Kalter lives within driving distance to the Orange County ballpark and made his wishes known this off-season to play closer to home. He will hang up his bat in 2008 to concentrate strictly on pitching. Kalter pitched for USC, but was drafted as an outfielder by the Toronto Blue Jays in 2005 after his junior season. After putting up a terrific offensive year in Traverse City without being signed, Kalter sees pitching as his best opportunity to make it back into affiliated baseball.
In exchange for Kalter, the Beach Bums will receive C/OF Johnny Coit and a player to be named. Coit split the season between the St. George Roadrunners and the Orange County Flayers in 2007, his first as a professional. All together Coit hit .265 with 10 doubles, 2 triples, a home run and 22 RBI in 155 at-bats. Coit also has a good eye at the plate, drawing 21 walks against just 26 strikeouts, good for a .367 on-base percentage.
Coit was an outfielder in college and was converted to a catcher in pro ball. He did well in his first season as a backstop, leading the Golden League by throwing out over 30% of the runners who tried to steal against him. The Beach Bums plan to give Coit a look behind the plate and in the outfield.
6 comments:
That gives you Conrad, Whitesides, Epping and this new guy Coit for the outfield this year. What about some of the guys that played last year? I see Kalter and Garza are gone, are you considering bringing back Roblin and maybe even Dickerson?
Roblin and Dickerson are both coming back into training camp, and if I had to make a projection I would say Roblin, Epping, and Whitesides will be in our outfield, from left to right, on opening day. However, Conrad is a good ballplayer and might put some pressure on those three, and Dickerson improved a lot last season and may also make a run at a starting job. We will probably look to utilize Coit more behind the plate than in the outfield, but only time will tell. It will all depend on if they are in shape and how well they do in spring training.
I liked Dickerson, everytime he came into the game late in the game it seemed like something exciting was always going to happen...Even though he didnt play alot when he did play he played with alot of passion and emotion and was always willing to sign autographs and talk after games...I hope he makes the roster this year...
RC does play hard thast for sure. Jason quick question. Will Bostelman still be considered a rookie by league standards? I see on the frontier league site a lot of guys as R2 as status of 2007. Didnt know if R2 ment that they would be L1 for 2008 or still Rookie. Also Rembiez will be a L1 correct? Whats up with Hutting?
Mark -
Their is a new classification in the Frontier League starting in 2008 called R2 or rookie-2. This classification is for players who come into the Frontier League straight out of college (without previous pro experience). Under the new rules, these players will be classified as a "Rookie-2" during their 2nd season in the league regardless of at-bats, innings, or appearances.
Therefore, Bostelman, Rembisz, Jeff Williams, Jeff Brown, amongst others, will all be classified as Rookie-2 where they would have been in the LS-1 category in past years because they crossed the 150 at-bats, 30 appearances, or 60 innings pitched thresholds.
Basically, the rules gives guys straight out of college a free years to play in the league without moving up classification, which is huge for the player. Otherwise, we would have had quite a few decisions to make in the LS-1 classifications, but now we get to bring back almost our entire bullpen.
I will make a separate post regarding Hutting. That is going to take some serious explanation.
Jason Thanks for explaining the new rule. One more question though. Is there a certain number of R2 you can have? Or is it the same 13 rookies or R2 total?
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