Posts belonging to Category Daniel “Dee” Clark

This week preliminary rosters for the Arizona Fall League were announced.  The AFL is a prestigious league for what are typically regarded as the surest bets in the Minor Leagues.  While there are some exceptions, in general the rosters for the AFL are comprised of the top prospects in the game.  Exceptions include those pitchers and hitters receiving September call-ups and obviously those players making playoff rosters as well as pitchers who have approached appearance caps, innings caps, or other forms of usage limitations.  Even without these players the rosters can be pretty damn impressive.  Look no further than the Scottsdale Scorpions’ outfield for proof.  It will feature the game’s top two prospects in Mike Trout and Bryce Harper.  Whitney also happens to live a few blocks from their home yard, so I am absolutely ecstatic about the Scorps.  What has me even more thrilled, however, about the Scottsdale roster is a lefty reliever named Will Latimer, a Four Corners baseball product hailing from Bayfield, CO.

Bayfield is a tiny community located immediately east of Durango and well within the gorgeous San Juan Range, which is famous for ski areas like Telluride, Purgatory, and Silverton.  In recent years Bayfield has become a community where Durango’s workforce establishes residence to flee outlandish real estate costs in the Durango city limits.  Will Latimer was raised in this community and ultimately graduated from Bayfield High in 2004.  Latimer played his club baseball in the Farmington Connie Mack league but was never a standout talent until college.  Latimer signed at Trinidad State (CO), which currently rosters former Strike Zone Cardinal Austin Rochford.  While at Trinidad, Latimer saw his fastball begin to pick up pace and his slider begin to bite harder.  He was selected by Boston in the 22^nd round of the 2007 draft and, after missing much of 2008 and 2009 due to injury, is on the right track at the age of 25, reaching as high as Double-A this season.  With a healthy ERA in the low 3’s and more than 3 K’s per BB, his stats certainly justify his AFL invitation.  A quality showing for Scottsdale could land Latimer in the high minors to begin 2012, and with a three-pitch mix featuring a low-90’s fastball and a lanky 6-foot-3 build; the former BHS Wolverine has a very realistic shot at the Show.

In other Four Corners baseball news, former Piedra Vista Panther and current UNM Lobo Jake McCasland has received an invitation to the Cape Cod Baseball League.  If you are a regular guest at The Sombrero, I assume you know what that means.  For those of you who aren’t, The Cape is the premier amateur baseball league worldwide.  Rosters are comprised of nothing but elite collegiate players fighting to climb draft boards.  Jake is the first product of Farmington baseball to crack a Cape roster, and the community is absolutely ecstatic about his invitation.  Jake is arguably the finest local product the town has ever produced, and, after a freshman season at UNM in which he started 15 games, Jake is ready to step back into the weekend rotation in Albuquerque as the Lobos look to build on their 2011 Mountain West title.  Congratulations!

Recently I wrote an article expressing my preference for club events as opposed to showcase-style events.  My comparisons centered on the Connie Mack World Series and Area Code Games, which take place simultaneously most summers and immediately precede Aflac weekend, which is now a Perfect Game event.  My preference for club ball stemmed from my belief that real games with substance and meaning beyond simply recruitment, scholarship dollars, and the draft is not only better for fans and players, but also actually leads to more effective and accurate player evaluation.  I personally find this to be beyond debate.  However, club baseball is certainly not devoid of flaws, and in some ways may be reflective of an accelerating problem within amateur baseball.

Like many large baseball events, the CMWS houses its visiting players with host families.  This both provides players a convenient way of getting from place to place and being attended to so that their focus can be on the game during their stay as well as a way of saving money.  Nearly all baseball families with the means to host players join in actively in the process especially those households with young children.  As a child my family housed players for the CMWS.  We typically housed players from the West region since during my childhood New Mexico was a member of that region of AABC.

Since then New Mexico has been moved to the South Plains region.  My recollection of what the teams from the West region represented displays club baseball in the 90’s as essentially a collection of players of similar skill level who primarily played events within a 500-mile radius of where the squads were based.  This in no way limited what the talent levels of the teams constituted, but simply reflected the quality of play within their region.  Understandably our hosting of the West players typically meant that we hosted players from southern California, the finest recruiting area in the U.S.A. for the last 50 years.  Nevertheless, these players, when asked by a pre-pubescent version of me how they got so good, simply replied nearly unanimously, “We play great players every single night.”  They didn’t participate in big tournament prior to the West regional or have 40 uniform combinations.  They went to the yard and played.  That’s it.  It was that simple to them.  When asked where they did this, they told me, “In our summer Connie Mack league.”  I was stunned.

In Farmington there are at most four competitive U18 teams annually – typically two.  Over half of the teams in the local Connie Mack league are capable of providing no real challenge to anyone who even came close to starting for a high school varsity.  However, the structure of the league every season is one in which each team must play each other team at least once.  It is possible that, given the schedule and the unfortunate and incorrect illusion that playing at Ricketts during the months of June and July is somehow of more value than simply playing comparably talented and skilled players as many times and at as many venues as possible, the best two teams in the league will not play each other a single time.  What’s more is that the top U16 teams are often not permitted to play any of the top U18 squads.  It is possible that a team like the Strike Zone Cardinals or Naataanii, good club teams with quality showings at various nationally renown tournaments, might go the entire month of June without playing even a single meaningful game in Farmington.  So obviously it is difficult to comprehend playing great players night in and night out, as is the case in leagues like the Lone Star league in Dallas, the East Cobb league in Atlanta, and the South Coast league in southern California.  Farmington baseball is not unique in this regard, but it may be the least capable of solving the problem due to the requirements in place that must be fulfilled to earn the hosting rights of the CMWS.

To somehow ensure that the premier talent in town is challenged as often as possible, teams play in numerous tournaments nationwide throughout the fall and summer from around the ages of 12 through age 18.  Obviously these events require money for travel, hotels, tournament entry fees, and food, and obviously not all of the players who ability-wise should be on the top team are rostered by these squads.  This has far-reaching implications for players of pre-high school age since it stunts their development relative to their peers.  Because the level of play in local leagues has become so stratified, a product of the players with the means to travel doing so in effort to find competitive games, many youth nationwide have found little joy in the game since they get manhandled nightly by those teams who travel.  These players who either lack the means to travel or are simply not among the best in town as young children are weeded out early, and the quality of the local leagues is perpetually downgraded as a result.

The threat to the game as a whole is found in the fact that the earlier and earlier that players are weeded out, the smaller and smaller the pool of players becomes such that many potentially talented players are removed prior to adolescence.  Who among us is the same guy now that we were when we were 10?  It should be blatantly obvious that this poses massive potential problems and is far from exclusive to Farmington, although in all cases the effect is felt more the smaller the population.  The danger of high profile club baseball events is that it belongs only to the players, teams, families, and programs that can afford it.  This group is certainly not inclusive of all players whose ability justifies inclusion in this group.  The beauty of Area Code is that it belongs to everyone who has shown a scout that they deserve to be there theoretically based solely on ability.  But what happens if a player was weeded out before he could show a scout that he deserves the exposure because he couldn’t pay to play as a pre-pubescent child?

Providing players with club opportunities and access to events like the CMWS and World Wood Bats is a service to the players and to the game as a whole, but efforts must be made to ensure that players who lack the funds to take part in travel baseball prior to school ball age is reached are not lost to the game before sponsors can take over, which usually happens at the ages of 16-18.

On Twitter this morning, Oakland pitcher and former CMWS (2005 and 2006) and Area Code Games (2004) participant, Brett Anderson, asked ESPN’s Keith Law if he’d ever been to Farmington in August for the Connie Mack World Series.  Law said that he had not due to the simultaneous annual scheduling of the CMWS and Area Code Games.  This is an issue for top underclassmen each summer whose club organizations happen to still be alive after Connie Mack state and regional play concludes.  Fortunately for both events only 10 teams can make it to Farmington each year, and only two are there the entire week, so often players find little conflict in terms of attending both events if only for a portion of each.  For instance, in 2009 Farmington’s own Jake McCasland was the scheduled starter in the opening round of the CMWS as well as a participant in the tourney’s homerun derby.  He obviously was obligated and thrilled to participate in the CMWS as long as his club had not been eliminated.

Once, however, they were knocked out, Jake boarded a plane to California to pitch at Area Code.  This is common for players with invitations to Area Code who do not wish to abandon their club and/or miss the annual CMWS festivities.  Additionally, players who elect to play for organizations like the Midland Redskins, South Troy Dodgers, Florida Legends, East Cobb Yankees, Arizona Firebirds, or Strike Zone Cardinals do so understanding that the clubs’ expectations are to play into the middle of August ever single season.  While these clubs are without question among the finest in the country, playing for them can mean less time to spend on the ever-developing national showcase circuit.

Showcases are designed to present recruitable players to recruiters, be it professional scouts or collegiate coaches.  A great deal of what amateur club coaches and financiers as well as prep coaches are trying to accomplish is “helping kids reach the next level.”  It is next to impossible to walk into any indoor facility or read any amateur club’s website “about us” page without hearing something about the “next level” and how their club is second to none with regards to helping kids reach whatever that is.  And those are the good guys.  The bad guys are the people suggesting to kids that playing club baseball is no longer necessary or beneficial.

That is how we arrived at the national showcase circuit, a circuit that Bryce Harper made famous during his amateur ascension.  Players in this circuit have allegiance to no one and have practically no concept of what “team” constitutes.  They immediately hit the road following the end of the school season in pursuit of BP rounds and 60-yard dashes.  The showcase circuit is a joke to fans of baseball because it effectively strips the game of any intrinsic meaning or value in favor of dollars and exposure.

The CMWS is somewhat of a throwback relative to the national showcase circuit in that it actually fields teams of players who have spent a minimum of a couple of months together, and in some cases years to a decade together.  This in many ways is analogous to school ball except for that the talent level tends to be considerably higher.  The thought of a school team succeeding in an event like the CMWS is laughable, but the idea that “team” matters is certainly a reflection of the school baseball concept.  This isn’t to discredit players who outside of school baseball have no means of exposure during the non-spring months other than showcases.  This is common in rural areas, inner cities, and areas like Wyoming and Iowa where club baseball options are limited or nonexistent because the school season takes place during the summer months.  Brandon Nimmo is a product of that sort of environment, and he landed in the first round and now has a chance to really learn what team baseball means within the professional ranks.

The Area Code Games have much more in common with a basic showcase than they do with something like the CMWS.  Teams are assembled in glorified random fashion based loosely on geography.  Yes, the talent level is through the roof.  A great deal of the top NCAA recruits as well as the early portion of any draft will have experience in Area Code, but the same can be said for many events including the CMWS.  The PG All-American game (formerly Aflac) is held the Sunday after Area Codes and the CMWS and has many players from both rostered.  It’s always sort of an end-of-the-summer shindig bringing together the best players from the CMWS and Area Codes into one facility for a handful of high profile innings.  Aside from a select few Midland and 18U Team USA rosters, the PG/Aflac rosters are the best assembled annually.  This year is no different, but once again, there is zero team concept involved and the sample size tends to be so small and meaningless that talent evaluators have less to go by than what they would find at an event like the CMWS where players actually give a shit what the score is.

The difference between events like Area Code and the CMWS as well as the PG/Aflac All-American Game is that the fans in the CMWS root for the players, but they also root for the teams.  At events like Area Codes and other showcase-style recruiting events, the name on the front of any player’s jersey is of little concern to anyone either on the field or in the stands, and the score on the scoreboard is worth far less than each player’s box score line.  Perhaps the perfect example is Strike Zone Cardinal Damion Lovato’s final at-bat in the CMWS, which took place in the 8^th inning Monday night against the South Troy Dodgers.   Damion hit a triple after breaking his hamate bone on a foul ball earlier in the game.  Something tells me that any player at Area Codes would have probably sat the at-bat out, but the Cards needed him to contribute, and so he gave his team the best he had.  I, as a baseball fan, greatly prefer the Connie Mack World Series and selfless performances like Lovato’s to any showcase-style event like the Area Code Games.

This year’s Cardinals took the field Friday night following a day of pictures, opening ceremonies, and a parade.  The first Friday of the CMWS is a grind, and unprepared teams who happen to draw a Friday evening game always get trounced for not managing the day properly.  The host team has no excuse for this since they know exactly what to expect and rarely plays poorly on Friday night when they draw that game.  This Friday Dominic Moreno will take the ball, and he is no stranger to either the CMWS or opening ceremonies prior to a big start.  The annual Knothole Day event includes the last regular season meeting between rivals Farmington High and Piedra Vista High as well as the FABC opening ceremonies for the 12 and under age groups.

For the FHS and PV players, that typically means standing in line and high-fiving each of several hundred players as they run across the diamond at Ricketts.  It can take over an hour and has a way of delaying the game a couple of hours.  Moreno threw the Knothole Game in 2011 and won, so he’s dealt with distractions before and succeeded in doing so.  Dominic has had a stellar career here in Farmington, and, if Friday night is his last start at Ricketts, he will be remembered fondly.  Moreno was also a member of the 2010 Cards and started their 4^th round game against the Arizona Firebirds.  While he took the loss that night, he threw well enough to keep the game tight and flashed the quality stuff that ultimately led to his signing at Howard College in Big Spring, TX, one of the finest JUCO programs in the United States.

Moreno was not the only standout pitcher on the Cards CMWS roster, a staff that will go down as the finest a host team has ever produced.  Led by pitching coach and manager Griffin Phelps, the Cards’ Series staff also included Jake McCasland who was drafted by the Giants in the 38^th round and later offered second round money, which Jake turned down to attend UNM where he collected 15 starts as a true freshman.  The staff also included Eli Freese who signed at UNM out of FHS before transferring to NMJC where he threw 53 innings before injury ended his season.  Tim Bailey also attended UNM in 2011 and tossed 53.2 innings following a terrific relief appearance against the Firebirds after Dominic left the game.  Freese and Bailey both posted ERA’s in the 4.50 realm and both were considered weekend starters.  Adrian Houser, a regional pickup, won a state title in Oklahoma in 2011 after signing at the University of Oklahoma.  That commitment never materialized, however, as Houser was drafted by the Astros in the 2^nd round of June’s draft and signed a week or so later.  Houser currently has a 4.33 ERA in 6 professional starts and has a very bright future in front of him.  Joining the Cards out of the 2010 South Plains regional was Philip Wilson, who had a nice relief outing against DBAT in the third round.  Wilson is back for the 2011 Series and is projected to start the Cards 2^nd game.  Philip is signed at Oral Roberts and, with three effective pitches and quality command of all three, should be one of the better freshmen arms in the Big XII.  The Cardinals staff also had a strong lefty presence in 2010 with Robbie Ingram from Flagstaff, AZ.  Ingram started against DBAT and had a solid outing in a game the Cards eventually lost in large part due to not producing enough offense against Archie Bradley (7^th overall to the DBacks), a common problem nationwide.  Ingram pitched for Yavapai College in 2011 and was drafted in the 45^th round by the Pirates in June.  Starting catcher and 2-way standout and starting catcher, Andrew Castillo, did not step onto the CMWS mound, but he certainly was a huge reason they were there in the first place.  Castillo spent 2010 with Eastern Arizona, but was injured early on after a hot start as a 2-way guy.  Rounding out the staff were Castillo’s teammate at Eastern Arizona Jesus Carlos, Durango’s Austin Rochford (Trinidad State), and Shiprock’s Bryce Rockwell, the first Shiprock player to ever appear on a CMWS roster.

It’s not so much that this staff had more upside than other staffs individually.  For instance, the 2002 Sky Sox had Danny Ray Herrera who has reached the Big Leagues.  The 2003 host team, the Farmington Virus, featured Mike Dunn who is currently setting up for the Marlins.  Josh Karp (Bandits, 2008) was a first-rounder and tossed a shutout against East Cobb for Christ’s sake.  It was that the Cardinal staff had remarkable depth.  The Cards had 6 guys who had reached 90 mph, 4 guys who were 6’4” or taller, quality secondary offerings, good command, multiple draft picks and D1 signees, and past success against good opponents.  Their staff was very capable of getting the best hitters in the United States out consistently.  The CMWS is won and lost largely on the mound, and 2011’s Cardinals pitchers have big shoes to fill.  It’s a blessing to have players like Moreno and Wilson to hand the ball to at the beginning of the game who know what the CMWS stage is like, and we at the Sombrero are psyched to see how they do their second time around.

As far as tools go, it is blatantly obvious why Albert Almora is regarded so highly as a prospect.  Everything he does is fluid and athletic.  His arm was only tested once, but he fired a rocket to third on a liner headed into the right-center gap.  He got a terrific jump on a deep drive straight back that he was able to reach effortlessly and in stride at the track for the out.  His bat appeared very average Friday night, however, against South Troy’s Dave Roseboom, who is here for the second time as he was a member of the Dodgers as a rising junior in 2009 as well.  Roseboom never allowed Almora to square up a pitch as he was 86-89 mph with excellent fade, a plus change, and a useable curveball, all with outstanding command.  Roseboom will join the Spartans of South Caroline-Upstate in the fall and demonstrated far more polish than is typically seen from a starter here at the CMWS.

David Thompson had more success against the southpaw, but has several noticeable flaws at the plate and in the field.  Thompson lands heavily and leaks a lot against his front side.  As a result his swing is all arms against secondary stuff or even fastballs with moderate fade.  He does not take a direct path to contact and has a tendency to hit around pitches from underneath pitches.  He hit the ball hard a couple of times, but never hit anything to the forehand side of the 3B as a result of his arcing bat track.  In the field he had the softest 3B arm of the night with a low slot and poor carry.  His hands and feet are fine there, but his slot will have to come up some to stay at third professionally.  Nevertheless, only one hitter Friday night showed more bat speed than Thompson, and it was Farmington’s own Shilo McCall.  McCall displayed a plus arm during pregame infield and plus range on a ball into the left-center gap that he snagged on a sprint over the shoulder near the track.  He showed the ability to drive the ball both ways at the plate as well.

The Cards’ Dillon Bibo went deep the other way to give them the lead and also beat out an infield single in his first AB.  Mike Bernal showed the feet, glove, and arm necessary to stay on the left side of the infield.  Joe Cervantes crushed a ball the other way against a same-side arm for extra bases and showed an arm capable of staying at third.  Dominic Moreno’s fastball flashed 90 mph a couple of times, but worked mostly in the 86-88 mph range with quality command to the bottom of the zone with arm-side life and sink.  His secondary stuff was not as accurate as it can be, but he never really needed it to be more against Puerto Rico.  More impressive performances are sure to come as Ricketts is scheduled for three games on Saturday.