Try, try, try

These are trying times for the Frontier League. That's trying as in tryouts. The Wild Things held their annual open tryout Saturday, though they did not offer a contract to anyone. The league's tryout camp starts today and concludes Tuesday afternoon with a player draft. Each team is required to draft and sign a minimum of two players.

New Wild Things manager Darin Everson has been busy during the offseason filling his roster and doesn't have a pressing need to draft more than two players. Washington already has more players on its roster than Everson said a month ago that he wanted to bring to camp.

So what does Everson look for in a player? The manager said he wants to see a position player with a track record of high on-base spercentages, and pitchers with low walk rates and a low opponents' batting percentages. There also was one intangible that Everson was looking for.

"I was going to sign the best hard-nosed players who have the fire and desire to allow themselves and opportunity to get back to affiliated ball," he said.

One thing Everson did not sign was a third Veteran to fill an open roster spot. A Veteran is any players with three pro seasons of at least 150 at-bats, or for pitchers it's 60 innings or 30 games. Each FL team is permitted three Veterans and Washington has signed only two (Chris Sidick and Jacob Dempsey).

"I wasn't going to sign a Vet just to fill a roster spot," Everson said. "All Vets and L2s have to be big-game performers, and I wasn't going to sign a Vet with a .230 career batting average or ERA of 5.00 just to fill the spot."

Everson also said that it doesn't matter how much pro experience a player has, he still will have to perform well during spring training, which begins Thursday.

"My goal for spring training is ... every job is open," Everson said. "Within that competition is to have two or three guys batting for a position. We've been able to sign guys to create that competition in spring training. We have a lot of good rookie talent."

While the best position battles are likely to be at pitcher, catcher and first base, there seems to be a void at shortstop. Everson said he might have another shortstop signed this week.