thank god that's over, etc.

The last early look is finally finished and posted below this. There is also a section on the sidebar with links to all of them. I'm pretty pleased with the whole project, mostly because I don't have to do any more of them. I enjoy learning about all the players and I will do it every year, but . . . I'm so lost in a sea of heights, weights, batting averages and draft results, that I'm pretty sure I got drafted at some point. And I hit eight home runs last year.

But anyway. Now that those are done, I'm going to be posting some more general preview stuff this week, leading up to John Wylde Night on Friday. Then, finally, we will have some baseball.

For now, a few random notes:

• In doing the draft roundup stuff, I was surprised at how many 2008 Cape Leaguers got picked. Twenty seems like a lot to me. It should be interesting to see how the ones who come to the Cape end up doing. Sometimes, the added pressure can be a little too much.

• There were a couple of draft-eligible guys who I was surprised didn't get called. Virginia's Andrew Carraway was one of the best pitchers in the ACC this year and Furman's Jay Jackson was a tremendous two-way player. Both are on the Hyannis roster, so at least them not getting drafted was good news for the Mets.
  

• Speaking of Hyannis and the draft, Garrett Sherrill, who was on the Hyannis roster, is no longer on the roster. I'll take that to mean he's signing.
  

• I watched the second game of the UC-Irvine-LSU Super Regional today, which featured several soon-to-be Cape Leaguers. D.J. LeMahieu looks like a real player, but the best story of the day was Sean Ochinko. The sophomore tore up the league last year for Y-D but struggled mightily this spring and lost the starting catcher's job. He came on late in this one and drove in the go-ahead run as the Tigers rallied from a 7-2 deficit to even the series.
  

• The College World Series is filling up fast. Once everything is sorted out, I'll try to put something together figuring out which Cape Leaguers will be missing as a result. I can tell you this: I believe North Carolina has the most players on the Cape of any college team. Naturally, the Tar Heels are headed to Omaha.

• The games against the military all-stars were this weekend, but I haven't seen anything on them. Wareham played a preseason game tonight, and they probably will have some info up since their web site is awesome.
  

dream team, etc.

The 2007 Yarmouth-Dennis Red Sox were perhaps the best offensive team of the Cape League's modern era, and we don't need much more proof of that. The numbers they put up were staggering.

Nonetheless, there is more proof. As the college season winds down, it's becoming increasingly clear that Y-D was simply a special collection of talent. Here's a look at the college statistics of last year's Y-D starters.

C - Buster Posey - Florida State - .469, 16 HR, 66 RBI
1B - Sean Ochinko - LSU - .256, 3 HR, 17 RBI
2B - Joey Railey - San Francisco - .329, 4 HR, 36 RBI
3B - Nick Romero - San Diego State - .327, 11 HR, 59 RBI
SS - Gordon Beckham - Georgia - .402, 22 HR, 55 RBI
OF - Colin Cowgill - Kentucky - .378, 18 HR, 54 RBI
OF - Aaron Luna - Rice - .344, 8 HR, 48 RBI
OF - Matt Long - Santa Clara - .305, 9 HR, 36 RBI
DH - Jason Castro - Stanford - .366, 11 HR, 52 RBI
Util - Grant Green - USC - .386, 8 HR, 42 RBI

If your eyes glossed over when you read that, let me summarize.

Wow.

Ochinko is the only player who's struggling. Everybody else is crushing the ball. Your typical Y-D starter's college numbers: .356, 11 HR, 47 RBI.

If you did the same for every Cape team, you'd see good numbers across the board there, too. But these numbers are a little beyond good, just like that Y-D offense.

I imagine will get further proof come draft time. Both Posey and Beckham could be top-10 picks.

NOTES

• One top-flight prospect who apparently will never make it to the Cape is San Diego State's Stephen Strasburg. The 6'4 righty has become one of the most talked about players in the nation this spring thanks to these numbers: 8-1 record, 1.28 ERA and 125 strikeouts against 11 walks in 84.1 innings. He's likely to be one of the top picks in 2009, and he'll be surrounded there by Cape League alums. But Strasburg won't be one of them. He pitched last summer in the New England Collegiate Baseball League, and he isn't on any Cape League rosters this year, which suggests that he'll spend the summer with Team USA. It's rare that a major college prospect doesn't spend at least one summer on the Cape, but such is the case with Strasburg. In one sense, it speaks to the fact that bringing freshmen to the Cape is a bit of a crapshoot. Rosters are largely filled before the college season begins, so freshmen who make it to the Cape get there because of hype and potential. It's possible that Strasburg didn't have enough of either before his freshman season, which pushed him to the NECBL. Now that he's become one of the top pitchers in college baseball, he's almost gone beyond the Cape League.
  

• I just noticed that Tyler Ladendorf, who I wrote about at length in the Cotuit early look, is listed in the "Contract Released" section of Cotuit's roster. I guess we won't be seeing him.
  

• The Hyannis early look is almost done, then it's on to the Eastern Division. Keep checking.
  

buster posey is good, etc.

The best catcher on the Cape last summer was Florida State's Buster Posey, who helped power Yarmouth-Dennis to another league championship. He was good: .281 AVG, 3 HR, 19 RBI, .736 OPS.

I didn't know he was this good.

Posey has put up some numbers this spring for the Seminoles that could best be desrcibed as ridiculous. In 42 games, he's hit .465. He has 11 home runs and 49 RBI, and a total of 31 extra-base hits. His OPS is 1.380.

I know college numbers are far different than Cape League numbers, but even in that realm, those statistics are astounding.

And plenty of people are astounded.

This ESPN story from earlier this month highlights Posey's remarkable junior season.

"I'll be shocked if he doesn't go in the first five picks," said FSU assistant Mike Martin Jr. "I'll tell anybody that will listen: Having been with him for three years, he's Jason Varitek behind the plate and he's Derek Jeter as a hitter. I really believe that. He's that good."

Catcher is always a premium position come June. Players who can stay at the position and hit become very hot commodities. Witness the 2006 draft, when four catchers who played on the Cape were first-round or supplemental round picks.

I figured Posey would fall into the same category, but his stock has gone through the roof thanks to his incredible spring. We may be talking Matt Wieters territory when all is said and done.

Pretty good for a guy who didn't even catch until his sophomore season at FSU.

Don't Forget About Beckham

If Posey is the '07 Cape Leaguer making the biggest impression this spring, his Y-D teammate Gordon Beckham isn't far behind.

The Georgia shortstop, who would have been the MVP of the league last season if not for Conor Gillaspie, has picked up right where he left off. As of April 27, he was hitting .427 with 20 home runs, 48 RBI and an OPS of 1.421.

With that combination of power and average, Beckham is making a serious case for national player of the year honors. Regardless of what happens there, Beckham will surely join Posey near the top of the June draft.

Notes

• When I put together the Right Field Fog Top 25 back in January, I knew it wouldn't really reflect a college team's actual strength, just its strength on the Cape the previous summer. I still thought strong teams would be strong, though, but in the case of USC, I was wrong. I had the Trojans ranked No. 1 because of their hitting and pitching balance, but they've struggled to a 20-22 record. Former Cape Leaguers Tom Milone and Grant Green have been great -- Milone has a 2.89 ERA and Green is hitting .391 -- but not much else has gone right for the Trojans. Shows what I know.

• Chatham and Harwich, the last two teams to put up rosters, finally did get them up. Perhaps the most exciting -- and least surprising -- roster inclusion is Matt Harvey in Chatham. Harvey was drafted in the third round last year out of high school in Connecticut but opted to attend North Carolina, immediately making himself one of the top freshmen in the nation. It's no surprise, then, that he's signed on with a Cape team, and even less of a surprise that he's in Chatham. The A's and the Tar Heels have had quite the pipeline working the last few season, and the minute Harvey didn't sign, it became a foregone conclusion that he'd be in Chatham. Let's hope he does indeed make it. With a 2.13 ERA this spring, he's lived up to the hype and may be a prime candidate for Team USA. But young and highly touted UNC pitchers Andrew Miller and Alex White have made it to the Cape in past years, so that could be working in Chatham's favor. Definitely something to watch.