Cape Cod League/Wareham
Let’s start off with a history lesson first. Can you tell us a little about the Cape Cod Baseball League and in particular about the Wareham Gatemen?
The Cape Cod Baseball League is an amateur collegiate baseball league based in 10 small towns around Cape Cod, Massachusetts. The league has its origins in the late 19th century, though most attribute the start date of the "modern" era of the CCBL to 1923. The Cape Cod Baseball League is one of eight officially sanctioned summer baseball leagues aided and recognized by both Major League Baseball and the NCAA. The Cape Cod League has been able to maintain its reputation as a premiere place for rising sophomores and rising juniors to showcase their talent for three major reasons. The first is the introduction of wooden bats. Many talented hitters struggle to make the adjustment from aluminum to wood, keeping batting averages low and favoring pitchers. This gives scouts the added advantage of seeing how the best hitters in the college game stack up using major league equipment. As it is often said, there are no cheap hits with wooden bats. The Cape Cod League's greatest advantage is the proximity of its teams to one another, as the longest possible trip between any two fields, Wareham to Orleans, is only 48 miles. This allows scouts to see multiple games in one night without having to travel far at all, in some cases less than 10 minutes from one field to the next. The combination of these two factors keeps the best talent in the college ranks coming back year after year, which gives the CCBL its greatest advantage. In this league, every pitcher is one of the best on his team, and the one through nine batters in the lineup are nearly all one through four hitters on their college squad. There is no way to duplicate the sheer quality of players on both sides of the diamond, which many scouts liken to A or AA minor league baseball.

Alex Dickerson
1) As of Tuesday morning, Alex is hitting just .203 with just a single homerun and only 8 RBI’s in 79 at-bats this summer. Can his struggles at the plate be attributed to wood bats and top notch pitching, or is there something else at play here?

2. Alex was almost exclusively a DH for the Hoosiers this season, but he has seen a lot of time in the outfield for the Gatemen this season. How has he played defensively? Do you see him as a guy who could potentially be an everyday outfielder come next season?
Especially for the Gatemen this season, it is a common occurrence to have players bounce around and start at different positions out of their comfort zone in the Cape Cod League. It's not surprising to hear that Alex was used mainly as a DH last year for Indiana, as his first couple of games out in left field were an adventure, to say the least. He dropped an easy fly ball in a preseason game against Holyoke and was crossed up a few other times early in the season, but he has committed only one error this year, which is tied for the least among regular outfielders. With the addition of Connor Rowe from Texas, Alex is playing less left field and seeing more games in the DH role over the last couple of weeks, but he is hardly a liability when he is out in the field. Though we haven't seen any highlight reel-worthy diving catches, he has made a couple of nice running grabs, and I don't think it would be out of the question to see him in the outfield in Bloomington this coming spring.
Blake Monar
1. Blake is probably the frontrunner heading into next season for the #1 spot in IU’s rotation. Aside from the stats he’s put up, what have you liked out of Blake so far this summer?

This season, Blake's success or failure has all ridden on the curve ball. Blake's fastball, compared to the other starters on the team and in the league, is below average in speed, generally falling somewhere in the high 80s to low 90s, but he possesses a devastating curve ball. When it has a sharp downward break, he is able to get hitters to chase at a ball that ends up in the dirt. This was the case in Blake's most recent outing, a no-decision against the Yarmouth-Dennis Red Sox where he pitched 7.1 innings, giving up one run on five hits, striking out seven against just one walk. The game ended in a 2-2 tie, but Blake exited with Wareham ahead 2-0. That occurred on July 12, and it was the longest outing by any Wareham starting pitcher all season when it happened. Further illustrating my earlier point about inconsistency, Blake has not started a ballgame since that July 12 outing. The trouble we have seen with Blake is the days where he is unable to throw his curveball regularly for strikes. The pitch has a tendency to stay up in the zone and tail away from right-handed hitters. If he can't get the strike called on his curve, it becomes easy for hitters to sit on the fastball, which is average to below average in speed, compared to other CCBL pitchers.
2. A good portion of the IU faithful probably don’t realize that Blake will be a draft eligible sophomore next season (since he is older for his class). That being said, have there been a lot of scouts in attendance when he pitches? Based on what you have seen out of Blake thus far, do you think he is a candidate to be taken in the higher rounds of next year’s draft and leave IU after only 2 seasons?
Being a 26th round pick out of high school, Blake already brought with him to Indiana (and to Wareham) a solid pedigree, and he has not hurt his stock a bit by coming to the cape and facing the toughest hitters in the country. He may get two or three more starts this season, depending on how Wareham chooses to manage its abundance of starting pitching down the stretch. One or two more outings like his last start against Yarmouth-Dennis will drop his ERA firmly back under three. Judging by his numbers (59 K in 77.2 IP) with the Hoosiers last season, it's not altogether surprising that he has mainly relied on his defense rather than racking up huge strikeout totals this year. I think being the top starter for Indiana this year is a role that Blake will relish, and looking at the pedigree of the 2009 Indiana draft class (two pitchers taken in the first and supplemental first round), Blake is in a spot to be noticed. Ultimately though, I think coming back for one more year on the cape, especially in a role where he could be the go-to guy in a rotation, for Wareham or another team, would serve Blake best in the long run. With a few extra starts under his belt, and the chance to establish some more consistency with his devastating off-speed pitch, Blake could be an all-star on the cape in 2010 if he elects not to sign.
Nice read.
ReplyDeleteDoing a great job on updating the Hoosiers and ex-Hoosiers this summer.
I've seen a few as I'm making my rounds through the GLSCL, and am working on a Q&A with Arnett for the Settlers, I'll pass it along to you if it comes together.
Good luck to all Hoosiers this summer.
Dickerson has most strikeouts on the team with 30 in only 83 at bats!
ReplyDeleteIf Monar can continue to sat in the high 80s/low 90s and show a good change this year to complement his curve and slider, he could be the polished college lefty that many pro teams look for.
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