Here We Go

I don't want to jinx it or anything, but we have had sun in New England on four consecutive days, which I'm pretty sure is some kind of record. Along similar lines, the league has gotten a full slate of games in for four consecutive days, which had not happened since June 13-16, the first week of the season.

So yeah, it's been kind of a weird summer. The weather pattern looks like it has finally changed though, at least enough to break us out of the clouds-every-day thing we had going for a while.

It's a good thing, too. The Cape League is about to get into the thick of its schedule.

If you break the summer down into stages, I feel like it's the three weeks leading up to the all-star game that really define the season. Most all the players who are going to be here are here. Players who got off to big starts are either fading or officially delivering big summers. Top prospects are emerging.

Right now, it's tough to get a feel for all that, but we'll get there soon enough. Over the next 15 days before the all-star game on July 23, the league will stage 73 games, pretty much a full slate every night. Several teams will play 14 games over those 15 days, making this the most intensive stretch of the season.

So this is going to be fun. Let's enjoy it.

And pray for sun.

Some quick notes . . .

Just as several of us guessed, LSU star pitcher Anthony Ranaudo will be taking the summer off. Randy Rosetta of the Baton Rouge Advocate wrote on Saturday about Ranaudo's plans. Ticketed for either Team USA or Y-D, Ranaudo will rest his arm after throwing 124.1 innings this spring. As Ranaudo correctly notes in that story, "if scouts want to come see what I can do, they can come next year." Indeed. It's a shame we won't see him, but the kid has nothing left to prove this year.

Bourne teammates Kyle Roller and Stefen Romero might be the early favorites for MVP. Roller is hitting .345 with three home runs and 11 RBI. Romero is at .354 with four home runs and 12 RBI. Pretty good for two guys who were not on Bourne's original roster.

At some point, Jedd Gyorko might put himself in that conversation, too. Since arriving from Team USA trials, Gyorko has posted 11 hits in seven games, with two home runs and eight RBI.

Another recent addition to the Brewster lineup is off to a good start. Virginia's Jarrett Parker has three hits in three games, all of them of the extra-base variety.

A few more names to keep an eye on at this point, among many others: Hyannis' Cody Hawn and Ryan Cuneo, Y-D's Austin Wates, Nick Crawford and Mickey Wiswall, Falmouth's Todd Cunningham, Cotuit's Cody Stanley, Harwich's Dan Grovatt and Orleans' Jaren Matthews.

Over the next few weeks, it looks like we'll be seeing more and more of two of the bigger pitching names in the sophomore class. Ohio State's Alex Wimmers is in Bourne and made a relief appearance last night. Texas' Brandon Workman is scheduled to arrive in Wareham on Wednesday.

Chatham's Matt Harvey (North Carolina) has apparently seen his stock slip lately, but his performance Saturday was on the mark. The righty struck out six and didn't walk anybody in six shutout innings.

Historically Fast, etc.

Notes written while wondering how on Earth it rained again today . . .

I wrote the other day about Chatham's start and where it ranked in recent history. Right then, I didn't have time to go back and really look, but I did I have time tonight.

Good thing I had a lot of time.

The Anglers' 9-1 start is the best since 2002, when the Cotuit Kettleers started 13-0, breaking the all-time league record for most wins to start a season. Led by batting champ and league MVP Pete Stonard, that Cotuit team ended up tying two games before it lost its first game, which didn't happen until July 1. Pretty remarkable.

Maybe more remarkable? The Kettleers won 10 games the rest of the regular season. They still won the division title, but lost in the Western Division playoffs.

So Chatham, your cushion is nice, but it's not everything.

The league has announced some policy changes in response to all the postponements. Greg posted the full release on Codball . It looks like the big one is the allowance for seven-inning games in doubleheaders. Previously, league bylaws prevented that, but with a lot of doubleheaders on the horizon, this looks like the right move.

Some interesting names have popped up over the last few days, adding to the already large number of players drafted in 2009 who are on the Cape. Two were big names last summer on the Cape -- Baylor's Raynor Campbell and Mississippi State's Connor Powers. Campbell was a 31st-round pick while Powers went in the 11th round. Also of note is Tennessee's Bryan Morgado, who got the start for Bourne last night. Morgado was a third-round pick of the Dodgers. He missed his freshman year at Tennessee because of Tommy John surgery, but he's got a power arm that can light up radar guns. I believe he's the highest pick to play on the Cape in a few years. Last year, I think the highest pick was fifth-rounder Greg Miclat, who left pretty early in the summer.

Cotuit pitcher Drew Gagnier is the first Cape League player to come from the University of Oregon since the program was re-established. Oregon hadn't played baseball since 1981, but the program was set on course in 2007 for a return and was officially brought back to life this spring. Gagnier, a redshirt sophomore who previously played at Fresno State, is a pretty good first representative. He had a 2.70 ERA out of the bullpen for the Ducks and was a 14th-round pick of the A's earlier this month. In three appearances for Cotuit, he hasn't allowed a run and has struck out six in four innings.

Some of the Virginia contingent has arrived from the College World Series, and they're making sure everyone knows it. Dan Grovatt has gone 4-for-7 in his first two games for Harwich. John Barr went 3-for-4 last night in his first game with Brewster.

As LSU tries to defend its national championship next year, Brett Bruening may play a big role. A juco star who has committed to the Tigers, Bruening has a 0.75 ERA in two starts for Harwich. He has struck out 12 in 12 innings of work.

Speaking of LSU, it'll be very interesting to see what Anthony Ranaudo does this summer. He's on the Y-D roster, but as Dave touched on over at Codball, Ranaudo pitched a lot of innings this year -- 124.1 after just 12 last year. I too wouldn't be surprised if Ranaudo is either shut down for the summer or kept on a very tight leash. To some extent, he's done everything he needed to do this year, helping lead LSU to a title and, in the process, establishing himself as perhaps the top college prospect for the 2010 draft. On the surface, Ranaudo's situation is similar to Alex White's last year. A top prospect who carried his team deep into the tourney, White was scheduled to pitch in Chatham but was shut down for the summer. We'll find out soon enough what's going to happen with Ranaudo.

More Dominance and Another Name

A few Monday night notes . . .

Junior-college standout Tommy Collier made his first start for Falmouth tonight and it doesn't look like the step up in competition hurt him. Collier tossed six shutout innings and struck out nine, continuing the trend early-season of dominant starting pitching.

Over in Cotuit, a highly-touted player showed up on the lineup card. Devin Harris, a draft-eligible sophomore from East Carolina who wasn't on Cotuit's original roster, was in the lineup tonight and delivered an RBI. Harris, an outfielder, was an eighth-round pick by Baltimore last week, so I believe he's the highest-picked player who's currently on the Cape.

Harris was a breakout prospect for ECU this year, hitting .344 with 14 home runs, to go with 13 steals. Here's a snippet from Baseball America's draft scouting report: "Sophomore-eligible outfielder Devin Harris has big tools and looks the part of a prototypical right fielder. He's an average runner at 6-foot-3, 227 pounds, with a plus arm suited for right field. Harris has massive raw power as well and the athletic ability to make adjustments . . . Harris fits in the first five rounds for a team that believes in his bat, but could fall because of the signing leverage he has as a sophomore."

His arrival in Cotuit means he might be looking for a little more leverage. He's definitely a player to keep an eye on this summer.

More on all of this and the rest of Monday's happenings tomorrow morning. Hopefully, we'll have some box scores.

My head is spinning, etc.

Notes written while wishing I could revise my Outstanding Pitcher watch list to include Eric Pfisterer . . .

So we're off and running. What do we know so far? Not much.

It's always funny this time of year. I get all geared up for the season, counting down the days, doing everything I can to be prepared, to know what to expect and then all of a sudden they're playing baseball, and half the players are guys I've never heard of. But I guess that's the fun part. The beauty of a Cape League season is that when it starts, you never know which team will shine or which players will turn into stars. It's fitting that the season starts with a giant jolt of uncertainty.

I'm actually working on a list of new and temporary players (basically, guys who weren't on preseason rosters) with some brief bios, so that we can have an idea of who we're watching, even if they don't stick around for long. That should be going up in the next day or two.

For now, let's talk about a few names we've heard of, but maybe didn't expect to hear.

As I mentioned in today's Daily Fog, Brewster had Jim Klocke in its lineup last night. The Southeast Missouri State junior catcher played for the Whitecaps, and though he struggle with them, he's had a fantastic college career. Much of this year's draft, though, went by without his name popping up. He went in the 46th round.

Listening to the Bourne game tonight, I heard a familiar name who's in the same boat. East Carolina junior Kyle Roller hit .270 for Bourne last year and was one of the league's leaders in doubles last year. Roller hit .336 with 16 home runs this spring but didn't get drafted until the 47th round. He was in the Bourne lineup tonight for the first time this season. For a Bourne team that's been hit hard by Team USA, Roller could provide a big boost.

Over on Codball, Dave relayed some info he heard on WEEI. Boston Red Sox ninth-round pick Kendal Volz, a big arm who pitched for Wareham in '07 and USA in '08, will be playing on the Cape this summer, according to Jason McLeod, the Red Sox Director of Amateur Scouting. I'm assuming the Red Sox will keep an eye on him then decide what to offer based on his performance. If that is indeed the case, it'll be interesting to see where he goes. Wareham's roster is looking pretty full, so a return to the Gatemen might not be possible. We'll see.

Finally, the Georgia Tech site Beesball is reporting that Tony Plagman will play for Cotuit. A junior, Plagman hit .364 this spring with 16 home runs and a team-best 73 RBI. Like Klocke and Roller, he didn't get picked until the late rounds, so it sounds like he'll be trying to raise his stock with the Kettleers. Last year, Plagman played briefly for Orleans.

In other news, Cotuit can run. You never want to get carried away defining teams after a few games, but I think this one is going to be a safe bet. The Kettleers stole seven bases in their opener against Wareham and a few more tonight against Falmouth. Chris Bisson (Kentucky) now has six steals in two games, which is pretty close to half as many as league-leader Tim Wheeler had all of last year. I thought this year might be a return to normal in the stolen base department -- there were no true speedsters last year -- and it looks like Bisson and fellow Kettleer Rico Noel will lead the charge.

How about those Whitecaps? Mark Canha was the only player in the league to hit a home run on opening night, and he hit another one Saturday. Teammates Bobby Coyle and Tim Freguson also went yard, giving Brewster four of the eight home runs that were hit in the season's first two days.

Making an appearance for Orleans last night was one Jared Bard. A junior at Richmond, Bard is the brother of former North Carolina and Cape League star Daniel Bard. Daniel was called up to the Boston Red Sox in early May.

I made mention of this on Twitter and Dave also noted it on Codball: Rice star Anthony Rendon will not play this summer. The only freshman among the Golden Spikes Semifinalists, Rendon was signed up to play for Bourne or Team USA, but he suffered an injury in Rice's Super Regional loss to LSU.

Third-round pick Robbie Shields was on the Cape for some preseason action, but he has since moved off the active section of Cotuit's roster. If he's signing, best of luck to Shields, who's a real Cape League success story. He wasn't fully on the radar until last year, when he was an early-season star with Cotuit before an injury ended his summer. It's a shame he didn't get to play all summer, but he played enough to make people take notice.

I've written about Wareham's stability, but out in Orleans, the Firebirds are in pretty good shape, too. Guys like Devin Lohman, Michael Olt, Kevin Muno, Danny Muno, Michael Lang and Jaren Matthews -- all of whom looked like key players in the preseason -- have been in the lineup since day one. The Firebirds are still waiting for CWS participants Gary Brown, Matt Newman, Matt Packer and Riccio Torrez. Newman has also been invited to Team USA.

The start of the Cape League season is kind of the first official date on the next year's draft calendar. Over the next two months, a lot of preliminary perceptions will be established. For now, there's a little bit of talk out there about the 2010 draft. ESPN's Keith Law has an article up (for Insiders only) detailing some early thoughts, and he mentions quite a few '09 Cape Leaguers, most of whom haven't yet arrived because of the CWS or Team USA. The guys that Law mentions who have arrived: Wareham's Derek Dietrich, Y-D's Josh Rutledge, Cotuit's Justin Grimm and Falmouth's Nick Tepesch. MLB's Jonathan Mayo has also thrown out a few names for 2010: Christian Colon, Matt Harvey, Drew Pomeranz, Anthony Ranaudo and Victor Sanchez. Colon, Harvey and Ranaudo are on Cape rosters but are currently in Omaha. Pomeranz is on Team USA's trial roster, while Sanchez is out with an injury. He played in Chatham last summer.

If you're not on Twitter or at least checking CCBL Twitter pages, you should be. Several teams are on there, with broadcast teams doing most of the updates. That means lots of in-game updates, which is really nice to see. In the past, if you weren't watching or listening to the online broadcast, it was tough to know what was going on. The Cape Cod Times is also on Twitter, as is Bourne assistant Jordan Wyckoff, who apparently is posting updates from the dugout. If you want to find all these, click here for my Twitter page. I'm following all of them.

I haven't forgotten about the Chatham and Orleans not-so-early looks. They will be up this week. I feel blind when I look at those rosters, so I'll get them done.

Some Notes For Your Sunday

First, let me apologize for the delay in starting the early looks. I finished most of the Wareham preview long before it went up, but work and various other things got in the way of the finishing touches. It'll be a bit of a sprint to the finish from here on out, but so far, so good. I'm working on Falmouth right now.

Roster News

• Some teams haven't updated anything in a while, but Cotuit is doing a real nice job of documenting the comings and goings. Unfortunately for the Kettleers, there are some big goings. Texas A&M pitcher Barrett Loux, Santa Clara pitcher Thain Simon, Florida State pitcher Sean Gilmartin and Georgia outfielder Johnathan Taylor have all had their contracts released. Loux is one of the better prospects for the 2010 draft, Gilmartin has been FSU's ace this season and Taylor has been a star freshman for the Bulldogs. Big losses all around, and Cotuit might yet have to deal with a few more. Rick Hague, Gerrit Cole and Sonny Gray have all been invited to Team USA.


• Hyannis has also posted a few updates, the biggest of which is the subtraction of Danny Hultzen. The Virginia lefty has been probably the top freshman pitcher in the nation this year, and he's on the Team USA invite list. With him off the Hyannis roster, I guess there's no doubt he's going. Elon pitcher Tom Girdwood has also been invited, though he's still listed on the Hyannis roster.


• One guy who's still slated for Hyannis is Tennessee's Cody Hawn, and he's a guy worth getting excited about. I'll get to the details in the Hyannis preview, but when I was looking at Blake Forsythe's numbers, I saw Hawn and thought, "Wow, I hope he's coming to the Cape." The numbers that catch your eye: .364, 22 HR, 81 RBI.


• Dear Chatham and Harwich: Are you guys going to have players this year or what? Love, Everyone.

Draft News

• The draft is less than a month away (June 9), and, as always, plenty of former Cape Leaguers are in the middle of things. Baseball America came out with its first mock draft this week. It's subscriber content, but I can tell you that 13 of the projected first-rounders are former Cape Leaguers.


• Grant Green, projected as a possible No. 2 pick after his huge summer on the Cape, has seen his stock drop a little bit. He's had a good season, but not a great season at USC, with his three home runs and 15 errors standing out as red flags. Still, Green probably won't drop out of the top 10.


• Dustin Ackley, who played briefly for Harwich last year, seems to have passed Green as the top college hitter. Where Green's junior season hasn't been perfect, Ackley's has. He's hitting .405 with 17 home runs.


• In a draft that's real light on college bats, former Orleans Cardinal Tim Wheeler is stepping into the vacuum as a legitimate first-rounder. The Sacramento State was an all-star on the Cape last year and led the league in stolen bases, which was pretty remarkable for a 6'4 corner outfielder. He's added power to the equation this spring, blasting 18 home runs to go along with 15 steals and a .385 batting average. He could vault into the top half of the first round.


• LSU two-sport standout Jared Mitchell made the briefest of appearances on the Cape last summer, playing in five games for Y-D before departing for football practice. But baseball will be calling in a big way in June, with Mitchell getting projected as a first-rounder.


• For the third year in a row, the first pick will not be a former Cape Leaguer (assuming the Nats pick Stephen Strasburg). The last Cape Leaguer to go No. 1 overall was Luke Hochevar in 2006, and he had just a brief stint with Cotuit after his freshman year.

the missing batting champ, etc.

It's entirely possible that a professional baseball player will end up being this year's Cape League batting champ.

Entering play Sunday, the league leader was Falmouth's Jimmy Cesario.

Thing is, Cesario is not Falmouth's anymore. He's Casper's.

Cesario, a 46th-round pick this June, signed a professional contract with the Colorado Rockies soon after the All-Star game. In fact, three days after the All-Star game, he was making his debut with the Rookie Pioneer League's Casper Ghosts.

But while Cesario is on to the next chapter of his career, the Cape League chapter is kind of still open. Cesario left a .387 batting average in his wake, and he's going to have enough plate appearances to qualify for the league lead. That number sits at 119 every year. Cesario is ahead of that number just in the at-bats category, which means he'll have more than enough to qualify.
And that .387 clip is going to be tough to surpass. Cesario's former Falmouth teammate A.J. Pollock was at .385 heading into Sunday's action. With five games left, there's a chance he'll leapfrog Cesario, but I think there's a better chance that he sees his average drop.

So we would be left with an inactive player winning the batting title. I don't know if the league would make some kind of exception and give it to the second-place guy or what, but either way, it's a weird situation. You can't say Cesario didn't earn it. And yet . . . he's already a pro.

I don't ever remember seeing anything like this in past summers. Occasionally, a hitter near the top will head home due to injury but in general, if you're near the league lead in hitting, you're going to do your best to stick around util the last out of the season.

It's a different situation for Cesario, who took an opportunity and ran with it. He's still running, too. Through five games with Casper, he's hitting .412. That's a pretty good start, though as far as this season, I don't know if Cesario will have had enough service time to earn any awards from the league.

But I guess he might get something in the mail.

Youth Is Served

Perfect Game Crosschecker had some interesting stuff up this week. They took a look at the top velocities in the Cape League All-Star game and also came out with a list of the top 20 performances of the summer across all leagues.

One thing you can take from both pieces is that the Cape League pitchers we'll hear the most about in the next few years are the league's youngest pitchers.

Of the top 10 radar-gun readings, four belonged to freshmen -- Brandon Workman at 95, Sammy Solis at 93, Brian Dupra at 92 and Martin Viramontes at 92. The other feature puts three sophomore Team USA pitchers atop the summer performance list.

That means next year's draft may be a little lighter than normal on Cape League pitchers. A few will certainly crack the first few rounds, but they may not be among the real upper echelon.

There's a good chance that changes in 2010. Workman was a third-round pick out of high school, and with his near no-hitter and his tremendous strikeout numbers this summer, he's been arguably the most impressive pitcher in the league. Much like Missouri's Kyle Gibson did last year, Workman has used his Cape League summer to put himself way up high on early draft lists.

Solis probably isn't too far behind Workman, and he's got the advantage of being left-handed. Dupra has been lights-out as a reliever and he'll probably get a chance to do big things next spring at Notre Dame. Viramontes struggled in the All-Star game and his first start since then was rough, too, but he'll be fine. He's another big kid, and a few bad outings aren't going to hurt him too much.

And it doesn't stop with those four. Matt Harvey, Kyle Blair, Seth Blair, Drew Storen, Evan Danielli, Graham Stoneburner, Rob Rasmussen, Robby Broach -- all those guys have made an impression.

We'll see come 2010 how big an impression it is, but for now, we've got quite a crop of young pitchers on our hands.

Notes

• Last summer, when the playoffs rolled around, Falmouth could trot out two 2008 first-round picks and a potential 2009 first-rounder in a three-game playoff series. Now? Well, suffice it to say the Commodores are not in first place because of a dominant starting rotation. Chad Bettis has been their ace. He's got a 2.27 ERA. Reliever-turned-starter Chris Gloor comes in with a 2.78 ERA. After that, nobody in the rotation is under 3.00. And yet, Falmouth has found a way. Starters like Nate Karns, Rex Brothers and Jorge Reyes have gotten the job done when needed, and the bullpen has been great with Ben Tootle at the back end. Mostly, though, Falmouth can thank its offense. The Commodores have scored the most runs in the league.
  

• Going into Sunday, Hyannis closer Russell Brewer still had an outside shot to break the saves record. With 12 saves and the record at 16, he needs the Mets to go on a winning streak. Though they can't win too big.
  

• It should be an interesting final few days in the Western Division, especially for Hyannis. Of the Mets' last four games, three are against teams that are alongside them in the divisional race. They'll host Bourne Monday, they'll visit Cotuit on Wednesday and on Thursday, they'll close out the regular season at home against Falmouth. If the Mets can sweep those three games, they'll probably win the division.
  

• I stumbled across a cool new web site you should check out. It's called Breaking Bats, and it's devoted to baseball prospects. I e-mailed the site's founder, Matt Grabowski, and it sounds like he's got some pretty big plans. It's definitely worth keeping an eye on.
  

consistently green, etc.

It was strange today to see Grant Green's name somewhere other than the top of the batting average leaderboard. That's because, as other players have shot up the charts and shot right back down, Green has been remarkably consistent.

Actually, I wrote that before I went through and looked at the numbers. After doing that, I would like to amend my statement. We'll go with "absolutely, astoundingly consistent."

The USC sophomore has started at shortstop in all but one of Chatham's games (he got his first night off on Sunday). He has gone hitless in a game exactly three times. Three times in 31 games. And guess what? In the three games he went hitless, he still got on base via the walk. So, Grant Green has been on base in every game he's played this summer.

That's pretty incredible, and, I'll be honest, I didn't realize it was that incredible. I knew he was consistent, but sometimes when a top player is consistent (and when they've been on the Cape since day one) they get lost in the shuffle, at least for me. It's ho-hum when Grant Green gets a hit.

When all is said and done this year, though, there won't be anything ho-hum about Green's summer. Right now, he's on pace for strikingly similar numbers to those put up by last year's MVP, Conor Gillaspie, who turned in one of the great offensive summers of the last decade.
Here's the comparison:
Green - .397 AVG, 10 2B, 1 3B, 5 HR, 17 RBI, .620 SLG, .490 OBP
Gillaspie - .345 AVG, 12 2B, 2 3B, 7 HR, 22 RBI, .673 SLG, .448 OBP

With Green now batting in the middle of Chatham's order, the RBI numbers should go up. I'd expect a few more home runs too, and if the average were to somehow stay that high . . . well, that's a very, very special year.

Breaking Down the Cardinals

It's still jarring to see that the best team in the league has the second-worst team batting average in the league. That's where the Orleans Cardinals are, hovering at .225 despite their torrid July. They may have the most wins in the league, but eight teams have better averages. Seven have scored more runs.

But it's all a little deceptive. As anyone who has kept tabs on the Cape League season knows, Orleans started unbelievably slow at the plate, with a team batting average stuck below .200 well into July.

Since then, the team average has jumped to .225, and that jump is evident up and down the lineup. A quick glance at the team stats page shows that only one Cardinal -- Rich Poythress -- is over .300 for the season. But the numbers look considerably better for everyone else when you take away the first two weeks.

Cole Figueroa is hitting .232 for the season but .333 this month. Nate Freiman is at .273 on the year, but .289 this month. It's a similar story for Alex Hassan (.231/.271) and Tim Wheeler (.283/.293). In all, just about everybody on the roster has been hotter in July than they were in June.

When you combine that with impressive pitching -- the Cardinals now lead in ERA -- you get success. Of course, Orleans has given success a whole new meaning lately, what with the 16 wins this month. Sometimes things just start rolling and nothing can get in the way.

But while timely hits and clutch performances have been hallmarks of Orleans' run, the driving force behind everything is that the team started to hit. So it might be fair to call Orleans one of the worst hitting teams in the league. It's just not all that true anymore.

Notes

• If you look closely at the Cotuit boxscore from last night, you'll notice something interesting. Mike Bianucci came into the game in the eighth inning as a pinch runner. This seems strange, since, you know, he signed a pro contract and isn't on the team anymore. I'm inclined to think that this is a mistake in the boxscore, but I suppose it's possible that Bianucci didn't actually sign and is still on the Cape. He actually is still listed as unsigned in the Baseball America Draft Database. If anybody knows what the deal is, please share. Update: Cotuit broadcaster Josh Weinstock just let me know that it was a typo in the boxscore.
  

• One of the unfortunate consequences of Hyannis' recent losing streak is that Russell Brewer's chase for the saves record has come to a grinding halt. Brewer has been stuck on 11 for quite awhile, and he hasn't had a chance to get any more. Brewer needs five saves to tie the record. Hyannis has only 12 games left.

• I thought it was an anomlay last year when only three pitchers finished the year with more than five wins. But it looks like we're headed down a similar path this year. Two pitchers have four wins, but one (Tim Clubb) isn't even on the Cape anymore. Considering the balance in the league this year, wins will probably be just as hard to come by down the stretch.
  

• Marc Krauss is hitting .415 and A.J. Pollock is hitting .400. This is very late in the season for two guys to have their averages that high. Last year around this time, batting champ Conor Gillaspie was hitting .356. As far as I can tell, no one has hit .400 this decade. The highest mark came in 2003, when J.C. Holt hit .388.
  

• Orleans catchers Travis Tartamella and Hampton Tignor are two of the best defensive catchers in the league, and they've also got quite the platoon going. Tartamella has played 17 games, while Tignor has played 18. They each have 49 at-bats, with Tignor posting one more hit.
  

catchers catching up, etc.

For the most part, Cape League catchers had a rough go of it in the early going. Many of the starters had batting averages hovering in the low .200's.

Things looked similar to last year. There was serious catching talent -- Buster Posey and Jason Castro were top 10 picks -- but the depth wasn't quite there. At least, not at the level of the year before, when five Cape League catchers went in the first round and compensation round.

But with the late arrival of several top players and the emergence of several who have been on the Cape from the beginning, the catching crop suddenly looks a lot deeper.

The depth is most pronounced on the Y-D roster. The Red Sox have three sophomore catchers who have all made big headlines at various points in their careers. LSU's Sean Ochinko, in his second year on the Cape, has caught off and on, and he's been behind the plate only twice this summer. After hitting over .300 with eight home runs last summer, Ochinko is stuck at .179. The other two guys are off to better starts. Tony Sanchez, a Boston College sophomore, is hitting .292 with two home runs and 13 RBI. Ryan Ortiz, who had a breakout year at Oregon State, was a Team USA invitee but came to the Cape instead. He's hitting .370 with eight RBI.

Another Team USA invitee, Tommy Medica, found his way to Harwich. The Santa Clara sophomore has hit .304 in his first 10 games and he may leave the Cape as the league's top catching prospect.

Robert Stock will be in that conversation as well. The USC sophomore, who skipped his senior year of high school to enroll at USC, was a Cape League all-star last season. His numbers haven't been quite as good this year -- he's hitting .227 -- but he's still a player to watch.

One of the more steady catchers iin the league is Falmouth's Trevor Coleman. The Missouri sophomore played for Team USA last summer, so he's highly-thought of. This summer, he's hitting .278 with 10 RBI.

The final standout is Central Michigan's Dale Cornstubble. In his second year with Hyannis, Cornstubble has taken his reputation as a defensive star and added offense to the mix. He missed some time with injury but is hitting .275.

Then there are a few guys who haven't had much of a chance yet, but who could make a splash. Stanford's Brent Milleville will be at DH most of the time this summer in Brewster, but he may project as a catcher. In nine games since arriving from the College World Series, Milleville has 13 hits.

Milleville's Brewster teammate Yasmani Grandal, another CWS participant, may have the most upside of any catcher in the league. A freshman from Miami, Grandal was a mainstay in the Hurricanes' lineup by the end of the season. He has only played in three games so far, but he has three hits.

Random Notes

• Russell Brewer finally allowed a run . . . but he still got a save. The Hyannis closer came on in the eighth inning of Wednesday's game with the Mets leading 4-2. He worked out of a jam in the eighth before his offense gave him some insurance heading to the ninth. Brewer then allowed the first two runs he's allowed all year but, thanks to that insurance, he held on to pick up the save. He now has 10 of them and a 1.50 ERA.

• Wareham's Blake Dean broke out of a slump with a 3-for-3 performance last night. Dean, who was one of the top players in the country for LSU this year, is a guy who could carry the Gatemen. He arrived late, though, and is still trying to find his way. His average currently sits at .222.

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.