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The most recent former Independent player to reach the major leagues—the 33rd this season—is hurler Jerome Williams, who was the ace of the Lancaster (PA) Barnstormers only a little more than two months ago. He allowed two hits in two-thirds of an inning in his 2011 major league debut with the Los Angeles Angels Wednesday fresh off a 6-0, 2.91 start of the season in Lancaster and a 7-2, 3.91 performance as a starter with Salt Lake City.
Robert Coello has only been pitching for four years after starting his professional career as a respected catching prospect, but the 6-foot-5, 250-pound right-hander no doubt is the envy of many of the other products of the Independent Baseball leagues who have their nameplates posted on a dressing cubicle in a major league clubhouse during these early days of spring training.
Coello may not have felt like being envied a few days ago when the Boston Red Sox, for whom he made his major league debut last September, designated him for assignment. That all changed earlier this week when the Red Sox swapped the 26-year-old to the Chicago Cubs because he moved from obviously not being in overly high regard with talent-rich Boston to the organization with the second poorest relief earned run average (4.72) among all 30 teams one year ago.
This will shock some, but it turns out while neither of the supposed top two bidders won Cliff Lee’s heart, the New York Yankees did beat out the Texas Rangers for one player. The Bombers got Mark Prior, the onetime National League All-Star (Chicago Cubs), a free agent who had been in Texas’s system at the end of the season. Prior got a minor league deal with the Yankees, but it includes a spring training invitation with the big club as he tries to take the final comeback step, which started in the Golden League (Orange County) in August. A mere unearned run plus 22 strikeouts in 11 innings with the Flyers convinced Texas to give him a chance.
We have pinpointed at least two worthy candidates who could break into the major leagues for the first time in 2011, but even if they make it they will have some distance to travel before they nudge this year’s best headline-maker into the shadows. Big John Lindsey continues to do and say the things that made the Los Angeles Dodgers so full of praise of the 16-year minor leaguer who made the climb to the National League in September.
The new focus is on a pair of 6-foot-6 or taller right-handed pitchers who are staring the major leagues in the face because they have been promoted to the prideful 40-man roster level, which means when spring training gets here in mid-February they will have lockers alongside those who already have earned household name status.
While some stories had pointed to a decision in the middle of this week on the fate of the dozen or so teams without more than a four-team league in which to operate next season and the Golden League had projected an announcement for today (Thursday), I cannot help but believe Monday’s Frontier League ownership meeting outside of Chicago (Orland Park) may hold much of the key.
That conclusion comes about since the four remaining Northern League teams have applied to the Frontier to join the 12-team Midwestern circuit and one of them, Joliet, IL, seems totally determined that is the league where it wants the JackHammers to land. The Herald News is reporting a group of investors, including current minority stockholder Alan Oremus, has reached a tentative agreement to buy the cash-strapped Joliet team. “We’re all still very positive,” City Manager Thomas Thanas told the newspaper. Thanas and Councilman Thomas Giarrante, who bluntly told The Herald News “we want to be in the Frontier League”, plan to be on site to lobby for admission to the 18-year-old league.
Ken Joyce was talking mile a minute. He had input for any of my questions, many times offering more than I knew to ask. How he got started in baseball, his time in the Florida Marlins and Toronto Blue Jays organizations, the big names he has worked with, his years managing and coaching in Independent leagues.
He had every reason to be excited. Who wouldn’t be?
Joyce is now part of the San Francisco Giants baseball operation. The World Champion Giants.
The quality of players—especially pitchers—within Independent leagues has been reinforced one more time this fall in two significant ways. Five hurlers with Indy experience are in the major league-operated Arizona Fall League, which is primarily limited to true prospects, while at least nine more players have been gobbled up by major league organizations since the season ended. Six of those also are pitchers.
It is early for statistics to mean a lot within the AFL although Seattle prospect Tom Wilhelmsen, who was at Tucson (Golden League) in ’09 and was a combined 7-1, 2.19 for three Mariners farm clubs after being converted to a starter this season, has eight strikeouts and has allowed only two hits in his first four innings spread over two appearances.
The others include Brandon Kintzler of Milwaukee (St. Paul, MN, American Association, and Winnipeg, Northern League at the time) and Justin James of Oakland (Kansas City, KS, then in Northern), who finished the regular season in the major leagues. Oakland also has Mike Benacka, who started his pro career at River City, O’Fallon, MO, Frontier League), while Continental League (Bay Area) grad Brandon Sisk is in the Kansas City system.
This may be the most important period for Independent Baseball since it started in 1993. Make it the most important ever since not all that much was really expected when the first two professional leagues of non-major league-affiliation formed 18 years ago.
That’s a bold statement, to be sure, but this is what seems to be happening, with much of it still not announced:
The Hall of Fame is the next stop for the Brockton (MA) Rox cap Bill (Spaceman) Lee wore when the 63-year-old stunned most everyone by pitching into the sixth inning of a recent Can-Am League game. The cap is likely to go into the Records Room when it opens next year, the Rox believe, although it will be on display elsewhere in the Cooperstown, NY shrine earlier since Lee is the oldest pitcher ever to get credit for a victory in a professional game.
Strengthened by the addition of two more teams in the Northern League and with gains reported in three other leagues, Independent Baseball attendance climbed back above eight million fans for the 2010 regular season. It is the third time in four years the non-affiliated clubs have drawn above that level, this time finishing at 8,130,646. Last year’s count was 7,965,235.
The Atlantic League, which plays a much longer schedule and had three of the top six clubs luring the most fans on a per-game basis, continued to set the pace in attendance, this season drawing 2,151,416 spectators to go over 23 million for its 13 seasons. The 12-team Frontier League (1,498,061) was at the top for the other seven leagues which play, at most, 100 games per team. The Northern League (1,478,694) was right behind with the addition of Lake County (Zion, IL) and Rockford, IL, both of whom topped 125,000.
The influx of Independent Baseball players into the majors this month has been exciting, and it is much more than a pure numbers game. Think about these feats, which should have every non-affiliated player, executive and fan jumping for joy:
Former Chicago Cubs phenom and National League All-Star Mark Prior used a month with Orange County (Fullerton, CA) to get his once highly-touted career back on target. Prior, 42-29 in the majors, struck out half the 44 Golden League hitters he faced in nine relief appearances (11 innings, five hits, five walks, one unearned run) before Texas purchased his contract. Prior, who turned 30 this week, pitched one scoreless inning for Oklahoma City (two hits, two strikeouts), which now is in the Pacific Coast League playoffs.
“He came here to face competitive baseball and see if his arm would hold up, and he passed that initial test,” said Flyers Manager Paul Abbott.
