frames in this video to get as accurate time to 1B as my video camera’s framerate would allow (it agreed with my stopwatch, just so you know).
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The Arizona Diamondbacks said hello to one former Anchorage player and goodbye to another earlier this month. The club signed former Bucs backstop Tuffy Gosewisch and lost left-handed pitcher Mike Zagurski — once a Glacier Pilot — to free agency. Gosewisch spent the bulk of his pro career, up until 2012, in the Phillies’ farm [...]
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Former Mat-Su Miner Kyle Jensen (2008) is entering a pivotal off-season in his minor league career, and has been given a chance to prove himself in the highly-touted Arizona Fall League. So far, he’s made the best of that opportunity and has established himself as the league’s stand-out hitter through the first few weeks. Jensen [...]
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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 [...]
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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.
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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 [...]
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The September MLB call-ups have reached a pair of former Anchorage Glacier Pilots: Dane De la Rosa (2002) and Chase D’arnaud (2006). Both players have MLB experience, having been called up in 2011. 29-year-old De la Rosa was originally drafted by the Yankees, in the 24th round in 2002 out of Riverside Community College, and [...]
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Former Anchorage Bucs Chris Gimenez (2002) and Tyson Ross (2006) have both been recalled from AAA in the first batch of September call-ups to the big leagues. Both players are getting a look at the Major League level after solid minor-league seasons in 2012. Gimenez, a farmhand in the Tampa Bay system after stints with [...]
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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 [...]
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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!
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In a way that seems very appropriate for a player (in)famous for his nonchalant approach to the game, J.D. Drew has apparently retired from playing professional baseball. The 36-year-old right fielder — a member of the 1995 Peninsula Oilers of the Alaska Baseball League — quietly finished out his contract with the Red Sox, walked [...]
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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.
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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 [...]
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