Bill Mitchell's Minor League Ramblings

Minor League Ramblings For the week of :
April 1, 2002

Minor League Ramblings is produced by Bill Mitchell for Minor League Watch.

Minor League Spring Training Ends With Intrasquad Games
April 2, 2002

The big leaguers were all gone, playing their final pre-season games in places like Oakland, Portland, Las Vegas and other points around the nation. The minor league players were also itching to break camp and head for their respective outposts for the regular season.

But there was still a little bit of baseball to be played in Arizona.

While there were a few games between rival teams, more of the Cactus League minor leaguers squared off against their own teammates in "getaway day" intrasquad games.

Franklyn German

The Oakland A's, with much of their equipment already packed for shipment to Sacramento, Midland, Modesto and Visalia, played two simultaneous games on Saturday morning, with the two class A teams facing each other on the south field at Phoenix's Papago Park. Meanwhile, the AA and AAA squads played on the adjacent north field.

Oakland's massive pitcher Franklyn German turned in the most interesting performance of the day. The 6-6, 245 pound right-hander, who just turned 22, is a menacing figure on the mound. He pitched one inning for the AA team, retiring all three batters with an impressive mix of fastballs and off-speed pitches. The more experienced AAA opponents had trouble getting around on German, and he broke a couple of bats during his inning of work. German's fastball was clocked between 92 and 94, but his fellow pitchers remarked that "he'll get higher." The Dominican native struck out 93 batters in 63 innings at Visalia in the California League last season, so he should be a force in the bullpen at AA Midland this year.

Umpires at Papago Park
Minor league umpires getting extra strike zone instruction at Papago Park during the final weekend of spring training

Another player to watch this season is Oakland's 2001 first round draft choice, shortstop Bobby Crosby. The former Long Beach State player hit well (.395 in 11 games) in limited action at Modesto last season. Crosby moves well around the bag and has a strong arm, but, at 6-3, still looks a little stiff for the position. He'll return to the high-A California League this season.

It wasn't just the ballplayers getting their final workouts at Papago Park, as a group of minor league umpires gathered on the west field for extra strike zone drills.

Later in the day on Saturday, the low-A and high-A teams from the Chicago Cubs and Anaheim Angels played a pair of games at Mesa's Fitch Park.

Carlos Zambrano

The highlight of the high-A game came when the Cubs made two consecutive sparkling defensive plays. The first was on a bunt down the third base line, which third baseman Corey Slavik, who played last season at short-season Boise after coming out of Wake Forest University, cleanly fielded the ball with his bare hand and fired a strike to first base to nip the Angel runner. The next batter hit a sinking liner towards left centerfield. Mike Mallory came rushing in to make a sliding, tumbling catch, then jumped up to throw the ball to second base to double the runner off the bag.

The entire Cubs' minor league system came together on Easter morning, with all six farm clubs on the field. It was an excellent opportunity to see what is rated as one of baseball's best farm systems, as three games were played simultaneously within 100 feet of each other.

Exciting pitching prospects Ben Christiansen, Carlos Zambrano, Chris Gissell, Felix Sanchez and Scott Chiasson, as well as former major leaguer Alan Benes, all saw action in one of the three games.

Ray Sadler

Most impressive was the 20-year-old Zambrano, who would have made the Chicago roster if not for a couple of bad outings at the end of spring training. The Venezuela native shut out the AA Cubs in his brief outing.

Chiasson, who will undoubtedly be the closer for AAA Iowa, got his fastball up to 96 in his lone inning of work.

The most impressive Cub hitter of the weekend was outfielder Ray Sadler, who batted .341 at low-A Lansing last year. The right-handed hitter smacked a long homer over the centerfield batting eye on Saturday and then picked up a couple of hits in Sunday's intrasquad game. The 21-year-old Texas native, a cousin of big league veteran Donnie Sadler, will start the season at Daytona of the Florida State League.

Another spring training season is in the books, but with still much more baseball to be played in 2002. The extended spring season begins in just one week, so stay tuned for weekly reports from the Arizona camps and other minor league stadiums.

Play ball!

--- Bill Mitchell