Cutdown day
On roster cutdown days in the NFL, teams use someone from their personnel department to go into the locker room and ask players to report to the head coach or general manager. This messenger is called the "Turk."Well, the "Turk" arrived at Consol Energy Park Monday and there were a few surprised people.
As expected, the Wild Things placed pitcher Justin Edwards on the disabled list while he works his way back from offseason shoulder surgery. Let go were pitcher Blake Hennington and outfielders Joel Hartman and Jeremy Richter. Catcher Greyson Schram was put on the suspended list, which means former California University catcher Stephen Hermann had his chances of making the roster for opening day greatly increase.
The biggest surprise was that pitcher Zach Groh, pictured, was released. Groh had spent three seasons in Washington, and had good results in a five-inning outing during a spring training game Friday against Lake Erie. Groh said afterward that it was only the second time during camp that he had faced hitters.
Groh's release was even more surprising when you consider Washington is two under the limit for players classified as "Experienced" by the Frontier League's roster rules. Only three of the Wild Things' pitchers are classified as "Experienced."
Monday's moves leave Washington with 27 active players. They must get down to 24 before Thursday's season opener. However, being two under the "Experienced" limit makes me think there will be a new player or two arriving before the team leaves Wednesday for Joliet, Ill.
Labels: Blake Hennington, California University, Greyson Schram, Jeremy Richter, Joel Hartman, Steohen Herrmann, Zach Groh
posted by Chris Dugan at
4:24 PM
10 Comments:
With the Wild Things, instead of the messenger called the Turk, the messenger should be called the TURF!
I'd be crazy to sign my name!!
You sure would be crazy. Look at the ass chewing Ron Wilson just took.
Wow, some shocking cuts, Groh being the biggest. Any word on why the catcher (just read his name and can't remember it; not a good sign for him I suppose) was suspended?
Here is a novel idea: Anyone is more than welcomed to contact the Washington County Tourism office, local political officials, CONSOL or the Wild Things front office. Any of them would be happy to answer any of your questions and concerns about the turf or funds for the turf. They have e-mail addresses, telephone numbers, Facebook pages, Twitter accounts and actual physical buildings a person can visit with real people inside of them. I really do not understand why Chris Dugan bears the burden of everyone's displeasure with this team or why his baseball blog has to be ruined by it. This is actually an excellent baseball blog. I read several and "Wild About Things" is as good as any. It's a shame "fans" can't appreciate that.
-YY
In the spirit, I hope, of the last comment (with which I agree), as an out-of-towner who follows the Wild Things but has attended only about a dozen games a season for the last two seasons, I was hoping that Chris or some of the fans who have attended the exhibition game, spoken to the players or even reviewed the player histories would provide their observations. We'll have new middle infielders. Who are they? How do they look? Who are the promising bats? Other than pitching (which Chris has commented on), what are the holes in the line up? The strengths? I expect that Chris will provide his usual preseason descriptions/predictions of the competition (which are very helpful), but it would be great if other participants would weigh in. For fans who can't be there, this makes interesting, fun reading.
From my own point of view, one of the team's major weaknesses last year was lack of veterans. It would seem to me that professional and especially affiliated ball experience should be a key to success in this league. My assumption is that Wild Things management probably agrees with this fairly obvious proposition. Hopefully, on that score, bringing Ernie Banks back will be an overall plus, although I agree that it's too early to tell. But the larger question for me is why the team seems to have trouble attracting veterans. Presumably there are other guys like Grant Psomas out there who would like to play a season or two in Washington. But maybe it's hard to attract such players. Others, who know more about this than I do, might have insight into this.
I see now that Ron Wilson has left that there is almost nothing to read here.
Natural Crab Grass
So, write something that people interested in Wild Things Baseball would want to read. It's really a pretty simple concept.
How do you all think the change in playing surface will affect the level of play at the stadium? Theoretically, there shouldn't be any poor hops now, correct? So we should be able to see what players (both home and away) are able to do in the field naturally.
This is a very interesting question. Although there certainly should be fewer bad hops, in my experience (admittedly limited) the surface is not perfect. On some turf fields, the ball will tend to skid (not come up), on others, the black particles (recycled tires, I'm told) under the green fibers can gather in clumps causing classic bad hops.
But, as I understand it, the big issue with turf is "speed," which varies depending on how the surface is built. According to Wild Things players with whom I spoke, the field at Traverse City (where I have seen three games) is so slow that (1) it is significantly more difficult to hit a ball through the infield and (2) some rollers that would be double play balls elsewhere are not double play balls in T.C. On the other hand, I'm told that these fields can be built so that they are very fast.
Does anyone have a view of where the new surface at CSE falls on the "speed" continuum based on seeing the exhibition game? Has anyone talked to any of the players about this? My guess is that this will become evident within the first few weeks. If the field is slow, we'll see fewer ground balls go through the 4-hole and 6-hole but see Chris Sidick beat out a few additional infield grounders that would have been close outs on a slick surface. Chris, any view on this?
There is nothing new in the last couple of comments. I remember the same things being brought up not too long ago and nobody seemed to care. How want's to hear anything about turf, shit
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