Hot stove: East Division
With opening day in the Frontier League less than four months away, I thought it was time to get up to date on what has been happening during the offseason. Let's start with the East Division:
CHILLICOTHE:
- Mark Mason will return as manager.
- Paints officials have said much of last year's team will return, including all-star shortstop Travis Garica (.307, 19 HR, 70 RBI) and first baseman Jon Poterson (.231), a former first-round draft pick of the New York Yankees. Improving the offense is a must. The Paints were held to 2 runs or less 26 times last year, a number exceeded by only Slippery Rock and Evansville.
- Two key pitchers, Perry Cunningham (11-5, 3.98) and Eric Teall (2-5, 3.22, 16 saves), have opted to retire. Cunningham is second to the Wild Things' Aaron Ledbetter in career wins (37) and has started more games (78) than any pitcher in Frontier league history.
- For Waynesburg University pitcher Landon Sinclair (0-0, 6-75) has re-signed.
-
FLORENCE:
- Jamie Keefe returns as manager.
- Florence has changed its logo and uniform colors. The new colors are black and red (remind you of another East Division team?).
- Former Florence manager and Pirates outfielder Mike Easler was named Monday as the hitting coach for the Los Angeles Dodgers. That makes Easler the second person to go from Consol Engery Park to the majors, the first being San Diego relief pitcher Joe Thatcher (River City).
- Freedom general manager Kari Rumfield is the wife of River City manager Toby Rumfield (conflict of interest?).
KALAMAZOO:
- Fran Riordan is back as manager.
- Former Washington & Jefferson College pitcher Sam Mann (6-2, 3.65) has already re-signed.
- Third baseman Joe Ramos (.302, 34 2Bs, 32 SBs) has re-signed.
- Conventional wisdom suggests that marketing is the priority in the offseason after the Kings average attendance last year was only 1,169.
MIDWEST:
- The Frontier League's traveling road show has not hired a manager. Would you want to spend you entire summer packing up and riding on a bus every three days? Among those rumored to be the Sliders' manager is Jeff Pohl, who held the same job in Evansville last year and was the Otters' pitching coach for several years.
TRAVERSE CITY:
- Former Wild Things shortstop Jon Cahill will return as manager.
- The Beach Bums have replaced the grass surface at Wuerfel Park with an artificial field. Traverse City, Chillicothe and Southern Illinois now have fake grass.
- I like two of the offseason roster moves by the Beach Bums. Outfielder Jake Whitesides was brought in. He was one of the league's top hitters in 2003 with Mid-Missouri and spent the last four years in various independent leagues. Shortstop Tim Hutting played 111 games at Double-A in the Giants' system and hit .281 in the independent Northern League last year.
WASHINGTON:
- John Massarelli is out as manager and replaced by Greg Jelks (Slippery Rock and Evansville).
- The Wild Things have three first-round picks in the league draft. I believe they are picks No. 4 (from Florence for J.D. Foust), No. 7 (from Southern Illinois for Roy Irle and their own pick, which is No. 10.
- Washington traded outfielder Jarod Rine and left-handed pitchers Tom Cochran and Justin Mattison to Worcester of the independent Can-Am League. There was an interesting quote in the Worcester Telegram from Tornadoes general manager R.C. Reuteman about Cochran. He said the lefty was "probably the best pitcher in the Frontier League last season."
Maybe this was simply P.R. talk, or Reuteman was given a bad scouting report, or he was confused about which pitcher he was getting in the trade, but talk about the FL's best pitcher last year consisted of only Ledbetter and Rockford's Tanner Watson.
Friday: West Division.
CHILLICOTHE:
- Mark Mason will return as manager.
- Paints officials have said much of last year's team will return, including all-star shortstop Travis Garica (.307, 19 HR, 70 RBI) and first baseman Jon Poterson (.231), a former first-round draft pick of the New York Yankees. Improving the offense is a must. The Paints were held to 2 runs or less 26 times last year, a number exceeded by only Slippery Rock and Evansville.
- Two key pitchers, Perry Cunningham (11-5, 3.98) and Eric Teall (2-5, 3.22, 16 saves), have opted to retire. Cunningham is second to the Wild Things' Aaron Ledbetter in career wins (37) and has started more games (78) than any pitcher in Frontier league history.
- For Waynesburg University pitcher Landon Sinclair (0-0, 6-75) has re-signed.
-
FLORENCE:
- Jamie Keefe returns as manager.
- Florence has changed its logo and uniform colors. The new colors are black and red (remind you of another East Division team?).
- Former Florence manager and Pirates outfielder Mike Easler was named Monday as the hitting coach for the Los Angeles Dodgers. That makes Easler the second person to go from Consol Engery Park to the majors, the first being San Diego relief pitcher Joe Thatcher (River City).
- Freedom general manager Kari Rumfield is the wife of River City manager Toby Rumfield (conflict of interest?).
KALAMAZOO:
- Fran Riordan is back as manager.
- Former Washington & Jefferson College pitcher Sam Mann (6-2, 3.65) has already re-signed.
- Third baseman Joe Ramos (.302, 34 2Bs, 32 SBs) has re-signed.
- Conventional wisdom suggests that marketing is the priority in the offseason after the Kings average attendance last year was only 1,169.
MIDWEST:
- The Frontier League's traveling road show has not hired a manager. Would you want to spend you entire summer packing up and riding on a bus every three days? Among those rumored to be the Sliders' manager is Jeff Pohl, who held the same job in Evansville last year and was the Otters' pitching coach for several years.
TRAVERSE CITY:
- Former Wild Things shortstop Jon Cahill will return as manager.
- The Beach Bums have replaced the grass surface at Wuerfel Park with an artificial field. Traverse City, Chillicothe and Southern Illinois now have fake grass.
- I like two of the offseason roster moves by the Beach Bums. Outfielder Jake Whitesides was brought in. He was one of the league's top hitters in 2003 with Mid-Missouri and spent the last four years in various independent leagues. Shortstop Tim Hutting played 111 games at Double-A in the Giants' system and hit .281 in the independent Northern League last year.
WASHINGTON:
- John Massarelli is out as manager and replaced by Greg Jelks (Slippery Rock and Evansville).
- The Wild Things have three first-round picks in the league draft. I believe they are picks No. 4 (from Florence for J.D. Foust), No. 7 (from Southern Illinois for Roy Irle and their own pick, which is No. 10.
- Washington traded outfielder Jarod Rine and left-handed pitchers Tom Cochran and Justin Mattison to Worcester of the independent Can-Am League. There was an interesting quote in the Worcester Telegram from Tornadoes general manager R.C. Reuteman about Cochran. He said the lefty was "probably the best pitcher in the Frontier League last season."
Maybe this was simply P.R. talk, or Reuteman was given a bad scouting report, or he was confused about which pitcher he was getting in the trade, but talk about the FL's best pitcher last year consisted of only Ledbetter and Rockford's Tanner Watson.
Friday: West Division.
posted by Chris Dugan at
11:06 AM
5 Comments:
Very nice recap.
This was very timely as not a whole lot of info is available.
To me, it seems things are moving slower this year than other years in the Frontier League.
As a sidebar, I got a call from the Wild Things trying to sell tickets. Maybe the end of the year "fiasco" is coming home to roost.
your negative comments about the wildthings never cease to amaze me - to bad the paper doesn't replace you as the "official" wildthings reporter - according to your comment on the 3 players traded - do you really think the coach would make a comment about cochran being the best pitcher in the frontier league if he did not mean it? -- the average person in washington would not even know to follow the trade or even care much less make negative comments about an article in a paper 500 miles away - are you really that nasty?? did those 2007 players get under your skin so much that you just can't let it go?? that they could have cared less about you and your pushy attitude - they were there to play ball for the fans not you - good luck with the 2008 team i hope the new players and coaching staff will be warned about you ahead of time
For the record, Tom Cochran was 0-7 in his last 13 starts last season. That doesn't sound like the best pitcher in the league to me. Tom was a good pitcher, but not the best in the league. That was either Aaron Ledbetter or Tanner Watson. That's not just opinion, that's fact. And, yes, coaches say many things they do not mean or believe. It's called spin. It's also called P.R. Happens every day.
CD,
When are you going to realize that the Wildy Guys own this town? You cant write facts unless they are POSITIVE facts in your newspaper. Otherwise, you would hurt someone's feelings. When the Wild Guys lose their first game next year, make sure you mention that although they lost, they tried just as hard as the winning team, they have a really cool mascot, and they have really cheap tickets. Blah, blah, blah. Come pay to watch us play, just dont tell everyone about the dropped fly balls and the baserunning mistakes! We play for the love of the game, darn it! Baseball with an attitude (a bad one).
"...Tornadoes general manager R.C. Reuteman about Cochran. He said the lefty was 'probably the best pitcher in the Frontier League last season.'
And Jim Tracy was 'probably the best manager in the NL'...
Baseball still has a substance problem.
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