Fastest Guns in the ABL

Six of the quickest catchers of the 2010 ABL at a glance

As someone who's just kind of dabbling into the scouting world, one thing I really liked to take to the park with me this season was the stopwatch. A lot of other scouting info can only be gained only through experience and judgment, and while I think my talents in those areas are developing, there's nothing like empirical evidence. And one area in which I managed to gather data was catchers' moves from home to second base.

This can be accurately defined as a "glove to glove" time; that is, from the time the pitch hits the catcher's mitt until the ball hits the glove of whoever is covering the bag. Therefor it includes not only the strength of the catcher's arm but the quickness of his hands.

Below I've included all the catchers who've shown what I consider to be above average moves to second in 2010. And since we're prospecting here, I'm going to by MLB standards. Obviously this is significantly higher than college standards, so the handful of guys listed below are exceptional in this category. Sometimes a catcher will also make a "lazy" throw down to second, or maybe they juggle the ball a bit, so I've thrown out any obvious statistical outliers and averaged what was left.

But first, I'd like to make a few caveats. First off, these are all based on a small sample size so there may be a significant margin of error. Second, just because a guy didn't make this list below doesn't necessarily mean that his arm sucks. There could be plenty of other reasons why so-and-so didn't make the cut, up to and including the fact that I never got a time for some catchers in the league. so with that out of the way, here's the data:

Goldpanners to play abbreviated 2011 season

Panners will be "adjunct member" in 2011; make full return in 2012

Sightings such as this may be more rare in 2011
as the Goldpanners will play an emergency-
shortened schedule.

Faced with overwhelming costs imposed by the loss of the team's "Olympic Village" housing complex and debt racked up from running without access to the public water utility, the Goldpanners of Fairbanks have decided to scale back their ABL league schedule and shake things up for the 2011 season, according to this press release on the team's website.

Assuming a role that team GM Don Dennis calls "adjunct membership", the Goldpanners will sharply curtail their Alaska Baseball League schedule. Their games against ABL opponents will mostly occur during the first half of the season, starting on June 8th. While the team should should face all the other teams of the ABL, their schedule will include fewer road matches against the teams of southcentral Alaska.

In order to keep costs down and keep the Goldpanners tradition alive and exciting for their fans and players, the team will be shaking things up for the remainder of the summer. They will be looking at attending at least one tournament outside of the state that will get their players a little closer to home before disbanding, perhaps the international Kamloops tournament.

"There will still be plenty of excitement. It is basically the last three weeks of the AK season that will be lost," says assistant GM Todd Dennis,"although we will likely be competing in the Kamloops International Tournament in the first week of July (a tournament Fairbanks has won more than any other team)."

Scouting Video: Andy Mee

RF/RHP Andy Mee
2010 Mat-Su Miners
Height: 6'0" - Weight: 190lb
Bats: Right - Throws: Right
2010 Level: DI Junior
2010 School: Florida Atlantic
Draft Eligibility: 2011 (DI Senior)
Previous Draft: N/A
Posts regarding Andy Mee

Book Review: Dirk Hayhurst, The Bullpen Gospels

Dirk Hayhurst's book will open your eyes to a baseball world few ever see.

They say a writer should read more than he writes; maybe that explains why I'm such a hack. I read at glacially slow speed, which I guess is fitting for an Alaskan. Most of the instances in which I pick up a book it takes me days, if not weeks, to get the 100-page mark. But every once in a while I find a real page-turner, a masterpiece of literature that I can't put down. A book that I burn through in two or three days and wish desperately that there was more, that maybe if I went back through the pages I could find a chapter that I'd skipped and it would give me one more afternoon of reading pleasure. The Bullpen Gospels by Dirk Hayhurst was one of those books for me.

While the autobiography doesn't have anything to do with the Alaska Baseball League specifically, it does have a lot to do with the type of players we see busting their humps on the fields of Alaska each and every summer, many -- if not most -- of them chasing a dream of extending their baseball careers and being paid to do so. There is an assumption among many of us fans, and perhaps a few guys on the other side of the fence, that the world of professional baseball is all glamor. Big paychecks, limos and leer jets, fame and fortune, all that jazz. There is definitely some of that in pro ball, for the A-Rods of the world anyway, but that's just the tip of the iceberg.

And then there's the minor leagues.

9/25/10 Odds & Ends

All the random bits for the past week or so.

PG agreed with the league and picked Piscotty
to be the #1 prospect of 2010.

Hey guys. What a week it's been; we had three articles posted right off the bat and then I got bogged down in that dang Goldpanners draft eligible list (which I posted last night). But I had time to jot down some quick odds & ends for the week, and there's some decent ones here this time, so check out these little pieces of news from around the ABL world:

- 2007 AIA Fire OF Kirk Nieuwenhuis, now one of the top prospects in the New York Mets' farm system, is apparently joining the contingent of ABL players in the Arizona Fall League. According to Adam Rubin of ESPN.com's Mets blog, Nieuwenhuis was headed to the Dominican winter league before some roster shuffles deposited him in Arizona.

- It seems like the last season just barely ended, but the teams are out there recruiting like crazy. According to Miners GM Pete Christopher's statement on the team website, they've recruited about 80% of a team for next year. One of those players appears to be UMass Lowell standout Cam Kneeland, who made appearances in both the Cape and New England collegiate league last summer.

2011 Draft Eligibles: Goldpanners of Fairbanks

Cabral, Meaux and Newman lead a class of likely Goldpanner draft picks.

Ryan Cabral could be a nice pick-up for a pro team
in the 2011 MLB draft.

The Goldpanners have an interesting list of draft eligible players this year. I think that 2010 was a stronger year in the top-prospect department than 2009; however, most of the more recent season's big name Goldpanners seem to be juniors. The result is a lot of players who will probably get drafted in 2011, and definitely beyond, but it's difficult for me to find an upper tier of players who I can predict will be drafted in, say, the first ten rounds or so in the upcoming spring. Regardless, I'll go out on a limb and suggest a few possibilities:

Ryan Cabral: Cabral is one guy who not only stood out to me, but as a senior won't be pushed down to the middle of the pack due to a lack of signability. Cabral moved from the pen to the starting rotation when he came up to Alaska and really took advantage of his lively fastball with pro-caliber velocity to pick apart the ABL's batters. He went 5-0 with a 2.47 ERA overall, and was the Panners' workhorse as he pitched consistently well over a team-best 54.2 IP. His efforts landed him a first-team All-ABL selection.

Jesse Meaux: Meaux was selected by the Philadelphia Phillies in the 44th round as a junior last year. Obviously he made what should turn out to be a smart choice and went back to school instead of signing, as I imagine that re-entering the draft as a senior will only increase his draft stock. The rightie Meaux is a bit of a soft thrower, but he's got great control and does a good job of locating his pitches. His hard work paid off this last spring as he moved from the mid-week starter job into the weekend mix.

Legend of the Last Frontier: Bill "Spaceman" Lee

In the mid 60's, the Goldpanners launched a personality into orbit that still hasn't landed.

Photo courtesy of Goldpanners.com

I won't dance around the issue here. Bill Lee is quite possibly my favorite baseball player of all time, and was so before I even knew that he was a Goldpanner. You might have got a hint of that since I'm always keeping tabs on him in the Odds & Ends section, but anyway, I'm not entirely sure why that is. Maybe it's because he's in his 60's and he's still making appearances on mounds (amateur and pro) from Fairbanks, Alaska to Santiago de Cuba. Maybe it's because he took the eephus pitch, made it even more ridiculous than it already was, and named it the "Leephus". Maybe it's because he smoked copious amounts of dope and didn't care what anyone thought about it. He's just one of those guys that's so larger-than-life, you either love him or you hate him.

Of course, that's not to say that he wasn't (or should I say, isn't) a good pitcher. With a career 3.62 ERA and 119 wins to 90 losses at the major league level, he definitely wasn't bad. With the Goldpanners in '66 he posted a 1.35 ERA with 58 strikeouts in 60.1 IP, mostly in relief; in '67 he 7-4 with a 2.25 ERA and 83K's in 84 innings as a starter. But he was known as much for his free spirit as for his success on the mound.

Lee didn't have very good velocity on his fastball, so instead of trying to throw hard, he tried to throw really slow. That's where the "Leephus" comes in. For those of you who don't know, the Eephus pitch (or, in this case, the Leephus) is essentially the change-up from hell. The pitch was invented by Rip Sewell back in the 40's, is typically thrown about 50 miles per hour and is basically just lobbed up to the plate with a nice "rainbow" throw. This pitch was surprisingly successful, but it cost Lee and the Red Sox the 1975 World Series when he gave up a two-run homer off the pitch in game seven.