College Baseball Starts Practice: It’s the most wonderful time of the year

First off, this song is stuck in my head.

Second off, happy first day of spring practice!

For all you seamheads out there, like myself, this is by far one of my favorite days of the year (besides CWS, Opening Day of the MLB, and Opening Day for the CCBL). Baseball America posted their college rankings recently, and, since I’m clearly biased towards this right now, Vanderbilt is ranked No. 10.

(BA ranks a team’s “stuff” the same way scouts do prospects, on a 50-80 scale). Despite losing a huge number of players, Vandy ranked up as “above average” in most all categories. They are a solid team, albeit young, but more importantly, I am REALLY excited to go to the press conference…oh…now.

But before I bolt, I have one more tidbit for you. The Cape League released their current rosters. I’ll get into more depth with them later, but here’s the link now. The rosters will change immensely over the next few months as different factors play into eligibility to play on the Cape, but y’all can still enjoy browsing which team is getting kids from where!

 

Hyannis releases 2012 roster

I might be a few days behind on this one, because it’s been pretty hectic here in Nashville with my teams getting underway with their spring seasons, but Hyannis released their roster.

Surprisingly, there are NO returning players for the Hawks, who went from being the basement joke for two years to absolutely dominating last season. (Actually, I was really surprised not to see a few of them returning, until I realized that it was an older team last year and most of them will be draft-eligibile this spring. Twenty-three of them, in fact, plus probably a few more based on age).

That said, onto the players:

Hyannis has two kids from East Carolina coming in, outfielder Ben Fultz, and freshman right hander Jeff Hoffman. Fultz hit .303 in 54 games played and was a starter for 46 of them. He’s a reliable outfield guy, but impatient at the plate, judging by his 44 strikeouts and 19 walks. He’s certainly capable of hitting for power–he has 4 HRs to his 2011 spring season, and a respectable 26 RBIs in that mix.

I’m excited to see the three players from Auburn, the three from Stanford, and the UConn guy, for the following reasons: Auburn is in the SEC, so I’ll get an opportunity to see these guys play Vanderbilt this spring, I have a lot of respect for Mark Marquess and the program that he’s built over the years, and UConn has sent a good group of guys to the Cape for years.

From Auburn, Hyannis gets Zach Alvord (So., SS), Blake Austin (So., C), and Bobby Andrews (So., OF). Andrews will provide a decent bat for the Hawks, having hit .396 last year (second best on his Tigers team), but being so young he saw only a fraction of the at bats of everyone else–53, to be exact. In fact, they’re all young. But, they play for the SEC, which is easily one of the best conferences in the nation. (I’d say the best, but I realize, working for an SEC school right now, I’m biased hah).

Stanford pitcher Sahil Bloom is actually pretty local–a Weston, MA kid. Played for the NECBL Mystics last summer, a star reliever who has a 0.55 career ERA at Stanford in 12.0 innings. Cardinal teammate Brett Michael Doran, who also played with the Mystics with Bloom last summer, is a sophomore infielder with a .286 average in ten freshmen appearances. Then there’s 15th round draft pick Dominic Jose, a talented young freshman outfielder.

Check out the rest of their roster. Season starts soon! (Okay not soon enough.)

By the way: they’re doing a Hot Stove fundraiser this weekend. Check out their page, support the team!

Orleans sprucing up, on and off field

The Orleans Firebirds have a new website design, and I won’t lie, I love it. It’s so much crisper, easier to navigate than the old one, and it just LOOKS awesome. I don’t know who took the photos, but they’re beautiful and really encapsulates the work that the organization has put into their field in the last year. With new dugouts, new infield, netting, and a good backstop, the Firebirds have improved on a field that I already count in my top ten (get it, there are ten teams…but really, it’s one of my favorite parks in the league).

Check out the site!