Monday, June 25, 2012

Crystal Lake to Celebrate 100 Years of Scouting
The Crystal Lake Sandgnats will celebrate 100 years of Boy Scouting during their Saturday, June 30^th home game.  Any boy or adult troop leader wearing his class “A” shirt with troop insignia will be admitted to the park free of charge.  The team expects a large turnout.  There will be a pre-game ceremony on the field, complete with Boy Scout color guard and bugler.  National President of the Boy Scouts of America Rex Tillerson will toss out the first pitch.  Mayor Aaron T. Shepley and the Crystal Lake city council, along with Sandgnats executive officers, will also be on hand and give a short presentation as part of the ceremony.  Head Pastor for Crystal Lake Immanuel Lutheran Church Larry Tieman will perform the invocation.

Doors will open at 11:00 a.m.  Fans are encouraged to arrive early.  Fans can pose for pictures with the players, meet Sandgnats coaches and officials and get free hotdogs.  It has been reported that Owner/GM Dean Giesey will be working at one of the concession stands immediately following the ceremony.

An after the game “Scouts party” is scheduled for 5 p.m. in the Commons Area Pavilion of the Baseball Village complex.  There will also be tours to the archeological dig site.  Additional security will be on hand to direct traffic and maintain order.  A shuttle bus will run to and from the stadium and the Metra commuter parking lots downtown Crystal Lake to handle parking overflow.

The Boy Scouts of America organization, or BSA, was originally created in England and was incorporated in the United States on February 8, 1910 by William D. Boyce, Ernest Thompson Seton and Daniel Carter Beard.  The BSA is one of the nation’s largest and most prominent values-based youth development organizations, providing a program for young people that builds character, trains them in the responsibilities of participating citizenship and develops personal fitness.  Since its creation in 1910, Membership has grown to roughly 3 million boys and 1 million adult leaders.

Coaching Changes
The Sandgnats officially announced changes in their minor league managerial and coaching staffs.  Notably, Wayne Kedsch, the skipper for the parent club for the past five years, moved to AAA Evansville’s managerial post.  The expectation is that Kedsch will be able to use his talent to help develop the young players making their way through the system.

During his five years at the helm, Kedsch won five division championships and advanced to the league championship round twice but was not able to bring home the Rodriguez Cup.  When asked to comment, GM Dean Giesey said that the move was designed to help ready an influx of prospects.  “Wayne is really great with the younger players and I just felt that he would be more valuable to the organization working with the younger guys.  Wayne and I spoke at the beginning of last season about him wanting to be in more of a developmental role.  This move allows him to do that.  We have had several successful drafts and have done an excellent job of obtaining prospects from other clubs.  Our Brampton AA affiliate is stacked and, if all goes according to plan, Wayne will be waiting for them at Evansville next season,” Giesey said.  It was also learned that the club had negotiated an extension to Kedsch’s contract.

To fill Kedsch’s big shoes, Crystal Lake hired head scout José Luna-protégé Juan García.  García has worked on and off with the organization as a roving instructor and was instrumental in setting up the club’s Caribbean academy.  At one time, García was hired to oversee all of Latin America, and he has worked extensively with Luna.  It was García that tipped off Luna about promising pitching prospects Manny Vélez and Roberto González.  Luna quickly inked them to contracts.  Gonzalez is with the Brampton and Velez is with Hi-A El Cajon.

Meanwhile, Crystal Lake has extended their scouting reach to new frontiers – Europe.  Luna hired Ben Trust to oversee scouting operations in this new theater.  He cut his teeth as a coach in the Mexican League and as a scout for the Independent League.  Trust is fluent in five languages: English, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and French.  He will be based in Great Britain.  Crystal Lake affiliates finished with one of PEBA baseball’s best combined records in 2011 (436-224, .660).

Answers to Pitching Woes are Hard to Find
The Sandgnats were rocked throughout the organization last year by an epidemic of arm injuries.  While it’s true that the vast majority of pitchers get hurt at some point in their career, there is little understanding as to how or why.  Coaches are paying greater attention than ever before to pitch counts and workloads.  Coaching staffs try to teach proper mechanics to help prevent or to minimize injuries, but they are fighting a losing battle.

Crystal Lake issued an organizational edict for a five-man strict rotation.  This spring, the pitchers attended pitching camp to help rookies and veterans stave off injuries.  “Even pitchers with perfect mechanics get hurt,” said new Evansville manager Wayne Kedsch.  “Pitching is a violent action on the arm and shoulder.  If there is any certainty about mechanics, it’s that there is no perfect delivery that will prevent all injuries.  Sometimes it’s luck and the rest of the time it’s genetics.”

Double-A starting pitcher León Vallés became this year’s first arm casualty.  He will be out 11 months with a torn ulnar collateral ligament (UCL).  Pitchers with injuries to this ligament have pain on the inside of the elbow, and there is instability of the joint.  The treatment, known as Tommy John surgery (after the first player to successfully have the surgery), involves a procedure in which a ligament in the elbow is replaced with a tendon from elsewhere in the body.  The tendon is used to recreate the damaged ligament and improve the stability of the elbow joint.

Tommy John surgery was developed by Los Angeles surgeon Dr. Frank Jobe.  At the time of John’s injury, there was a low expectation that he would ever return to the majors.  After an examination of the elbow, Jobe had a strong suspicion that he had severely torn an elbow ligament.  Prior to the advent of Jobe’s revolutionary surgery, John would have been just another sore-armed former major league pitcher.  “You have to understand,” Jobe says, “there was no known procedure to fix something like that.  But Tommy told me, `You’ve got to do something.  I don’t care what it is, but fix me.’”  His breakthrough – “Tommy John” tendon transplant surgery – was first performed over 25 years ago and forever changed the definition of what a career-ending injury was for a ballplayer.  After 18 months of rehabilitation, John returned to pitch another 13 years.

The procedure has improved over the years, along with a faster recovery time.  Today, Tommy John surgery can be used to extend the careers of many baseball pitchers.  The success rate following surgery is about 85%.  Vallés, in good spirits, hopes to be back early next year.  He was 1-1 with a 1.52 ERA at the time of the injury.

Defense, Defense
Great pitching is remarkable.  Powerful, consistent hitting is inspiring.  But few aspects of baseball demonstrate its beautiful, skillful demands like defense, and there has been plenty of defense on display at Gnat Field this year.  The infield defense has been superb.  Second baseman Chris Holmes, shortstop Pablo Espinosa and third baseman Barry Murdock have together committed only nine errors on the season.

“Our defense up the middle has been fantastic.  Chris and Espy get to almost everything.  They are like vacuums out there,” said Sandgnats manager Juan García.

Although Espinosa has failed to hit so far this year (.213 AVG/.252 OBP), his golden glove has kept him on the field.  “Espy is still recovering from last year’s injury.  He missed eight months with a torn posterior cruciate ligament.  He still spends time with the trainer after each game,” said García.  “He will come around.  With what he brings to our defense, the pitchers would rebel if I sat him down.”

Another aspect of the defense is range.  The concept of “range factor” was introduced in an attempt to make better measure of individual fielders’ abilities.  Developed by Bill James, range factor, in its earliest incarnation, was total successful fielding chances (by player by position) per game played.  Later versions would change the measure to total successful chances per 9 innings played at a given position (rather than “games”, which could mean anything from 15 innings to 1/3^rd of an inning).  Stats, Inc. rated Chris Holmes and Pablo Espinosa’s range factor at +4, well above average for a middle infielder.  Barry Murdock’s range factor at third base is +2, high for a third basemen but closer to the average.  “I know some scouts have been critical of the range factor rating because they see it as a measure of fielding opportunity rather than fielding prowess, but you come out and watch our guys play and you can see them get to more balls and force those opportunities,” quipped García.  “When Holmes returned from the DL early in the season, you could really see the difference.”