Baseball in Fort Wayne

Posts Tagged ‘Nick Schmidt’

The Fort Wayne TinCaps will open the 2009 season with an Opening Day roster that includes three first-round draft selections and a reigning league MVP. Infielders Allan Dykstra and Drew Cumberland and left handed pitcher Nick Schmidt were each first-round draft picks of the San Diego Padres. Outfielder, Daniel Robertson was the 2008 Northwest League MVP.

“On paper, this looks like one of the best teams we’ve ever had in Fort Wayne,” TinCaps team president Mike Nutter said. “We hope these guys can make the first season at Parkview Field a championship season.”

Robertson leads a group of outfielders that also includes Sawyer Carroll, Angel Mercado, and Blake Tekotte. Last year, Robertson hit .377 and broke the Short-Season Northwest League’s single-season hits record with 114. He did that in only73 games. Carroll and Tekotte were third-round picks in last year’s draft.

The TinCaps will have two power-hitting first basemen in Dykstra and Matt Clark. Dykstra made his professional debut last season with Advanced-A Lake Elsinore. Clark hit 28 home runs at Louisiana State University last year, which tied him for the most in the nation in NCAA Division I baseball. Shortstop, Drew Cumberland played 53 games with Fort Wayne last season, but missed the bulk of the season with a rib injury. Third baseman, James Darnell, was a second-round pick last year out of the University of South Carolina and hit .373  with Short-Season Eugene.

The TinCaps are also strong behind the plate with catchers Robert Lara and Adam Zornes. Lara, a 2008 Arizona League All-Star, belted a home run in his first professional at-bat and stayed hot, batting .344 for the season. Zornes had a short stint with Fort Wayne last season, batting .261 in 13 games. 

The pitching staff is anchored by several of the Padres’ top prospects; including Schmidt, right-handers Simon Castro and Anthony Bass plus left, Rob Musgrave. Schmidt returns from Tommy John surgery which kept him on the shelf for all of the 2008 season.

Filling out the bullpen are right-handers Brad Brach, Erik Davis, Tom Davis, Eric Gonzalez and Alexis Lara and left-handers Zach Herr, Colt Hynes and Michael Watt.

Brach blew away the competition in the Arizona League last year with a 33-to-5 strikeout-to-walk ratio. Erik Davis, a Stanford University product, was struck in the face by a line drive in 2006 yet made an amazing comeback to the mound less than six weeks later. Gonzalez was born and raised in the Spanish Canary Islands, just off the Atlantic coast of northern Africa. Watt was one of the “players to be named later” in the trade that sent RHP Greg Maddux from San Diego to the Los Angeles Dodgers last season. He was originally a second-round selection by the Dodgers in 2007.

TINCAPS’ ROSTER BY THE NUMBERS:

• Eight of the 25 players on the TinCaps’ Opening Day roster have played in Fort Wayne previously: Hynes, Alexis Lara, Schmidt, Zornes, Cumberland, Hansen, Carroll and Mercado. They will be among a very small group of players who will be able to claim they have worn both a Wizards’ and a TinCaps’ jersey.
• Six TinCaps are among the San Diego Padres’ top 30 prospects according to Baseball America: Dykstra (#8), Darnell (#10), Castro (#14), Cumberland (#15), Tekotte (#19) and Schmidt (#21).
• Eight players were drafted in the 5th round or higher.

Click here for the complete roster.

This announcement comes on the day approximately 6,000 peopel showed up for the Parkview Field Open House. Coverage at Indiana’s News Center and WANE TV. Nice shots over at WhatsGoingDown(Town) too.

This time of year, I like to start compiling a list of Padres prospects who might potentially get assigned to Fort Wayne when the following season starts. Once such prospect was a Dodgers prospect until just a few months ago when the Friars traded future Hall of Famer, Greg Maddux to the Dodgers. They went onto the playoffs, to the value of the trade was all the higher.

Michael Watt was selected by Los Angeles as the 86th overall pick out of Capistrano Valley High School in last years draft. Thus far, he has played only rookie level ball, so he may or may not get assigned to TinCaps camp right away. And (as well all know) there’s always a chance he won’t play there at all. 

In the lefty’s final 23 innings, he had 20 strikeouts and zero walks. He went 9-4 with a 4.35 ERA in the hitter-friendly Pioneer League [source: SignOnDanDiego].

The above source also has a brief update on the progress of former Wizards Nick Schmidt and Matt Bush. No startling revelations there. Bush is still on shutdown while Schmidt is making fine progress. Thsi season will be a better gauge of their longterm outlooks and both will likely be protected in the upcoming Rule 5 draft.

A few days ago, I reported on some of the performances of former Wizards in the Arizona Fall League. MiLB did the same today.

Padres’ vice president of scouting and player development, Grady Fuson had encouraging words for many of the recent Wizards. Selected, relevant portions of the article are below:

[Jeremy] Hefner was in Arizona to work on converting his slider to a curveball, a pitch the Padres think will prove a more than capable complement to his fastball.

Outfielder Brad Chalk, 22, was in Arizona to refine his swing. Chalk hit .275 in 104 games at Class A Fort Wayne last season with a .354 on-base percentage.

The most improved position players were outfielder Danny Payne…

The Padres also handed out a new award that recognized the player who exemplified leadership among his peers. The recipient was outfielder Brian Joynt, who hit .304 as a third baseman with Lake Elsinore but will likely end up in the outfield.

Pitcher Nick Schmidt, the Padres’ No. 1 Draft pick in 2007 who missed the 2008 season after having elbow surgery, is pitching in the Dominican instructional league.

Pitcher Matt Bush, the former No. 1 Draft pick who made the conversion from shortstop to pitcher in 2007, had a sore triceps and was shut down before the end of instructional league. He’ll be ready for Spring Training.

Some other players mentioned – such as Outfielder Blake Tekotte, infielder Edinson Rincon and pitcher Gary Pointer – are young talents who have not yet played above Low-A ball and may be on their way to Fort Wayne as part of the innagural TinCaps sqaud that begins play in April 2009.

MadFriars’ Denis Savage reports that former first round (and number one overall) pick, Matt Bush threw 30 pitches in first instructional league outing. 

The right-hander had experienced triceps tenderness late last week, which pushed his outing back a bit. The tenderness is said to be normal and par for the rehab course, pushing through the scar tissue from his surgery.

Bush threw his full repertoire, tossing fastballs, curveballs and changeups. Control, as expected, was an issue on several of his pitches. The fastballs weren’t of the 98 MPH variety he had thrown when first transitioning to pitcher from shortstop but had considerable zip.

His curveball had impressive spin – more than Bush expected. Balls that started out in the zone careened to the left and outside the zone. It was a pitch that he did not toss for a strike.

The pitch that looked exceptional was the changeup. He had Chalk and Forsythe swinging over top of the pitch anytime he tossed it.

Forsythe was able to put his bat on a fastball and drive it far while Chalk went down and took a low fastball and smoked a liner to left. It was, however, more about finding command for Bush.

Overall, Bush was happy with the outing.

“I felt good,” Bush said. “I just wanted to go out there and not have any pain or discomfort. That is all going away. It feels like that is all going away. I am just trying to throw strikes and get a feel for each pitch and remember how my curveball breaks.

Certainly would be interesting to see Matt Bush return to Fort Wayne and be among a small group of players to be a Wizard and TinCap!

Another former top pick and Wizard, Nick Schmidt is also on the mend from Tommy John surgery and hoping to rebound during instructional league play. He took the mound and thre 25 pitches with slightly better control.