Baseball in Fort Wayne

Archive for November, 2007

It was only a matter of time. Jake Peavy has been among the best pitchers in Major League Baseball for several years now. So it was only a matter of time that he earned what may only be the first of multiple Cy Young Awards.

The ace of the San Diego Padres pitching staff was a unanimous selection for the National League Cy Young Award; which was announced today following a season in which he achieve the pitching equivalent of the Triple Crown by pacing the league in wins, ERA and strikeouts.

Peavy received all 32 first-place votes and finished with a total of 160 points in balloting by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America. He went 19-6 on the season while posting the best ERA in the majors (2.54) and strikeouts (240). He joins Roger Clemens as the only starting pitchers to win a Cy Young Award without tossing a complete game.

He was the first unanimous choice for NL Cy Young since Arizona’s Randy Johnson did so in 2002. Peavy is the fourth San Diego pitcher to win the award, joining Mark Davis in 1989, Gaylord Perry in 1978 and Randy Jones in 1976.

The 2007 campaign righted the ship following a 2006 season that saw the pitcher troubled by shoulder tendonitis. He lost 14 games that season while posting a 4.07 ERA. This year, however, in addition to all his other achievements, Peavy was the National League’s starter in this year’s All-Star Game, which was his second All-Star appearance.

“It’s a humbling day … it’s pretty amazing,” Peavy said on a national conference call. “I was elated. This is as big as it gets as far as individual awards go. You can never dream anything like this up.” [Source: mlb.com]

Thought the 26-year-old Peavy won’t hit free agency until after the 2009 season, his agent Barry Axelrod and team CEO Sandy Alderson have already had discussions about extending that current deal.

Peavy was selected by San Diego in the 15th round of the 1999 draft. He also won an ERA title in 2004 and a strikeout crown in 2005. As a member of the Fort Wayne Wizards in 2000, the then 19-year-old posted a 2.90 ERA and a 23-8 record over 26 games and 133.1 innings pitched. By 2002, he anchored of the Padres’ rotation and was recognized as the Padres Player of the Year in 2004 and 2005.

Please note: Articles from the Associated Press and MLB.com (2) were consulted in the drafting of this post. Photograph is courtesy of the Fort Wayne Wizards. You can read more about Jake Peavy in Baseball in Fort Wayne on pages 118-119.

[UPDATE: 11/22]A great bit about the scout who discovered Peavy and his reflections of the eventual Cy Young Winner before he was draft can be found here.

[tags]Jake Peavy, Cy Young, Baseball in Fort Wayne, Wizards, Padres[/tags]

Fort Wayne native Eric Wedge was recognized as the 2007 American League Manager today by The Baseball Writers’ Association of America.

He becomes the first Cleveland manager to win the AL award and did so by a wide margin following a season that saw his Tribe and the Boston Red Sox tie for the best record in all of Major League Baseball. Wedge received 19 of the 28 first-place votes and 116 points.

The 39-year-old Wedge earns the honor after leading the team to a 96-66 regular-season record and its first American League Central title in six years.

Entering the 2007 season, many observers speculated that Wedge was on the hot seat following a disappointing 2006 campaign where high expectations faded in light of untimely injuries and a surprising Detroit club who went on to win the American League championship in 2006. However, the Indians rewarded Wedge with a three-year contract extension in July of this year and effectively ended talk of such notions.

Wedge’s Indians beat the defending AL champion Tigers by eight games, despite an Opening Day payroll of $61.7 million, which nowhere near their Detroit Tigers counterparts, whose Opening Day payroll was $95.2 million.

Wedge spent his playing days within the Red Sox’s and Rockies’ systems and worked his way through the Minor League managerial ranks. While at High-A in Kinston, North Carolina, he earned Manager of the Year honors and then was a two-time International League Manager of the Year while at Triple-A Buffalo. In 2002, he was named the Sporting News Minor League Manager of the Year before becoming the youngest manager in Major League Baseball at the time. He was just 34-years-old.

He was a catcher on the Northrop High School baseball team from 1983 to 1986. As a freshman on the varsity squad, he helped his team secure the 1983 Indiana state championship crown. He returns to the area on an annual basis to conduct the Eric Wedge Baseball Camp at the ASH Centre in partnership with the Fort Wayne Sports Corporation and Between the Lines.

Please note: Articles from the Associated Press and MLB.com were consulted in the drafting of this post. Photograph is courtesy of the Fort Wayne Sports Corporation. You can read more about Eric Wedge in Baseball in Fort Wayne on pages 120-123.

[tags]Eric Wedge, Manager of the Year, Baseball in Fort Wayne, Fort Wayne, Cleveland Indians[/tags]

I saw an interesting article over at MiLB.com that talks about the unfortunate injuries and rehabs of some former Fort Wayne Wizards.

Nick Schmidt, Cesar Carrillo, Matt Bush were all top picks of the Padres in 2006, 2005 and 2004 respectively. All of them are now recovering from Tommy John surgery.

Schmidt pitched just seven innings over three outings before undergoing surgery, but it’s still a mystery about how he got hurt in the first place.

“The Schmidt thing, we just don’t know what happened,” said Bill Bryk, who is moving from Minor League field coordinator to special assistant to the general manager and Major League advance scout. “It happened in his first game at Fort Wayne, and he had to come out of the game. We’re all disappointed. I don’t think it’s anything the staff did because we always err on the side of caution.”

Bush went 1-0 with a 1.17 ERA and 16 strikeouts in 7 2/3 innings before his elbow problems forced his surgery in August. His brief stint with the Wizards in 2007 was his third.
“Bush isn’t a big kid, but he throws harder than anyone we have,” Bryk adds. “With him, I thought it might have been on a breaking ball and not the fastball because he has a hard breaking ball that he just snapped. But the trainer tells me it was on a fastball.

Carrillo started his Padres career at High-A Lake Elsinore in 2005 and was promoted to Double-A after seven games. Nine games into the 2006 season, he was promoted to Triple-A, where he spent his entire 2007 campaign. His rapid rise through the system unfortunately meant we never saw him take the field in Fort Wayne.

[tags] Nick Schmidt, Cesar Carrillo, Matt Bush, Tommy John Surgery, Fort Wayne Wizards[/tags]

The Ford C. Frick Award is presented on an annual basis to a broadcaster for “major contributions to baseball.” The award is named after the late broadcaster, National League President, Commissioner, and Hall of Famer, and has been presented every year since 1978.

Balloting for the award started today. The top three vote-getters by the fans will automatically qualify for the 10-member ballot that will be created by a 20-member committee and announced December 4th. The winner will be announced Feb. 19, 2008 and receive the award during the Induction Ceremony on July 27th at the Clark Sports Center in Cooperstown, N.Y.

Click here for more information and a link to the ballot.

Ford Christopher Frick (1894-1978) was a Noble County native who later attended Fort Wayne’s International Business College and lived in the Summit City while he employed at the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette as an office boy and police reporter.

For more information about Frick, please see my January 9th, 2007 post.

[Photo from the National Baseball Hall of Fame]

[tags]Ford Frick, MLB, Commissioner, Baseball in Fort Wayne, Awards, Hall of Fame, HOF[/tags]