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There’s Never Next Year

The Sportsman’s bespectacled duo (i.e. “nerds” -Ed.) of Thomas King and Danny Woytek are back this April as hope springs eternally once again in our fair city. The hope to which we refer can only be manifested in baseball’s reemergence from its winter hibernation. The hometown team and San Diego Padres AAA affiliate, your Portland Beavers, have also emerged from slumber and opened the 2010 season this past week at PGE Park in downtown Portland with a two-series homestand against the Sacramento Bees and the Colorado Spring Sky Sox. During the April 16th matchup between the Beavers and Sky Sox, Thomas and Danny were present to take a gander at the new incarnation of the beloved-if-sometimes-forgotten Beavers (with Photos by Sage Corson).

BEAVERS LAST SEASON IN PORTLAND?

So why the bittersweet mood around the park on what should have been a festive opening home stand night game? Why the sparse crowd? Well, as you almost certainly know, the 2010 season is likely the Beavers’ last here in Portland, and is certainly the last in the handsome confines of PGE (nee Civic Stadium, nee Multnomah Stadium), which will soon be converted into a full-time Major League Soccer facility to house the 2011 Timbers.

Frankly, the lack of updates on the Beavers’ 2011 situation is noteworthy and, in an age where news, rumor, and innuendo swirl like infield dirt on a windy day, downright strange. What’s the story, Paulson? Are you seriously considering Tucson as a temporary solution? Are the desperate efforts of Portland’s baseball fans truly dead? And what about the mysterious Portland Beavers Ballpark? As far as we can tell, every potential location thus far has been analyzed and roundly rejected, whether because of inaccessible location, lack of required square footage, or spotted owls. So here’s a short list of places the Beavers will not play in 2011: Memorial Coliseum; Mayor Adams’s proposed Rose Quarter vacant lots; Lents Park; and, well, PGE. So where might they actually lay chalk lines? Other than Tucson? We’ve got the Port of Portland and Delta Park, Clackamas and Beaverton, Portland’s Meadows or Expo Center. And the only news we can find from 2010, which is already four months old, comes from our neighbors up north (no, not that far north) in Vancouver, Wash. I don’t know about you, reader, but to me Vancouver smacks of Cougars rather than Beavers.

So here we are with nothing special to report on the stadium front. Our advice for fans of America’s Pastime? Bring the family on down to PGE for a coupla’ home games this year and soak up the best baseball being played this side of Tacoma. Could be the best baseball we see in these parts for years to come.

BEAVERS TO WATCH

While in the lavatory during Wednesday’s Beavers baseball game I heard play-by-play announcer Rich Burk mention that the Beavers were building their roster this year around defense and team speed. With the departure of Kyle Blanks to MLB and Chad Huffmann to outright release there might not be much mashing going on at PGE this season, but what you will see are some players who can go get it in the field and snag bags on the base paths. Below are profiles of some of the Beavers regulars this season:

Lance Zawadzki-SS
One of the more interesting prospects in Portland this year, Zawadzki is a former 15th round pick by St. Louis who is making his AAA debut in 2010. Last season Zawadzki split time between high-A Lake Elsinore of the California League and AA San Antonio of the Texas League. While a little old for his level last year he showed some solid stuff at the plate. Slashing an impressive .285/.369/.456 with 15 home runs and 17 stolen bases in 19 tries between Cali and Texas in ’09, he moves up to Portland this year and if he can replicate those numbers in P-town this year he could have a chance at the big club in ’11, especially considering the relative lack of depth in the middle infield in San Diego.

Luis Durango-CF
A classic astroturf era centerfielder and lead-off man, Luis Durango is a slight, speedy Panamanian and a player that shows up in Dusty Baker’s lead-off man wet dreams. Luis possess good on-base skills, walking more than he struck out in ’09 in AA San Antone, but hits for little power (3 career dongers). His primary weapon, speed, also needs to be refined a bit as he was thrown out 17 times in 61 attempts last season, but it should be fun trying to terrorize opposing catchers. Hopefully he’ll be on base enough to make it fun. You can’t steal first!

Aaron Cunningham-OF
A former 6th round pick and piece in Dan Haren’s trade from Oakland to Arizona, Cunningham comes to the Padres organization and the Portland Beavers from Oakland and is repeating AAA having spent some time at this level for portions of the last three years. While this might scream career minor leaguer to some, we don’t go negative here at the Portland Sportsman. Cunningham mashed it pretty hard last year in the Pacific Coast League at Sacramento last year, achieving a line of .302/.372/.479 in 83 games last year, including 24 doubles and 11 dongpieces. He’ll be manning the corners in the outfield for Portland this year. Stop by and say hello.

Dusty Ryan-C
The largest of all regulars this season for the Beavers, the 6’4” Ryan is an offensively inclined catcher who probably doesn’t hit quite enough to make up for his defensive deficiencies. Hopefully, improving his defense this year is priority one and if he can hit the same in his repeat season as he did in his first (.257/.359/.455) he might get a go as a catcher.

GAME REPORT

The story of the game Wednesday night could be summed up with two words: Samuel Deduno. Deduno, the tenth ranked prospect in the Colorado Rockies organization, featured a heavy downward breaking fastball and a nast curve piece that silenced Beaver bats. Deduno didn’t miss many bats, though, as he only recorded one strikeout against three walks in five innings, but when the Beavers made contact they were worm burners. Eleven of the fifteen outs Deduno recorded were via the ground ball, which are inherently less dangerous for pitchers than fly balls.

Offensively, the Sky Sox 2nd baseman jacked a 7th inning donger that distanced the Sky Sox from the Beavers. Josh Geer pitched admirably for the Beavers, surrendering six hits and two runs across six innings, but couldn’t get the Beaver offense to support him as the Beavers offensive highlights included a triple by Chris Denorfia, who then scored the Beavers’ initial run on a Mike Baxter triple hit almost exactly in the same spot in PGE’s right center field gap.

Ultimately Colorado Springs bullpen, led by Edgmer Escalona, Shane Lindsay and Juan Rincon, pitched four innings of one-run relief and striking out four Beavers on their way to a 5-2 victory.

TALKING TRIPLE-A: HOW DOES THIS WORK?

Thomas King: Good evening, Daniel. It’s great being back with you in the ether, writing baseball articles into the great server cloud in the sky and paring down our nonsense into readable insights for Portland’s sporting crowd.

Danny Woytek: Indeed! It’s a great year for baseball. Let’s play 140!

Thomas: As you recall the two of us were present at PGE park last Wednesday for an early tilt in this, the presumed final Portland-bound season for our Portland Beavers.

Danny: Absolutely. My recall ain’t what it used to be, but I believe the most substantive discussions surrounded the way professional baseball organizations treat the AAA rosters, and how different they look depending on their parent major league affiliate.

Thomas: Exactly. Let’s be forthright here for our readers’ benefit: during that conversation I found myself ignorant of the subtleties inherent in the operation of at MLB farm systems, while your understanding of prospects has really blossomed in the past couple of years. So forgive me for playing mouthpiece for the common fan. From my perpective, logic would dictate that AAA teams would be comprised of the 25 best players who didn’t make the majors, right? All the second-best players at all positions? Why is that not the case?

Danny: It’s pretty interesting that at the beginning of the season there were no highly touted prospects in the game Wednesday. There are some highly touted prospects in the Pacific Coast League this season (Michael Taylor, Chris Carter, Brett Wallace). Many of the young prospects tend to start the season in AA (Aroldis Chapman, Stephen Strasburg) while the AAA teams across baseball tend to be filled with older, lower ceiling prospects and roster fillers. My inclination is to believe that organizations tend to fill their AAA rosters with guys who provide depth in case the major league team suffers a rash of injuries.

Thomas: Let’s put more context around this so readers understand the root of our conversation. You and I were looking at Baseball America’s “Top 30″ prospects in the Padres’ organization, and we noticed that a mere five of those top 30 were on the Beavers roster (and very few of those top 30 were on the 40-man roster, which subject we’ll broach later). What’s the logic behind those top 30 lists, and why wouldn’t a MLB team want those prospects going against what would presumably be the best competition, other AAA teams?

Danny: I think that unlike athletes in most sports, baseball players need time to refine their skills. Because of that, and the fact that many of these top prospects are still quite young, they are matched to the level at which the organization believes they can compete while building strength and skill. Baseball is a sport in which players peak performance comes later compared to other sports (say, years 26 through 31 in baseball, as opposed to the earlier twenties in other sports). The wide range of skills required necessitates minor league baseball. It can be a tough game mentally and I think organizations are wary of pushing guys because they think it can negatively affect future performance.

Thomas: Let’s look at the careers of baseball’s current veteran stars, especially the ones who seem to have been in the Big Leagues forever, like Derek Jeter, Albert Pujols, David Wright. Are there common threads to their minor league experience, trends that can give us insight into how farm systems produce the major, position-dominating, ten-year All Stars? For example, how long did Derek Jeter stay in the minors before taking his place firmly in the Yankee infield?

Danny: Jeter was in the minors for three years after being drafted out of high school. He made his major league debut in ’95 at age 21 and his first full season was ’96. And that is the idea we were discussing is the really awesome baseball players don’t actually spend that much time at triple A because I think the competition is not that different than AA. The big jumps in the minors tend to be from low A ball to AA and from AAA to the majors with small jumps in between.

Thomas: Of those three minor league season, what is Jeter’s level breakdown? Meaning, how many games at A, AA, and AAA? (Corresponding to some very young years, 18 years old until 21 years old?

Danny: Basically his first year after being drafted in June he went from Rookie ball to low A. His first full year of professional baseball he went from high A all the way to AAA Columbus. He spent another full season in Columbus in 95 and it looks like he got a September call up to the Yankees at the end of the 95 season. That’s pretty remarkable.

Thomas: So Columbus fans got the treat, if rare, of seeing a full season of a future Hall of Famer.

Danny: But a player like Pujols spent less time in the minors playing one season in three levels of the minors after being drafted as a Junior College player. I actually remember him playing in Peoria in the summer ’00 while I was there in college.

Thomas: Could you tell he was a special player?

Danny: I only saw him once. He played 3rd base and I just remember thinking how much bigger he was than everybody. Same thing when I saw Edgar Renteria and Charles Johnson playing A ball near Chicago when I was growing up.

Thomas: (Personal note: as a Cardinals fan, I just love that Albert played under the KC Royals’ nose and still got past their talent scouts, all the way down to the 13th round, where St. Louis nabbed him.)

Thomas: Can we safely say a picture begins to emerge, wherein upcoming, major baseball talents are as likely — if not more likely — to spend time in A or AA than in AAA? And if so, doesn’t that beg the question: what is the product AAA teams can sell their cities and fans?

Danny: I think for casual fans, baseball at the different levels looks relatively the same. Casual baseball fans probably don’t read Baseball America’s prospects book compulsively either. It’s fun to go to baseball games, especially when the weather gets nice. What I do think puts the Beavers team at a disadvantage in terms of drawing fans to the park is that there is no geographically proximal MLB team with whom the Beavers are affiliated. I’m sure the Rainers in Tacoma get more interest because the fans know that they could be watching future Mariners. But the Padres for Portland residents….not so much.

Thomas: I always thought that put an added pressure on the Beavers; essentially, they need to take the place of MLB baseball without an MLB marketing budget or personal resources. Do you agree? It’s as if, in a way, we’re watching the end result rather than an exciting moment in time for future stars (i.e., future local Major Leaguers).

Danny: That makes sense to me. Although I’m not sure how much longer we’ll be watching that end result.

Thomas: Indeed, it’s bittersweet being in the ball park this year. We might erase this later, because it’s a bit dire, but the 2010 Beavers have a lot of things going against them: (likely) last season, AAA for a middling franchise, a roster that’s less than packed with future stars, and so on. But I loved being at the PGE, just watching baseball played at a really high level.

Danny: The crazy thing is that within a year or two there could be some pretty awesome players coming through Portland if the team sticks around. There are some good prospects in the Padres organization, its just that the major league team and their lower level minor league team has them all.

Thomas: Right. I guess we should clarify some of the previous statement and assumptions. It’s like the Padres organization is in a perfect storm against the potential of a talented AAA team.

Danny: At least in terms of positional players. There are some interesting pitchers here in Portland this year.

Thomas: That brings us to another strange Padres issue: just look at the 40-man roster. It’s chock full of pitchers and almost devoid of position players. What does that tell you? And who would you look for from the AAA rotation and bullpen to make an impact on the Big club this year? (Hint, hint, Beavers fans: buy tickets to the games these players start! Heck, buy a private box.)

Danny: Oh boy! invectives! Write these names down, reader:
Ryan Webb: Tall guy
Wade LeBlanc: Junk baller extraordinaire
Radhames Liz: Has averaged nearly a K per inning for his career (That’s good)

Thomas: Okay, on that note we should apply the breaks and leave our readers hanging on for a season-long teasing out of interesting facts, philosophical insight, and tantalizing tangents.

Danny: That’s a deal. See you all at the ballpark!

FOUL BALLS!

In what we hope to be a mainstay of the Sportsman’s Beavers coverage, the Foul Balls! feature will include items of ephemera that will hopefully provide the reader with information that brings her or him closer to the feelings being felt during game action at PGE Park. (In this instance Foul Balls! will include information about foul balls.)

Press Box Menu:

• Chicken Strips
• Curly Fries
• Mixed Greens
• Cookies
• Assorted soft drinks, coffee, hot cocoa

Actual foul balls!:

Portland baseball’s most famous magnanimous analyst, Rob Neyer, retrieved one of the deadly foul balls from the press box in the 8th inning of the game against the Sky Sox. Because he is the most generous and giving of sabermetricians, Neyer was intent on giving the ball to a youngster. But because the game was so sparsely attended and because in the 8th many of the young attendees were only dreaming of baseball, Neyer spent nearly five minutes trying to give a foul ball away. To Rob Neyer we say, “kudos” and also, “it shouldn’t have been so hard to give that ball away.”

As an added incentive for Portlanders to start attending more Beavers games, the writers would like to note that, due to the extremely high number of foul balls smacked during the game, every single fan left the field with at least one game-used foul ball. The freebies nearly came at a high cost, though, as we noted at least a dozen whizzing batted balls that came within inches of hitting real live people. A sampling: eight (count ‘em, eight) line drive fouls that came just over the netting, past the press box, finally to rattle around a “luxury” box filled with screaming fans; a seemingly harmless high foul that caromed off the roof and came plumb down at great speed only to bounce off an empty seat two over from a lone grandmother who continued to look out on the field munching her Cracker Jack as if nothing had happened; a liner into first base side that slammed into an empty seat between two senior couples; a high, straight-back foul that ricocheted off the boxes and back into the seats, narrowly missing the backs of several unsuspecting heads; and two harmless pop-ups that landed in the middle of the game’s most crowded section, which was filled with the youngsters (and their families) who sang the National Anthem to get things started. Near-disaster in all quarters. But don’t fret, potential fans, the end result was a serious run of gratis souvenirs.

GAME SOUNDTRACK

Beavers take the field: Thunderstruck by AC/DC
Pre-player intro: Immigrant Song by Led Zeppelin
Post base on balls song: Walk this Way by Run DMC (featuring Aerosmith)
Beginning 3rd inning music: Beat It by Michael Jackson
Post 7th inning stretch: Louie Louie by The Kingsmen
Probably un-paid-for crowd pleaser: Blue Orchid by the White Stripes
Token Irish-American player intro music: I’m Shipping Up to Boston by Dropkick Murphy’s

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