Cleaning out the Inbox

    It's been quite a while since I cleaned the inbox and surprisingly it's not nearly as full as usual although the recent passings are starting to pile up a bit. 

I seem to find these a lot for the inbox but yet another rare colored lobster has been caught, this one in Maine.

The "Cotton Candy" Blue Lobster doesn't look much more remarkable than the average blue lobster (which is a rarity itself) but the picture of "Haddie" doesn't do it justice as she is reported to have every color BUT blue in her shell and under lights has an oyster shell color to the shell.

Haddie was shipped to the Seacoast Science Center in Rye, New Hampshire to live out her remaining days.

It may not have the same resonance as Jim Croce's "Time in a Bottle", but  "Trash Can across the Atlantic" showed just how the Gulf Stream can work as it carried a beach trash can with the stickers from the city of Myrtle Beach South Carolina to Ireland on a trip that carried it over 3.500 miles from Myrtle Beach.

No idea how long the voyage took for the waste receptacle but when it arrived in Ireland, it did have barnacles on some of its surface.

ESPN writes a terrific article on the fiftieth anniversary of the 1971 Nebraska-Oklahoma "Game of the Century with comments from figures from both sides including Nebraska's 1972 Heisman winner Johnny Rodgers and Oklahoma star Greg Pruitt with coaches from both teams as well.

When the college football community celebrated its 150th anniversary two years, the game was voted the greatest game ever with the 1971 Cornhuskers earning the title of the best team ever and the 1971 Sooners winning the vote for the greatest team with one loss.

The Hustle tells the story of the University of Florida and just why they receive twenty million dollars a year from Gatorade.

The inventor of the sports drink, Dr.Robert Cade, discusses why there was the need to invent such a beverage, the business arrangement behind the scenes, why the University gets paid, and why they could have been making two to three times the amount each year had they been a bit more forward-thinking.

The Pepsi Co. which now is in charge of Gatorade has attempted to change the face of the product with changes to the logo that uses a "G" rather than the traditional Gatorade logo but despite efforts to change or eliminate an agreement with the Gatorade trust, Pepsi is still paying those rights fees every year.

We wrap up with the Hagerstown Herald-Mail writes of the future Atlantic League team coming to Hagerstown for 2023 asking the city to have Municipal Stadium remain available for the 2023 season in the event of the new downtown stadium not being completed for the opening season.

The "Supply Line Disruption" has the owners and the Atlantic League concerned that they may have some issues in being able to procure the needed materials on time to have the stadium ready for business.

Municipal Stadium was scheduled for demolition in 2022 in order to prepare for a sports complex that has been a pet project of city councilman Kristen (yes, that's his name) Aleshire for years even when the Hagerstown Suns were attempting to finance a new stadium, so the council would have to approve keeping Municipal standing for another year in case it would be needed.

This of course has made the councilman unhappy but Atlantic League rules do require teams to have an alternate place to play when a new stadium is built to house a new team in case of potential construction issues.

I'm not sure how many times each season that I'll be visiting the new park but I'd definitely go to a game or two played at Municipal even if only to say the goodbye that the pandemic didn't allow me to say in 2020.

2015 Hagerstown Suns Review-The Pitchers

We finish our series on the 2015 Hagerstown Suns with a look at the pitchers.
The cutoff line is six games pitched.
If a player appeared in less than that number,I didn't offer an opinion on such a small sample.

There certainly were no Lucas Giolitos or Reynaldo Lopezes on the 2015 Suns,but there were a few interesting arms,especially a few that arrived in the waning days of the campaign.

The standout of the early season was Austen Willams,who composed a tiny ERA of 2.10 in 13 starts before a promotion to Potomac.
Willams doesn't throw gas as some do in the organization,but he has nice command (30 walks in 135 innings in two stops) and with his size (6'3) and ability to keep the ball down (allowed just 4 homers),I would say that Williams is a prospect to keep tabs on.
Williams should start next season in AA Harrisburg.

The other pitchers that are worth discussing as interesting all came into Hagerstown later in  the season.
I really liked what I saw in two hard throwers out of the 2015 draft.
Andrew Lee was downright dominant in 29 innings that saw him start and relieve.
Hitters hit just .171 against him his ERA and WHIP (2.15 and 0.92) were microscopic and his number that impressed me most-34 strikeouts in 29 innings.
I've said before that when I evaluate pitching numbers in the SAL,the ratio of strikeouts to innings pitched is my top stat.
If you aren't striking batters out here with the hitters not being as disciplined in the strike zone,the odds are that the number will not excessively improve at higher levels.
On the contrary,a high number (anything above 1 is considered strong) shows a arm that has the potential to play as the competition increases.
Another interesting note on Lee,who was drafted out of Morristown Tennessee as a high school product-Lee is listed as 21 and will turn 22 in December..
Either someone made an error or Lee was one old high school senior!
Lee should start at High A Potomac and should be given the chance as a full time starter.

Editor's Note:I was told by a reader that Lee spent time in Knoxville as a Tennesse Volunteer,which wasn't listed on his page.
Things make so much more sense now!!

Koda Glover  is another 2015 draftee with a power arm that sits in the mid to upper 90's.
The Oklahoma State Cowboy had the same WHIP as Lee and in 24 innings struck out 27 while walking just one.
Glover is a simple pitcher matching pitch speed vs bat speed and in his last game against Kannapolis,Glover might have been close to 100 MPH as he fanned all three batters on 11 pitches and allowed just one foul ball.
Glover has the stuff and attitude to be a closer and is likely to start as the Potomac closer in 2016.

2014 first rounder Erick Fedde finished his first pro season in Hagerstown (six starts) with an ERA that was deceivingly high (4.34) due to a six earned run filled first start,but even that considered,Fedde was a mild disappointment to me.
Hitters hit  just .224 against Fedde and his WHIP was strong at 1.10,but he struck out just 23 in 29 innings,his stuff didn't seem overwhelming and looked to me to be a polished college pitcher that overwhelmed the less experienced SAL hitters.
I still think Fedde is a prospect as the UNLV product was in his first year of post-Tommy John surgery,but I wasn't as impressed as I thought I'd be.
Fedde could start back with the Suns,but is more likely to be in Potomac....

None of the four pitchers that threw the highest number of innings truly stood out.
Luis Reyes struggled most of the season,but spent the season as a 20 year old in Hagerstown.
Reyes numbers were nothing special and he suffered an injury in his last start,so his future is clouded at best.

6'6 Connor Bach struck out 106 in 110 innings and hitters hit just .238 against him.
However,his control was spotty,WHIP was high and his ERA was just under four.
Combine that with being a little old for the level,Bach will need a strong 2016 in Potomac for prospect status.

Drew Van Orden's numbers look passable enough,but the former fifth rounder from Duke doesn't miss many bats (47 k's in 92 innings) and was old for the level (23).
Van Orden might project best as a long reliever.

Lanky Venezuelan Mario Sanchez spent the season in Hagerstown at 20 with a high ERA and stats that were not worth noting except for one-18 walks in 90 innings.
I'd return Sanchez to Hagerstown and hope for better results..

As for the rest
Phillips Valdez was excellent as a Sun including one memorable night at the Muni,where he threw seven innings of no-hit baseball,but his numbers fell after a Potomac promotion.
Valdez will start next season at 24,so 2016 is a make or break season.

Jefry Rodriguez started the season with high expectations as the brightest prospect of the pitchers.
Instead,Rodriguez posted an ERA over six,almost walked as many as he struck out and spent more time in short season Auburn than Hagerstown.
Still just 22,Rodriguez's time might be running out.

Jake Walsh didn't allow a run in 17 innings,but will start 2016 at 25.
If he is assigned to AA Harrisburg,the organization is giving him a chance.Any lower and they consider him roster filler....

Justin Amlung put up pedestrian numbers after being signed after the Cubs released him.
Amlung was 25 and didn't dominate,I'd be mildly surprised to see him next season.

Former top prospect Matt Purke started eight games in Hagerstown as part of an attempted comeback.
Purke used guile and smarts to outclass the SAL,but clearly lacked the toolbox that he once had.
That caught up to him when he was hammered at AA Harrisburg.
Purke looks to be finished as a prospect.

Two years ago,former third rounder Brett Mooneyham looked to be on the verge of being high on the Nationals prospect list.
After 19 brutal innings and a drop from a higher level,Mooneyham was released.
The end was pretty sad and fall from grace was quick as Mooneyham clearly either had lost his confidence or perhaps was injured as he was not even close to the pitcher that pitched in Hagerstown in 2013.

Robert Orlan was old for the level (25 in two weeks),but his 68 strikeouts in 55 innings jumps off the page to me and makes him worth noting.
Orlan might have a chance as a situational reliever,if he could post similar numbers at higher levels.

Soft tossing Ryan Brinley posted nice numbers in 11 games in August,but struck out just six batters and I'd bet he gets exposed at higher levels.

Kevin Perez was excellent with the Suns,but bombed in Potomac after being signed by Washington after the Royals released him.,
Hitters hit just .205 against Perez and he's still just 22,but he'll need to put it together soon.

Three pitchers appear headed for organizational soldier status after a second year in Hagerstown.
Andrew Cooper,David Napoli and Sam Johns all were undistinguished,although Cooper had the best numbers of the bunch and is the youngest (23).
None are of prospect status and other than maybe Cooper will be lucky to be around for 2016.

Deion Williams struggled with control and will be fortunate to be back next season.
Williams turns 23 before next season,so he's likely to get one more chance,but it will be his final one.

David Ramos was injured after 7 games and 13 innings of pretty bad work (ERA just under seven)
Ramos just turned 24,so he'll be lucky to get another year...

Hope you enjoyed the Suns series,still have more planned for this week,so stay tuned!

2015 Hagerstown Suns Review-The Hitters

We start our annual review of the Hagerstown Suns as we look at the hitters.
The Suns were not a prospect-laden team in 2015 as the parent Washington Nationals begin to pay the price in the draft for their improvement in the standings in Washington.
As has also been the more the rule than the exception,the Nationals provided little in power hitting potential as only one Sun reached double digits in homers (11).
Some of that does have to do with beloved Municipal Stadium as the left to left center power alleys have to rank among the hardest in the game to get a ball out of.
I'd wager that if you charted such things,I bet there aren't anymore than 20 homers between home and away teams hit to left and left center all season.
It's damaging to the power numbers of righthanded hitters for sure,so keep that in mind as some righthanded players will suddenly seem to develop power at High A Potomac and AA Harrisburg that simply have struggled at a power challenged park such as the Muni.

There were four players who intrigued me at various points in the season,so I'll discuss them first and then move along to smaller bullet points for other Suns that I might have questions or opinions about their 2015 season and prospects as a (well) prospect.

The conventional prospect that was a Sun all season was first baseman Jose Marmolejos,who put together a season that was worthy of prospect status with a .310 (avg),11 (HR) and 87 (RBI) line with a ops of 848.
Marmolejos turns 23 over the winter,so this wasn't a case of a totally overage player doing so well and if you want to look at the stat the interests me the most-39 doubles. I bet that the Muni alone cost him a few homers,although not as many as others as Marmolejos hit from the left side.
His 89 strikeouts are a little above average,but nothing to raise a huge red flag about and his fielding could be improved as he had his share of clunkers.
Far from a sure bet,I'm interested to see Marmolejos next season at High A Potomac.

Catcher Raudy Read came to Hagerstown rated pretty highly by some,but injury issues limited him to 82 games.
Reid reminded me some of former Sun and current National Pedro Severino,but I'd rate his arm a level less than the strong-armed Severino,although Read's is quite strong,but I think he has the potential to be a better bat than Severino,certainly with more power.
Read hit just .244,but he kept his strikeouts reasonable (50 in 82 games) and turns 22 over the winter.
If it were me,Read (at 22 for next season) would start the season back in Hagerstown and get a promotion after a month or so,but Washington has another catching prospect at Auburn in Jackson Reetz that will start with the Suns next year.
Read looks to be just good enough as a prospect to perhaps be a consideration for other teams in trades over the winter-he may be blocked in this one.

2015 second rounder Andrew Stevenson arrived in Hagerstown for the final 35 games of the season and quickly became a Muni fan favorite.
The former LSU Tiger has above average speed (16 steals in 20 attempts) and his hustle resulted in many spectacular catches as a plus defender.
Stevenson also started really hot at the plate before cooling off to .285/1/16 line.
Stevenson specialized as a lefty in going the other way and hitting soft liners over the head of the third baseman,so his .285 was a very soft average as his .695 OPs will attest.
Stevenson will have show a little more than that to progress beyond a potential fourth outfielder type,but he is lots of fun to watch and won't turn 22 until next June,so he has a little time to develop.

The most surprising on this list is Bryan Mejia,who arrived on June 30th as an unheralded prospect and then proceeded to hit everything in sight for two months.
Mejia hit a blistering 345/5/46 in Hagerstown with NINE triples and an OPS over .924!
His previous history didn't indicate anything close to a breakout like this,so one could think this was a player old for the SAL level,but that's not true either as Mejia played the entire season at 21.
I just cannot find anything to pick at Mejia about other than an iffy glove (13 errors),which could just as easily be attributed to the bizarre Nationals fetish of playing infielders at 2b,ss,and 3b on a whim instead of allowing a prospect to settle in somewhere.
I'd just park him at second next year and watch his development,but I'd bet that doesn't happen.
This could be a blip on the screen of a career or a breakout season,but Bryan Mejia has made my list of players to watch in 2016.

Here are some quick thoughts on the rest of the 2015 Suns position players

The Suns ran through three catchers that hardly played (18 games combined),so I'm skipping them for this article.
Matt Reistetter was the main backup mitt and played during Raudy Read's injury.
Reisetter hit surprisingly well (.308),but had lots of defensive issues and doesn't seem to be a threat against the running game.
The former Hofstra Flying Dutchman might be headed for that organizational soldier in the reserve catcher mold.

At first,Jose Marmolejos dominated the position as only multiple time Sun Carlos Lopez (who was then released) and a short 13 game stint from Diomedes Eusebio that was most memorable for Eusebio taking the mound in a blowout got even a cameo appearance.
In such a short sample,I wouldn't feel right about rating Eusebio's talents.

I referred earlier to the Nationals liking to move players around the infield,so I will just roll along here with the infield rather than by specific position.
Unless noted,assume they played the middle infield and third base,

Osvaldo Abreu was the standout among this group as he played the most (123 games),hit the best (274/6/47) and was the youngest (21).
Some like Abreu more than I and compare him to Wilmer Difo.
I still consider the jury out on Difo himself,let alone his successor and 30 errors really give me pause.
Abreu is interesting and next year at High A will give me a better feel for him.
Like Bryan Mejia,I'd give him a position defensively and let him play....

Grant DeBruin hit .327 in 69 games at first and third in Hagerstown before a promotion to High A Potomac,but he hit just two homers and he should have hit that well here.
DeBruin is 25 and a former independent player,very old for the level and I don't consider him a prospect.

All of the next few players fit the same mold-light hitting,can play multiple positions and only will receive regular playing time,if there is not a real prospect to play somewhere.
Former Pepperdine Wave Austin Davidson hit six homers,which for this team made him a reasonable power threat,but hit only .202 doing it.
Cody Dent hit just .226 here before a promotion to Potomac (which must have been a need somewhere) and his season ended due to unknown reasons after just nine games there.
My memory of Dent this season was seeing him walk smiling into the Harrisburg clubhouse after a drive from Hagerstown after a promotion and then five minutes later leaving being told he wasn't promoted.
His bags must have never left his hands!
David Masters hit a punchless .230 and committed over twenty errors before a promotion that left regulars at the Muni stunned.
Masters will be an organizational soldier at best or his fate will resemble that of Brennan Middleton,who hit .198 in his second year in Hagerstown before being released.
Former Wake Forest product Conor Keniry struggled in his month in the Hub City and being 24 by the start of next season,may not even get a chance here next season,although he could be given another shot off a small sample size.

The outfielders didn't really produce a prospect although a few show enough to hope for.
Former Princeton Tiger Alec Keller hit well in hitting .294 in a year split almost equally between Hagerstown and Potomac,bur he didn't hit a homer in either place and his skills might be redundant with Andrew Stevenson moving through the system.
I look for Keller to have a chance to start in AA Harrisburg,if the Nationals want to keep Keller and Stevenson separated for a while.

Dale Carey looks the part as far as tools go and is one of my favorite Suns in a long time.
That makes it sad to say that the numbers didn't add up (234/8/52) for prospect status.
Carey is a plus defender with an excellent arm,so I'm not ready to push him aside,but playing next year at 24 makes 2016 a make or break year for the Miami Hurricane.

Jeff Gardner hit just .226 in being in Hagerstown all season and showed the Nationals issues with picking light hitting college players in round eight-twelve.
Lacking power (5 homers) and speed (8 steals),Gardner too enters 2016 in need of a breakout season.

Matthew Page spent the last two months here playing first and the outfield and despite not hitting a homer,had a fair OPS (.741) and 30 walks showed a good eye.
Another college player in the draft range as referred to with Jeff Gardner,Page might be back here next season at 24,where he will need a good start.

Wilmin Rodriguez spent his second Hagerstown season on the DL for much of the season.
Other than having the coolest looking Suns team card in a long time (a great shot of a sliding catch),Rodriguez looked pretty average.
Considering Rodriguez turns 25 in the middle of next season,I place him firmly in the organizational soldier slot.

Hope you enjoyed this look at the Suns hitters.
I'll work on the pitchers sometime this week!

Saying goodbye to "Tony Clifton"

It's funny how things work sometimes.

On Wednesday, I took my lovely ladies out to lunch and as we walked out of the restaurant,I saw a familiar face and commented "Look, Cherie, Tony Clifton's here".

It wasn't "Tony", just someone that looked like him, but Cherie and I talked for a few minutes about the small extended family that we have at the Hagerstown Suns.
You don't see them from September to April,but it's always nice getting to see them again,catching up and settling in for the season.
It's people that have become good friends,people that become Facebook friends,people that are casual acquaintances to say Hi as you walk by and people that you just see from a distance at the games.
We agreed that as small as the Suns crowds can be getting to know the faces has been quite a positive through our term with the team.

It turned out that one day later, the man I knew as "Tony Clifton" passed away as Jack Hill suffered a fatal heart attack.
Bob Parasiliti pays tribute to his friend and colleague here and since I never shared more than a hello with Jack,I don't know enough about him to write about other than it won't feel the same at the Muni without the color coordinated outfits with the colored softball shorts from the early 80's matching a colored shirt that was far too small.
No one that I knew had a bad word to say about Jack Hill.

I'm sure that you are wondering how Jack was dubbed as "Tony Clifton",so here goes.
When we started to become regulars at Suns games, Jack would show up for games wearing these big dark sunglasses, and combined with the short hair and tight shirts, there was a resemblance to Tony Clifton the hated lounge singer portrayed by Andy Kaufman, although Kaufman would never admit it.

It's funny the characters that you become accustomed to seeing.
I often wonder what happened to "Hum Baby" a guy who sat at the top of the grandstand and heckled with a monotone that said "hum baby swing" to opposing batters.
And there have been others too,makes you wonder if anyone would miss me if I was gone or to the casual person,am I "someone" else.
It'll be a different deal for sure in a month when the Suns begin their 2015 season because for the first time in years,I won't lean to the person next to me and say as Jack Hill climbed the grandstand "Tony Clifton in the house this evening".
He'll be missed.