Frontier League partners with Five Tool Prospects

Five Tool Prospects, a new online baseball community, is now the Official Prospect Database of the The Frontier League and International Performance Baseball (IPB). The website is designed to help high school kids get a look from college coaches and college players get a look from professional teams. Check out the site at http://www.fivetoolprospects.com/.

The partnership with the Frontier League will allow any player who attends a Frontier League Tryout with the ability to purchase a professional evaluation for $50. After the player is evaluated by the coaching staff, the results are posted on the Five Tool Prospects website and the player is automatically ranked in each category in the "Top Prospects" section. The website will have advanced search features that will allow college coaches or pro scouts the ability to search for players based on very specific statistics or ratings. The site will also be adding YouTube integration in the future for players to post videos of themselves, too.

International Performance Baseball runs several events that give professional free agents a shot to get evaluated and placed in professional baseball (I got my first shot at pro ball after attending IPB's World Free Agent Spring Training in 2004). Every player who attends one of their events will get an evaluation included in the price of the event fee, and have that evaluation posted on the Five Tool Prospects website.

Goodbye Sliders, Hello Cruisers

In case you missed it, the Slippery Rock Sliders will now be the Midwest Sliders in 2008, and play 100% of their games on the road. However, the team has already been purchased by a group who plans to move the team to Michigan in 2009. They will be called the Oakland County Cruisers.

The Cruisers don't have a ballpark yet, but they do have a website (and merchandise). Check it out at http://www.cruisersbaseball.com/.

The Cruisers website is curiously informative - you can check out the detailed site plan and even find out the specifics of what it would cost you to invest in the team. Speaking of the siteplan, the ballpark looks a little snug, similar to that of the Lansing Lugnuts. There is what looks like to be about two feet of foul ground for the last 88 or so feet of the 310 foot foul line. The 360 foot power alleys will make home run hitters happy, running a sharp angle to a 400 foot centerfield wall. The backstop is only 46 feet from home plate and the dugouts are the same 46 feet to the foul lines (Wuerfel Park measures 60 feet for each). Like in Lansing, the bullpens are exposed in foul terrority and are a tight fit between the foul line and stands.

Game-Worn Jerseys on Sale

In case you are looking around for the perfect Christmas present for the Beach Bums fan on your list - stop by the ballpark and grab a game-worn jersey.  They are on sale for $150, down from $200, and the proceeds are going to help upgrade the uniforms for next season.  There is only one jersey (in white & blue) per number from #1 through #40.  There are also several of them that have never been worn in a game if you are looking for an authentic that isn't a little worn.  Since we are changing up the white and blue jerseys a little for next year, you have a great chance to buy a piece of history with these jerseys!  Call today to buy or reserve one at 231-943-0100.

We've been working on some new logos and uniform designs for the ballplayers next year (not straying too far from what we have, don't worry), and I have to say that everything has looked awesome so far.  We have asked Victory, the company that designs and makes our uniforms, to go back to the drawing board for a couple more options, but I think that the Beach Bums Nation is going to be pretty pumped by the new look.

You can also e-mail our Director of Merchandise, Scott McDowell, at scott@tcbeachbums.com, if you have any questions about what jerseys are left.

Coaching Staff Changes

The Southern Illinois Miners announced today that 2B Ralph Santana, who will age out of the league for the 2008 season, will become the team's first base coach next summer.  Santana led the league in hits in 2007 and finished third in the league in batting average.  I am a little surprised by this decision - having seen Santana play last year I would say he still could be considered a prospect by MLB if he put together a good season in an older league like the Northern League, CanAm League, or American Association.  However, if he can coach as good as he can hit, he is going to be a great addition to their staff.

In Traverse City today, the Beach Bums announced that Jason Wuerfel (me) is going to be joining the team's coaching staff in the role of hitting coach.  I took the role of on-field announcer for the squad in our first two seasons, but I am excited to get back in uniform.  There is nothing that I know better than baseball, and while I enjoyed holding the microphone during games, I believe I will be put to much better use in the dugout.  

In other Beach Bums news, we've finalized a couple trades - one with the Northern League and one with the United League.  Official announcements of players that are involved are coming soon.

More off-season Frontier League movement

Evansville and Rockford continued their busy off-season early this week, making a couple of interesting player moves, while the Washington Wild Things wrapped up their manager search (which didn't take very long).

The Rockford Riverhawks acquired RHP Jim Paduch from the Gary Railcats of the Northern League for two players to be named.  Paduch split time between Gary and Evansville last year and it appears that Evansville gave Paduch back to Gary at the end of the season.  Paduch will be a Veteran in the Frontier League in 2008, which is going to cause Rockford to make some interesting decisions in their lineup.  I'm assuming Paduch's acquisition is an attempt to replace ace Tanner Watson, who was signed by the Chicago Cubs today.  Paduch got beat up a bit in Evansville, going 0-3 with a 4.37 ERA, 9 walks, and 20 strikeouts in 22.2 innings.  Opponents hit .359 off Paduch last season.

Even with Watson signing with the Cubs and 3B Matt Hagen aging out of the league, the Riverhawks still have to juggle five spots between nine players.  Generally speaking, Frontier League teams go in favor of position players as opposed to pitchers for their two-year players and Veterans, but Rockford tends to keep a couple older players in their starting rotation.  With that said, they will have three lefty LS2s in Shaun Parker, Garrett Bauer, and Dave Dowling, so you can expect to see one or more of them moved before opening day.  Offensively, they'll have to pick from outfielders Matt Sauls and Robert Valiente, both Veterans in 2008, and infielders Will Henderson, Joe Anthonsen, and Brad Dutton, all LS2s next season.

The Evansville Otters gained an excellent player when they acquired SS Alex Fonseca and a three way trade with the Schaumburg Flyers of the Northern League and the Nashua Pride of the CanAm League.  Evansville first sent closer Mike Bille to Nashua in exchanged for pitcher Ryan Burnau, who they turned around and traded to Schaumburg for Fonseca.  Fonseca will be considered a one-year player (LS1) in the Frontier League.

The Washington Wild Things have selected Greg Jelks as their field manager for the 2008 season, replacing John Masserelli, who is taking the year off to spend more time with his family.  Jelks managed the Slippery Rock Sliders last season and the previous five years with the Evansville Otters.  Jelks ranks seventh in the Frontier League for career victories for a manager with 265.

Independent Off-Season Heating Up

The Rockford Riverhawks opened the off-season trading on Wednesday, sending RHP Dane Towery to the Yuma Scorpions of the Golden League in return for RHP Chris Langlolis.  The swap came out pretty even on paper - both pitchers saw action in about 20 innings last year with ERAs around 2.00.

 The Gateway Grizzlies sold OF Chris Gibson to the St. Louis Cardinals.  Gibson's father is Bob Gibson, the Hall of Fame pitcher who won 251 games in 17 seasons for the Cardinals.

There are several players at the Traverse City Beach Bums drawing trade interest from around the country.  There are a few deals that are near completion and we should have some news for the Beach Bums Nation sometime next week.

Around the Frontier League 12/11/07

Washington Wild Things Field Manager John Massarelli will step down for the 2008 season to spend more time with his family. Wild Thing's pitching coach Grant Dorn has also stepped down to accept a coaching position at Virginia Intermont College. There is no immediate word on replacements, although considering the timing you can assume it won't be too long until someone is hired.

Florence Freedom pitching coach Chris Hook is also leaving the Frontier League - he has taken a job as the pitching coach of the Huntsville Stars, which is the Milwaukee Brewers AA affiliate.

Beach Bums Off-Season Recap - 12/8/07

The first thing I want to do is try to briefly describe the roster rules in the Frontier League and how an amendment to these rules will greatly change the way our roster is handled in Traverse City for 2008. So if you aren't into the technical side of player procurement, you can skip down a little until I get into the specifics of what we have done so far.

FRONTIER LEAGUE CLASSIFICATION SYSTEM

The purpose of the Frontier League uses a classification system for their players based on professional experience. Up until 2007, there has been four categories, Rookie, LS1, LS2, and Veteran. LS stands for "League Service," therefore LS1 technically translates to a player who has the equivalent of one year of professional experience. However, a player can play a full season of professional baseball and not gain a year in status - a year of experience is defined by greater than 150 at-bats, 60 innings pitch, or 30 pitching appearances. Therefore, if Player A and Player B have both played three years in the Frontier League, but Player A has at-bat totals of 150, 150, 150, and player B has at-bat totals of 151, 151, 151, then player A is considered a Rookie and Player B is considered a Veteran.

Each team may have a maximum of 3 Veteran players, 2 LS2 players, 7 LS1 players, and the rest of the roster must be Rookies (teams may carry a minimum of 22 and a maximum of 24). Teams can carry a larger number in one classification if they carry a lesser number in a greater classification. In other words, if you only have 2 Veterans on your roster, you may have 3 LS2 players, and so on.

ADDITION OF ROOKIE-2 CLASSIFICATION FOR 2008

In 2008, the Frontier League will dividing the Rookie status into two - R1 and R2. An R1 is any player who has entered the Frontier League without previous professional experience. Players who are classified as an R1 will be classified as an R2 the following season no matter how many at-bats, innings, or pitching appearances they have. Players who enter the Frontier League with previous professional experience who have never had more than 150 at-bats, 60 innings, or 30 pitching appearances in a single season will be classified as an R2. Players will only move from R2 status to L1 status if they break the 150, 60, 30 thresholds.

HOW THE R2 CLASSIFICATION EFFECTS THE BEACH BUMS FOR 2008

The Beach Bums had several players that will benefit from the R2 classification this coming season. Players like Jeff Brown, Brett Bostelman, Jeff Williams, etc., will all be classified as R2s in 2008 whereas they would have been classified as L1s under the previous rules. That means that we won't have as many decisions to make as to who to bring back. Under the old rules, we would have had 11 or 12 players classified as L1s for only 7 spots, not including players that we would try to sign out of spring training. Under the new rules the only players that bumped up to the L1 status are RHP Tyler Meigs and LHP Tom Thornton.

BEACH BUMS OFF-SEASON RECAP

The Beach Bums will have some holes to fill this off-season as several talented players announced their retirements - shortstop Justin Holmes, catcher Matt Rademacher, third basemen Sam Orr, and pitchers Tony Casoli and Robbie McClellan have hung up their spikes for the 2008 season.

However, we've already signed two players who I think can greatly impact our squad in 2008 - LHP Jacob Cook and OF James Conrad. Cook pitched for James Madison University and was signed as an undrafted free agent by the Toronto Blue Jays. We've had a lot of good reports on Cook and he had a great first professional season for the Blue Jays, and the fact that he will come in classified as an R2 doesn't hurt either. He has experience as a starter, short relief, long relief, and closing, and we plan on using his versatility to our advantage. We think that Cook could be our version of Windy City's Isaac Hess, who won the MVP of the Frontier League Championship series.

Conrad caught my eye because of his speed - he ranked third in NCAA DI last season in steals (49 of 55). If you're a Beach Bums fan you know how valuable speed is in our outfield - we play in one of the biggest parks in all of professional baseball. A lot of people who look at the 320 markers down the lines don't understand how fast the park gets really deep - over 390 feet in the gaps - and poor outfielders get exposed very quickly. Conrad's coach at Lafayette University had nothing but good things to say about him and we have reports that he ran a 6.5 to 6.6 60-yard dash at tryouts this past summer (MLB average is around 6.9). He is no slouch with the bat either, and led his team at Lafayette with a .369 batting average while only striking out 16 times in 203 at-bats. He also finished 8th in country in runs scored with 67 in 52 games.

Even though we excited about our current roster, we should have a lot more player news after we turn the calendar to 2008, so make sure you stay tuned to the Beach Bums blog to get the inside scoop. You can send any questions to me at jason@tcbeachbums.com.

GO BEACH BUMS!

Jason

Frontier League Off-Season Preview

The Frontier League off-season has been fairly quiet up until this point, but since player transactions and trade talks usually start to heat up around the new year, here is a short recap to catch up Beach Bums' fans on what has been going on around the league in order of how the team's finished the 2007 season.

#1 - Windy City Thunderbolts - The 2007 Frontier League Champions have already lost a couple key members of their record breaking squad, losing starter pitcher Shawn Phillips and field manager Andy Haines to the Florida Marlins Organization. Phillips, who finished 2007 with a 2.45 ERA to go along with 100 strikeouts in 121 innings, will try to earn a spot in the starting rotation for the Marlins low A affiliate, the Greensboro Grasshoppers. Haines, who was the 2007 Frontier League Manager of the Year, leaves the Thunderbolts to be the team's Defensive Coordinator during extended spring training and hitting coach for the rookie ball level Gulf Coast Marlins. Haines will be replaced by Brian Nelson, who comes to Windy City after holding the same job as Haines did the year before, as the hitting coach for the Gary Railcats of the Northern League. Gary has won back-to-back Northern League Championships in 2006 and 2007.

#2 - Gateway Grizzlies - Besides announcing that they will be bringing back field manager Phil Warren, all has been quiet on the Gateway front this off-season. However, the Grizzlies will definitely have some decisions this off-season since they have eight players with either L2 or Veteran status and only five roster spots to squeeze them into. That isn't counting All-Star OF Jon Armitage, who ages out of the league in 2008.

#3 - Washington Wild Things - The Wild Things made national news this off-season when they offered Barry Bonds a 2008 Frontier League contract. Unfortunately, the game's all-time home run leader is a tad over the Frontier League's age limit.

In other news, the Wild Thing's top reliever in 2007, Travis Risser, was signed by the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. Risser was impressive with the Wild Things after finishing his senior year at Coastal Carolina University. Risser had a 4-2 record with a 1.06 ERA for the Wild Things in 2007.

#4 - Rockford Riverhawks - The Riverhawks haven't made any players moves yet this off-season, but they did announce a managerial shift. J.D. Arndt, who managed the Riverhawks in 2006 and 2007, will move back to his previous position as bench coach. The "new" manager of Rockford will be Bob Koopman. I say, "new," because Koopman was the bench coach for the Riverhawks the past two seasons and managed the team from 2002-2004 and won the 2004 Frontier League Championship.

#5 - Kalamazoo Kings - The King will lose three players to the Frontier League's 27 year old age limit this off-season, All-Star OF Chris Carter, submarine pitcher Dan Caldwell, and former Beach Bum Steve Shippey. Like the Grizzlies, the Kings will have some decisions to make soon as they have eight players classified as either LS2's or Veterans and only five spots to use.

#6 - Southern Illinois Miners - Southern Illinois will have some big shoes to fill when All-Stars Ralph Santana and Chris Hall age out of the league in 2008. Late season acquisition Andre Mashall will also age out next season.

The Miners have made one prominent move this off-season, getting OF/INF Brandon Jones from the Sioux City Explorers of the American Association to complete a trade that included Southern Illinois pitcher Robert Wooley last July. Jones is a Veteran who has played most of his career at 3B.

#7 - Chillicothe Paints - Chillicothe had one of the youngest teams in the Frontier League in 2008 and should be able to bring back just about everyone except Lance Koenig, who ages out of the league. Koenig spent part of the 2007 with the Beach Bums and the previous two seasons with the Washington Wild Things.

#8 - Traverse City Beach Bums - I will write a separate entry tomorrow to recap the Beach Bums off-season moves.

#9 - Florence Freedom - The 2008 season will be the end of the line for Frontier League perennial All-Star 1B Beau Blacken as he is the only one on the Florence roster to age out. Blacken spent four seasons in the Frontier League, spending time with Chillicothe, Evansville, and Florence.

#10 - River City Rascals - The best news for the Rascals this off-season was the Padres release of OF Phil Laurent. Frontier League teams hold the rights of any player who is signed by an affiliate team then later released. No official word on whether or not Laurent will rejoin the Rascals in 2008, but I assume that he will.

In 2007, Laurent tore up Frontier League pitching to the tune of a .341 average, .410 on-base percentage, and .610 slugging percentage. He had 14 doubles, 4 triples, and 12 home runs in only 57 games when he was picked by the Padres. Unfortunately, it doesn't look he he got much of a shot - he was sent to rookie ball and only appeared in 11 games the rest of the season, hitting .129 in just 31 at-bats.

#11 - Evansville Otters - The Otters did not renew the contract of field manager Jeff Pohl this off-season and promptly replaced him with Jason Verdugo. Verdugo, 32, comes to Evansville after being the head coach at NCAA DIII Hamline University and the pitching coach for the St. Paul Saints of the American Association.

Verdugo made a few quick changes to the Evansville roster, picking up catcher Chris Crescenzi as the player to be named in a trade that sent shortstop Mike Scanzano to the Sussex Skyhakws of the CanAm League (after Scanzano was traded to Sussex he was traded to Southern Illinois, where he was a Frontier League All-Star in 2007). In November, Evansville acquired two rookie outfielders from the St. Joe Blacksnakes of the American Association, Victor Burgos and Josh Jennings. This move completed a trade that sent catcher Ricky Clinton to St. Joe last off-season.

#12 - Midwest Sliders - The biggest change in the Frontier League in 2008 will be the conversion of the Slippery Rock Sliders to the Midwest Sliders. The Midwest Sliders will be a travel team, playing all 96 games on the road in 2008. With several expansion options on the horizon for the Frontier League, the Sliders should have a permanent home in 2009.

When the Sliders hit the road in 2008 it will be without two key members of their pitching staff. Left-handed starter Dan Schwartz and reliever Jared Simon were both signed by the Philapelphia Phillies this off-season. Schwartz and Simon joined the Sliders after finishing their college careers with Northwestern and Wichita State, respectively.

Welcome to the Beach Bums Insider!

Hey Beach Bums Fans, welcome to the new Official Blog of the Traverse City Beach Bums.

The Beach Bums staff will use this blog to help keep the Beach Bums Nation up to date on player signings, hot stove topics, upcoming promotions, events, and more!

We plan on updating this blog on a regular basis, so make sure you bookmark this page so you can keep up with what is going on at Wuerfel Park and with the Beach Bums all year round!

Jason