Dispersing the talent

The Frontier League held its dispersal draft for the Oakland County Cruisers on Monday. The Wild Things, who had the fourth pick, made two selections, selecting a pair of pitchers, right-hander Tyler Wulf (pictured) and lefty Joe Rodriguez.

The Wild Things are only renting Wulf for the 2011 season. His rights will revert back to the Cruisers if they return to the league as planned in 2012. Rodriguez does not have to be returned to the Cruisers.

I like the pick of Wulf, a barrel-chested and hard-throwing reliever who played in college at The U (Miami of Florida). Wulf was the Hurricanes' setup man as a junior before having a season-ending injury. He was brought back slowly last year, pitching in 18 games and posting a 1.72 ERA with 19 strikeouts in 15 2/3 innings.

Wulf joined the Cruisers at midseason and went 1-1 with one save and a 2.66 ERA. He pitched in three games against the Wild Things and overpowered them, throwing seven scoreless innings with six strikeouts and only three hits allowed. The league batted a measly .195 against Wulf.

Rodriguez was used as both a starter and reliever. He had a 1-3 record and 5.15 ERA. He was 0-2 in two starts against the Wild Things, giving up 11 runs in 10 innings.

The most interesting development from the dispersal draft was that right-handed reliever P.J. Zocchi, who led the league in saves last year with 26 and was named Relief Pitcher of the Year, was not selected until the final pick of the second round by the Southern Illinois Miners.

The next order of business for the Wild Things is to pick up the contract options for players from the 2010 team who they want to bring back next year. The deadline for tendering a contract is this week.

TRIVIA: If Wulf joins the Wild Things in 2011, then he will become the second former Miami Hurriance to play for Washington. Can you name the first?

Kings' future in limbo?

Will the Kalamazoo Kings be back in the Frontier League in 2011?

The league's schedule says yes. The Kings are scheduled to play their season opener May 21 at home against the Traverse City Beach Bums.

There are, however, some people in Kalamazoo who are skeptical about the Kings' future, among them the sports staff at the Kalamazoo Gazette. In a recent story, the Gazette mentioned that questions about the Kings' future have not been answered definitively — despite numerous calls from the newspaper to management and staff, most of whom have declined to comment or failed to respond to messages.

So why doesn't a member of the Gazette drive across town to the Kings' office and get his questions answered? Seems they've already done that. The problem is the Kings' office at Mayors’ Riverfront Park has been locked for the majority of the offseason, with a sign on the door instructing visitors to contact office staff via phone, e-mail or mail.

They might get back to you, if you're lucky.

A person in the office located next to the Kings' office told the Gazette, "One person will pop in every now and then to check mail. Pretty much, just shortly after the end of the (2010) season, nobody is in that building daily.”

The Kings did participate (briefly) Monday in the dispersal draft of the Oakland County Cruisers. Kalamazoo had the first pick in the draft and traded it to defending league champion River City for shortstop Jorge Gutierrez (.222) and pitcher Tony Marsala (10-8, 4.20). The Kings then passed on their remaining picks.

Read the story here.

Wild Things open 2011 season on road

The Frontier League will have one new team in 2011 while a travel-weary franchise takes a season off to (hopefully) have a home stadium built.

The FL announced Monday that its 19th season will begin Thursday, May 19 with two games in the Chicago suburbs, including one contest involving the Wild Things. Washington will open its season at Joliet (Ill). The yet-to-be-named team is the newest franchise in the Frontier League and will play at 6,5000-seat Silver Cross Field. Joliet had a franchise in the now-defunct Northern League and that team's asests were recently purchased by an ownership group that joined the Frontier League.

“Counting our playoff games, we set a record last season with over 1.52 million fans watching Frontier League baseball,” commissioner Bill Lee said. “With our adding a strong baseball market in Joliet, we are looking at another tremendous year.”

The other May 19 game is Lake Erie at Windy City. The other eight teams will play their season openers May 20.

The East Division will consist of Washington, Lake Erie, Windy City, Joliet, Traverse City and Kalamazoo. The West Division remains the same with defending league champion River City, Gateway, Evansville, Southern Illinois, Normal and Florence.

The Oakland County Cruisers – who with the exception of hosting a few games in Michigan the last two years have played as a travel team – will not field a squad in 2011. The league asked the Cruisers to sit out the season while finalizing construction on their new Diamond at the Summit ballpark in Waterford Township, Mich. The Cruisers will return to Frontier League play for the 2012 season.

According to the Cruisers' website, there will be a dispersal draft in which other Frontier League clubs will be able to select players from the Cruisers' roster. Oakland County will be able to retain league rights to 13 of its players for the 2012 season.

“Frontier League owners and the commissioner’s office have worked very closely with (Cruisers president) Rob Hilliard and executive vice president Tim Birtsas to bring about a solution that enables us to immediately add a great Chicago-area market like Joliet and to provide the best possible scenario for the Cruisers to break into the metro-Detroit region,” Lee said.

Added Hilliard: “While we were fully prepared to play the initial part of our 2011 season in an area college facility and the latter part of our schedule in a semi-completed stadium, the ideal situation is to unveil a brand new state-of-the-art venue with our organization being able to hire the right people and to give them a full season to properly market the Cruisers."

The Cruisers will begin the bid process in the coming weeks so that construction can begin as soon after the New Year as possible.

The league will not announce the complete schedule until Tuesday, so the date for the Wild Things' home opener is not known as of this writing.

Lake Erie will host the 2011 Frontier League All-Star Game on July 13, and the regular season concludes on Sunday, Sept. 4 with games in Gateway, Kalamazoo, Normal, Southern Illinois, Traverse City, and Windy City.