FAYETTEVILLE,
N.C.—The Coastal Plain League staged its annual all-star game here
Monday. Some 2,600 fans took in the event, which was won in dramatic
fashion in the top of the ninth inning when Morehead City first
baseman Zach Stephens (Tennessee Tech) launched a two-run homer that
turned a 2-1 deficit into a 3-2 win for the National CPL all-star
squad.
Stephens
earned game MVP honors with the blast, and temporarily stepped out of
the shadows of his more-celebrated Morehead City teammate Chase
McDonald (East Carolina), who is closing in on a Coastal Plain League
triple crown as he leads the 15-team circuit in batting average
(.413), is tied for the lead with 38 RBIs and is second in homers
(10). By contrast, Stephens is hitting a more modest .279-5-22.
Stephens
and McDonald share the first-base duties for Morehead City, and
teamed up again at the position for the National all-stars. The
powerful 6-foot-4, 260-pound McDonald started at first and drove in
the first run for his team with a fourth-inning single, which helped
erase an early 2-0 American all-star lead. That set the stage for
Stephens, who took over first base from McDonald in the sixth inning.
After
Edenton outfielder Brian Blasik (Dayton) opened the decisive final
inning with a single for the National team, Stephens turned on a
fastball from Gastonia's Derek Epps (Northwestern Oklahoma State),
whose 10 saves were second in the league, and drove his game-winning,
two-run homer far beyond the left-field fence.
“I
knew it was gone,” said Stephens, “I wanted to get a good pitch
that I could drive and I did."
Power trio stands out
Much
as the power-hitting McDonald was upstaged in the Coastal Plain
League all-star game by his own teammate, so were the likes of other
all-stars like Wilmington outfielder Daniel Aldrich, Peninsula
outfielder Jake Cave and Edenton second baseman Joe Wendle.
Cave
started the game at first base for the American squad and went
1-for-2 with an uneventful first-inning single. Aldrich and Wendle
were non-factors, as well, as they got just one at-bat apiece while
playing in reserve roles.
Though
all three were essentially lost in the shuffle in a game that saw all
58 players selected to the event actually participate in the game,
Aldrich, Cave and Wendle have been the talk of the Coastal Plain
League this summer, for vastly different reasons.
Cave excels despite youth
At
18, Cave was not only the youngest player in the all-star game, but
is one of only two recent high-school graduates who are playing in
the CPL this summer.
Cave,
in fact, became the first high-school product ever to play in the
Coastal Plain League after league officials amended by-laws last
off-season to allow the inclusion of high-school talent. The
Peninsula Pilots are the only team to take advantage of the new
talent source for the 2011 season.
The
Pilots jumped at the chance to sign Cave, who hit .609 as a
high-school senior at Kecoughtan High, along with Menchville High’s
Deshorn Lake. Both players are Tidewater area products and were
ranked 1-2 in this year’s Virginia prep class. Cave was
subsequently selected in the sixth round of the 2011 draft by the New
York Yankees, Lake in the 12th round by the Boston Red
Sox.
“It
was just dumb luck that the two best high-school kids in Virginia
were right in our back yard,” Peninsula coach Hank Morgan, “but
both Jake and Deshorn have done a good job of adapting to the league.
They’re learning how to handle themselves over a long season in a
short period of time.”
Cave went 4-for-4 in his first game with the Pilots and has hardly slowed
down as he was third in the league at the all-star break with a .384
batting average.
“I
was a little skeptical at first that I could play at this level,”
Cave said, “but I got in a groove at the plate pretty quickly and I
feel like I can play with these guys now. Playing here this summer
has given me a much better idea what I can expect at the next level.”
Cave’s
performance to date has not gone unnoticed by scouts and league
coaches as he is the consensus top prospect in the CPL this summer,
according to most observers.
“He’s
the best prospect, no doubt,” says Outer Banks coach Andy
Schatzley. “He has the arm strength and he can run, and he
definitely has the power. He hit one ball in our park to the opposite
field that went over the scoreboard. Plus, he’s a very savvy
player.”
Morgan
was a little more hesitant in labeling one of his own players as the
league’s best talent, but left little doubt that Cave has a bright
future.
“If
he’s not No. 1,” Morgan said, “then he’s definitely in the
conversation. He appears to have all it takes to be a significant
player one day.”
Cave
might have been drafted as early as the second round this year had he
not been so set on attending college at Louisiana State, but the
Yankees are expected to make a concerted push to sign Cave as the
Aug. 15 signing deadline approaches. To date, the Yankees have seen
Cave perform several times this summer, but have not made a
meaningful overture to get him under contract as they known it will
take a bonus significantly above the recommended slot to have any
chance to sign him.
“The
Yankees have contacted me,” Cave acknowledged, “but there’s
been no pressure for me to sign yet. They’ve been cool about it the
way they’ve handled things. I expect everything will come to a head
as the Aug. 15 deadline approaches.
“Right
now, LSU is what I know. I’ve been in constant contact with coach
(Paul) Mainieri.”
Oddly,
Cave drew plenty of attention from scouts over his last two years in
high school for his exploits as both a pitcher and outfielder, but
started Monday’s all-star game for the American team at first base.
He
has spent most of the latter part of the summer for the Pilots
playing in the outfield, mostly in center field, but started the
season at first base while the team awaited the arrival of University
of Virginia first baseman Jared King from the College World Series.
Consequently, Cave was put on the all-star ballot as a first baseman,
only to be selected to start there.
“He
played a lot of first base in high school,” Morgan said, “so he
can handle himself there. He definitely projects as a center fielder
at the next level.”
Cave
might have pitched considerably more than he has so far, but at the
request of the Yankees, he has curtailed his pitching duties this
summer. In three outings, spanning five innings, he had yet to allow
a run.
If
Cave ends up in college at LSU, he will almost certainly be a two-way
player for the Tigers. Should he end up signing with the Yankees, he
will almost certainly become a position player only.
“He’s
such an impact hitter,” Morgan said. “He stepped right in here,
with no adjustments. He has looked like he belonged from the very
start.”
Wendle leads No. 1 Steamers
The
CPL’s Edenton Steamers are the nation’s No. 1-ranked
summer-league team, according to the latest weekly Perfect Game Top
25 summer-league rankings. And no player has been more responsible
for the team’s unlikely success than unheralded second baseman Joe
Wendle (West Chester, Pa.), perhaps the top candidate for league MVP
honors.
Though
he wasn’t selected to start at second base for the National squad
in the all-star game after being passed over in this year’s
baseball draft as a junior out of Division II West Chester (Pa.),
Wendle tops the CPL in runs (40), hits (65) and on-base percentage
(.478). He is also second in batting average (.406) and fourth in
RBIs (31).
“He’s
a very solid player in every phase of his game, and very unselfish in
his approach,” Edenton coach Dirk Kinney said. “He can put spin
on a ball and turn on it, or go the other way when the situation
dictates. But overall, he doesn’t profile that well for scouts as
there is nothing he really does that is above-average.
“As
a Division II player, he has fallen under the radar a bit, but he
should be an excellent senior sign a year from now.”
Kinney,
a former Arkansas-Little Rock assistant who will assume a scouting
job in the Midwest following the CPL season, has a whole roster of
mainly obscure players who are cut from the same mould as Wendle, and
credits the team’s blue-collar approach as the biggest reason for
his team’s strong showing this summer. Overall, the Steamers are
33-9 and rolling in the second half with a 14-1 mark.
“I
got into an argument the other day with someone who maintained that
we need more players from big-name schools on our roster,” he said,
“and I told him that’s not how I recruit my teams. I like
small-school guys. They play hard, and our success this year has come
because we play so hard.”
Aldrich's power on display
Though
Aldrich struck out in his only all-star game at-bat, and has
struggled at the plate most of the summer for Wilmington, hitting
just .264-3-30 with 45 strikeouts (second in the league), the College
of Charleston outfielder put on a show in the CPL’s Home Run Derby
Sunday.
He
ran away with the competition by slugging a CPL Derby record-tying 18
homers, many of them tape-measure shots.
Aldrich’s
closest challenger, Forest City’s Axel Johnson (Texas Christian),
entered the final round trailing Aldrich by four home runs. However,
he only hit two more long balls in the championship round, resulting
in an easy win for Aldrich. A total of 16 competitors from the
league’s 15 teams took part in the event.
It
was the second Home Run Derby title this summer for Aldrich, who also
won the prestigious TD Ameritrade Home Run Derby July 3 in Omaha,
Neb., which is held in conjunction with the College World Series.
Aldrich’s
father, Charles, who pitched to him in Omaha, was on hand to pitch to
his son again in Fayetteville. Of the 18 homers Aldrich launched, 16
were hit with a wood bat and two with aluminum.
Aldrich
credits his dad’s steady, familiar delivery for all the success he
has enjoyed this summer.
“My
dad’s been throwing to me all my life, and I got good pitches to
hit,” he said. “He knows where the strong spots in my hitting
zone are.”
Wilmington
coach Chris Younger says Aldrich has more raw power than anyone in
the CPL this summer, and more than any player he has been around in
years.
“His
numbers don’t show it, though,” Youngberg said. “He’s still
working on his swing. As a freshman, he gets impatient. He’s also
been impacted by the conditions in Wilmington, where every night the
wind howls in from right field.
“That’s
held him down, but he’s got a swing you can’t teach. He is
something to watch when he gets in a rhythm and swings at pitches in
the zone. He even tends to be at his best against better pitching as
he hits better against pitchers with higher velocity.”
Aldrich,
who initially committed to Wake Forest before transferring to the
College of Charleston, near his home in Mt. Pleasant, S.C., missed
all of the spring and summer seasons of his freshman season as he
underwent shoulder surgery.
After
a strong 2011 college season as a red-shirt freshman at Charleston,
where he hit a robust .347-22-73 and was a consensus All-American,
Aldrich has struggled to achieve consistency and live up to
expectations this summer.
“I
finished bad during the college season,” he said, “and it carried
over to the summer as I have been up and down. I don’t want to make
excuses and blame the wind in Wilmington for some of my
inconsistency, but it blows in hard every night and is a little
intimidating. I’ve hit a lot of balls this summer that might have
gone out that got knocked down.”
In
his one at-bat Monday, Aldrich struck out on three straight fastballs
from Morehead City righthander Shawn Armstrong, the last one a 91-mph
heater.
Armstrong,
a rising junior at East Carolina who was drafted in June in the 18th
round by the Cleveland Indians, struck out all three batters he faced
in the seventh inning for the victorious National squad, and was
selected the game’s defensive MVP.
CPL introduces prep players
The
step the Coastal Plain League took last offseason to incorporate
high-school players into its available talent pool was a move
designed mainly to increase the league’s stature among the elite
summer-college leagues in the country. But it was also made to
counteract the rapidly growing number of summer-college leagues
around the country that has resulted in a diminished supply of
available college talent.
“I
believe that we qualify as outside-the-box thinkers,” said CPL
commissioner Pete Bock, “and it’s where we needed to go with our
league, especially with the growth of summer baseball and so many
quality high-school players in our back yard that are committed to
four-year colleges.”
Teams
are allowed a maximum of two high-school players, and yet Peninsula
was the only CPL team to tap into the new talent source this summer.
“We’re
always trying to improve our league’s stature among summer leagues
in the country, and this new rule is aimed at doing that,” Morgan
said. “We’ve made a lot of progress in that area. The rule has
been good for the league, and for our team, in particular.”
While
the Cape Cod League is recognized as the clear leader among summer
leagues nationally, simply on the basis of the elite college talent
it can attract, the Coastal Plain and Northwoods Leagues continue to
jockey for position as the leaders of the next group of summer
leagues. The Cape League prohibits the use of high-school players,
while the Northwoods allow it.
The
two summer leagues that most aggressively recruit high-school talent
are the California Collegiate and West Coast leagues, and those
leagues have made significant headway in the last 2-3 years in
climbing the hierarchy of summer leagues.
A
twist in the high-school rule that the Coastal Plain enacted in its
use of high-school talent is the requirement that any player signed
to a contract must commit to a two-year deal so he would be mandated
to return to the league following his freshman year.
“Hank
was the first one to take and run with this rule,” CPL assistant
commissioner Justin Sellers said. “Hopefully, more and more teams
will start to use it next summer.”
When
the CPL was formed 15 years ago, with six clubs, there were only
seven other recognized true summer college leagues in existence—the
Alaska, Cape Cod, Central Illinois, Great Lakes, New England
Collegiate, Northwoods and Valley leagues. All are still active,
though the CICL has since morphed into the Prospect League.
Now
there are more than 30 recognized summer leagues nationally, and the
competition for talent has increased exponentially.
“College
summer baseball is now where minor league baseball was 20-25 years
ago,” said Bock, who was a minor league general manager before
creating the Coastal Plain League in 1997. “There are so many
communities around the country that want baseball teams, and it has
led to tremendous growth in summer baseball.
“It
used to be that there weren’t anywhere near enough slots to place
all the top college players. All that’s changed now with so many
more leagues, and we’re at a point where there aren’t as many
players to go around. You need to be more careful than ever how your
league is perceived by college coaches, how you treat your players,
to get the better players. The college coach now has a lot more say
where kids go to play.”
Arms down
The
number of quality arms in the Coastal Plain League is considered down
from a year ago, when 6-foot-6 Fayetteville righthander Carter Capps
(Mt. Olive, N.C.) was judged the league’s best prospect after his
fastball peaked at 97 mph in the 2010 all-star game. He was a
third-round pick of the Seattle Mariners in this year’s draft.
The
best velocity in this year’s all-star game was turned in by another
Fayetteville righthander, Cody Davis, a 5-foot-10 product of the
University of Tampa. Davis’ fastball was a steady 91-92 mph, and
touched 93 once.
Unlike
Capps, though, Davis went undrafted this year, though there were
rumblings among some three dozen scouts gathered Monday that Davis
would be a primary target to be signed as a non-drafted free agent
prior to the conclusion of the 2011 CPL season. Davis, whose fastball
has peaked this summer at 95 mph, leads the league with 12 saves.
Just
as no pitcher created a buzz among scouts with a superior velocity,
no player turned heads at the 60-yard dash competition prior to the
game.
Three
players were clocked in 6.65 seconds, including league stolen base
leader Ryan Brenner (Miami, Ohio), who walked twice in the all-star
game in his role as the National leadoff hitter. He was successful on
one of two stolen-base attempts.
Brenner
was gunned down by American catcher Joe Jackson (The Citadel) on his
first attempt, and was successful on his second and came around to
score his team’s first run of the game. He has been successful on
26 of 32 attempts for Edenton during the regular season after
finishing second in the nation among NCAA Division I players during
the spring with 39.
Kinney
indicated Brenner had been hobbled for a week and didn’t run his
best in the 60. Brenner has reportedly been clocked as fast as 6.5
second over 60 yards.
“He’s
mainly a singles guy,” Brenner said, “but can turn a single into
a triple in a hurry with his speed.”
Wilson
outfielder Ryan Mathews was also timed in 6.65 seconds, and his
clocking is noteworthy as he also leads the CPL with 11 hoime runs.
He is hitting .279 with eight stolen bases on the season for the Tobs
after playing sparingly in the spring at North Carolina State.
When
the ninth inning of the all-star game began, preliminary word was
circulating that Fayetteville second baseman Eric Grabe (Tampa) was
going to be named the game's offensive MVP. It would have been a
fitting tribute to a three-year CPL standout and Fayetteville
home-town favorite who had sparked the American all-stars to a 2-1
advantage, going 2-for-2, driving in a run and scoring himself.
Stephens
ruined that scenario, when he went deep in the ninth with a runner
aboard, converting an impending National all-star 2-1 loss into a
sudden 3-2 win for his team.
Grabe
knew that his chances of winning the award were doomed.
“Honestly,
I laughed,” Grabe told the Fayetteville Observer, the local paper.
“I knew what was at stake. A few of the guys looked at me and said,
‘Well, there goes your MVP.’”
“I
was definitely disappointed for Eric,” added American manager
Darrell Handelsman, also of Fayetteville. “As soon as (Stephens)
hit that ball, I knew he was screwed. But you have to give that kid
credit.”