Yankees and Mets prospects will be in Lakewood next week with Charleston (Yankees) and Savannah (Mets) from April 25 – 29 and then April 30 – May 1. Let’s take a look at some of the talented young players you’ll get to see at FirstEnergy Park.

Charleston (Yankees, April 25 – 29)
C Gary Sanchez: Ranked 2nd in the system per Baseball America behind fellow catcher Jesus Montero, he’s currently on the disabled list but expected back for the series in Lakewood. He’s just 18 years old and hit .327 last year split between the GCL Yankees and Staten Island. BA says that Sanchez has “the highest ceiling of anyone in the system, including Montero.” Here’s an article on Sanchez from a Charleston paper where Sanchez said he wanted to be Manny Ramirez and got into catching because nobody else wanted to.

C JR Murphy: He returns to Charleston after hitting .255-7-54 with the RiverDogs last year. Baseball America ranks him 14th in the system. Was a 2nd round pick in 2009 from Bradenton, Florida and the IMG Academies. Spent some time at 3rd base and in the OF in the Instructional League but so far this year has caught six and played one at third.

OF Slade Heathcott: The other top prospect on this Charleston club is Heathcott, who also returns for a second season after hitting .258 with Charleston last year. Heathcott was a first round pick in 2009 from Texarkana, TX and signed for $2.2 million. At the time I’m writing this (Tuesday morning) he’s batting .340 in 47 at bats.

Savannah (April 30 – May 3)
3B Aderlin Rodriguez: Ranked 9th in the system, this 3B is just 19 years old and hit 13 home runs in the Appy League last year. That said, he’s off to a 5-39 start to 2011.

OF Darrell Ceciliani: Ranked 14th in the system, he was a 4th round pick back in 2009 who hit .351 last summer with Brooklyn in the NY-Penn League and won the batting title. He added in 21 stolen bases. From the same Oregon town as Jacoby Ellsbury. Won’t turn 21 until June. He’s missed some time though early this year and has just 15 at bats through the first two weeks of the season.

OF Cory Vaughn: 4th round pick last year from San Diego State, where he played for Tony Gwynn. His father is former big league OF Greg Vaughn, a teammate of Gwynn’s with the Padres for several seasons. He hit .307 with 14 home runs at Brooklyn last year and was 2nd in the league in both HRs and RBIs (54).

RHP Erik Goeddel: 24th round pick in 2010 from UCLA (where he was a teammate of BlueClaws pitcher Garett Claypool). He missed his senior year of HS and freshman year of college with Tommy John Surgery but helped pitch UCLA to the College World Series finals last year.

SS Robbie Shields: 3rd round pick in 2009 is ranked 20th in the system per Baseball America. He burst onto the scene in the Cape Cod League in 2008 and played a little SS for Savannah last year.

C Blake Forsythe: 3rd rounder from Tennessee, where he was a collegiate teammate of BlueClaws LHP Bryan Morgado and LHP Nick Hernandez. He’s ranked 29th in the system.

IF Sam Honeck: While not in BA’s top 30, how bout a little love for Honeck who is hitting .500 over his first 42 at bats. He was an 11th round pick in 2009 out of Tulane.

That was Taylor Buchholz, the Opening Day starter from 2001, who came in and threw two scoreless innings for the Mets in a 10-7 Phillies win at the Bank.

The other two? Kyle Kendrick (2006) with the Phillies and Carlos Monasterios (2007) with the Dodgers.

10:31: As @BriSmitty pointed out on Twitter, Monasterios is in fact in the minors to open 2011.

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On a side note, the BlueClaws are 0-10 all-time in home openers, which of course tomorrow falls under. They are 4-6 all-time on Opening Day.

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2010 BlueClaws pitcher Josh Zeid gets the ball for Reading tomorrow and 2008 BC pitcher Vance Worley starts for Clearwater.

Former BlueClaws in other organizations are being assigned to teams, with the season set to start on Thursday.

Anthony Gose and Travis d’Arnaud, teammates on the 2009 SAL Champioship BlueClaws club will play this year for Double-A New Hampshire in the Eastern League, which means trips to Reading and Trenton. d’Arnaud was part of the Roy Halladay trade and Gose the Roy Oswalt trade. He was an Astro for about 20 seconds, immediately being sent to Toronto for Brett Wallace.

Kyle Drabek earned his first big league win on Saturday. Congrats to Kyle.

The Kinston Indians have not yet released a roster but I would expect to see 2009 BlueClaws pitcher Jason Knapp there.

No sign of Astros rosters either. SS Jonathan Villar (2010) will either be with Double-A Corpus-Christi or Hi-A Lancaster.

Lou Marson, Jason Donald, and Carlos Carrasco all made the Indians.

Meanwhile, outside the BlueClaws family, Bryce Harper is going to Hagerstown.

The #1 overall pick Tweeted this: Headed to Hagerstown today! #OpeningDay

He’s slated to be in Lakewood May 13-16 and the BlueClaws will be in Hagerstown on April 15th for his home opener.

Taylor Buchholz, the player who threw the first pitch in BlueClaws history, April of 2001 at Kannapolis, has made the Mets bullpen.

Thanks to Dan Cichalski on Twitter for the heads-up. He was there, as the then-Claws beat writer for the Asbury Park Press. Read his NJ-Baseball blog here.

Here’s the story from MLB.com on the Mets and their moves.

Buchholz was signed by the Mets in the off-season and this will be his fourth big league team, after pitching for Toronto, Colorado, and Houston in his career.

This year, the BlueClaws will look to become the third South Atlantic League team (league formed in 1904) to win three championships in a row. Who were the other two? Why should we care? If nothing else, it’s incredibly interesting. Let’s take a look.

1980-1982 Greensboro Hornets

The South Atlantic League’s name was actually retired from 1964-1979 and the league operated as the Western Carolinas League. The SAL name was re-instated for 1980, the first year of the Hornets dynasty.

Then a Yankees affiliate, the 1982 team had a few guys who went on to the big leagues:

• Mike Pagliarulo, who hit .280 and led the team with 22 home runs.
• A 20 year-old Orestes Destrade, who went on to play four years in the big leagues and in Japan, only hit .180 while appearing in 43 games.
• Their leading hitter was the Yankees 1978 first round pick, Matt Winters. He played for the Royals in 1989 after 12 years in the minors.
• Victor Mata, who was with the Yankees briefly in 1984-85, was actually with Greensboro on all three SAL championship teams.
• Edwin Rodriguez, who managed Greensboro (now the Grasshoppers, a Marlins affiliate, in 2007 when this happened, was on this team. He is now the manager of the Florida Marlins.

(more…)

Below, a picture sent over by BlueClaws team photographer Dave Schofield of the Championship Ring ceremony which took place earlier today in Clearwater. We’ll update with more photos later. Click to enlarge.

Besides the players, who are obviously in their red jerseys…

• Kneeling on the bottom left is trainer Mickey Kozack, who will be back with Lakewood this year.
• Top left is pitching coach Steve Schrenk and hitting coach Greg Legg, both of whom will be back.
• Manager Mark Parent is in the middle, standing, wearing blue.
• On the right, SAL president Eric Krupa wears the light blue polo.
• Steve Noworyta, Phillies Director of Minor Leagues, is next to Krupa, and BlueClaws GM Geoff Brown is next to Noworyta.

Manager Mark Parent gets his ring:

Nick Hernandez gets his ring:

Here’s the ring (this picture was Tweeted by Jiwan James)

There are quite a few former BlueClaws who are in Spring Training camps with a Major League team not named the Phillies. Here’s a look around Florida and Arizona at some former BlueClaws hoping to take the next step in their careers.

Oakland Athletics –

Michael Taylor (’08): He was one of the main cogs in the Phillies deal with Toronto that brought Roy Halladay to Philadelphia. He was then traded from the Blue Jays to Oakland for Brett Wallace the same day as the Halladay deal. He is coming off a sub-par season in Triple-A, where he will likely start in 2011. Here’s a great article on Taylor from the San Francisco Chronicle written last week.

This spring, he’d like to turn in some nice numbers, and he hit a three-run homer earlier in the week, but he has a more basic goal. “I want to enjoy every day,” Taylor said. “Enjoy the time, enjoy the work.”

Cleveland Indians -

Jason Donald (’07): In just his 15th game in the Big Leagues, he was the guy who was credited with a hit with two outs in the bottom of the 9th inning to break up Armando Galarraga’s Perfect Game. New York Times writer Tyler Kepner wrote a great piece on Donald just last week. He is trying to make a name for himself in a different way in 2011.Donald is a very good defensive SS and 2B, and is rumored to possibly be the Tribe’s starting 3B when Opening Day arrives. Donald was part of the deal with Cleveland that made Cliff Lee a Phillie the first time back in 2009.

“I was happy, because that’s a tough lineup to crack over there,” he said of the Phillies. “It would have been nice to get to the big leagues with the team that drafted me, but that’s how the game goes.”

Carlos Carrasco (’05 & ’06): Also part of the deal that brought Cliff Lee to the Phillies, he made his big league debut at the end of 2009 and really struggled. He went back to AAA Indianapolis last year, got called back up late last year and was the Indians best starter in September. Great read over on MLB.com about Carrasco. Carrasco heads into 2011 as possibly the 3rd starter in Cleveland’s rotation behind Fausto Carmona and Justin Masterson. And, he and his wife just had their first child last week. Just 23 years old, 2011 could be a huge year for Carrasco.

“Last year was the very first time I had to fight for a job, and it affected me,” Carrasco said. “I sensed pressure. I tried to do more than I could. I made mistakes. I’m so much calmer this year, but I’ve never let my intensity go.”

Lou Marson (’06): The final piece of the Lee deal with the Indians, Marson will likely be forced into a backup role behind stud prospect Carlos Santana. But, coming off a year where he hit just .195 with Cleveland, he might need some more at-bats then he would receive as a backup to get his swing corrected. Marson is definitely saying and doing all the right things this Spring though as you can read in this article on Ohio.com. It will be interesting to see which way the Indians go with Marson in 2011.

”He’s going to get plenty of opportunities to play in spring training,” Acta said.

Marson recognizes he has to improve at the plate. He thinks that will happen if he gets more at-bats.

”What happened last year is that I got off to a slow start and couldn’t get out of it,” he said. ”It was in my dome. It got in my head.”

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Here we go with another edition of Sunday Links and Coffee, some links from around the baseball world that you can enjoy with your Sunday morning java. Enjoy. First from a Phillies perspective…

• Phil Sheridan in the Inquirer says that Clearwater is still Clearwater. Florida is still Florida. But the Phillies aren’t exactly the Phillies anymore. That is certainly a good thing, but it is still sort of jarring.
• Bob Brookover in the Inquirer notes that: If you drew a line from Ryan Howard’s corner locker on the left side of the spacious room to Brad Lidge’s locker in the middle of the rectangular clubhouse, you’d find 33 guys who have played in a combined 15,104 games and collected 10,527 hits, 1,223 home runs, 5,177 RBIs, 814 victories, 367 saves, two MVP awards, one World Series MVP, and three Cy Young Awards. The 27 players to the right of Lidge have combined for 1,436 games, 621 hits, 42 home runs, 483 RBIs, 27 wins, and 10 saves. Fourteen have never played in a big-league game. He answers the question of why?
• Dave Murphy on prospect Tyson Gillies rebounding from a difficult (on and off the field) 2010. I didn’t know he (Gillies) served as an extra in Coke commercials.
• Matt Gelb in the Inquirer on Cole Hamels’ spring debut. The Phillies handed Hamels the ball for starters. Pitching coach Rich Dubee deemed Hamels capable of throwing in a game after simply watching his initial bullpen session of the spring, so the lanky lefthander was the choice.

And a few from outside Philadelphia…

• Bill Madden the Daily News on…realignment. Four divisions of seven teams. Interesting. Using a consensus of the half-dozen managers and executives surveyed for this exercise, here’s how baseball could evolve over the next 10 years: Geographically realigned divisions: Seven teams, four divisions Designated hitter: Grandfathered for three years under the new four-division format, then goes away. Rosters: Expanded to 27 with a limit to three September call-ups and the stipulation that only 27 players, to be designated by the manager before each game, can be active. For the now, however, look for the biggest changes coming out of the next collective bargaining agreement to be a bonus slotting system in the draft and the ability of clubs to trade draft picks.
• In the Daily News…the Players Association isn’t concerned about the Mets ability to pay players after theri $25 million loan from MLB.
• Jon Heyman of SI.com on Bryce Harper, who could open with Hagerstown and play at FirstEnergy Park May 13th.
• Kirk Gibson, new D’Backs manager, is changing the culture, says Tom Verducci of SI.com: Gibson is pushing his players to hit the weight room more. He has instructed his pitchers to work more on their hitting and bunting. He has brought in Navy SEALS to talk about commitment and teamwork. He has banned all cell phone conversations from the clubhouse — and no texting, iPads and computer usage 30 minutes before the first pitch of games. That’s a radical departure for a clubhouse that had been chock full of remote control vehicles, air soft guns and assorted other toys — all gone now.
• Jayson Stark on ESPN.com on the Rays: On the day he assembled a whole new generation of Tampa Bay Rays for the first time this spring, Joe Maddon repeated one of those fabled Maddon-isms that form the essence of what makes the Rays’ manager/philosopher-king a one-of-a-kind leader. “You’ve gotta believe it,” Maddon told these men, “before you see it.”

There you go. Enjoy. Five weeks until the real games.

This popped into my email earlier from Baseball America: their annual top 100 prospect rankings.

Phillies on the list (year with BlueClaws):

• 4. Domonic Brown (08)
• 39. Jonathan Singleton (10)
• 56. Brody Colvin (10)
• 70. Jarred Cosart (10)

Other notables:

• 1. Bryce Harper, WAS – Could be with Hagerstown this year. Their first visit to Lakewood is May 13 – 16.
• 11. Jameson Taillon, PIT – the #2 overall pick last year could spend 2011 with West Virginia. They come to Lakewood in August and the BlueClaws go there in both May & July.
• 29. Kyle Drabek, TOR – With the BlueClaws in 2007 and traded to Toronto in the Halladay deal.
• 30. Gary Sanchez, NYY – Catcher could be with Charleston this year.
• 31. Casey Kelly, SD – Was with Greenville (Boston) in ’09 before being traded in the Adrian Gonzalez deal this winter. He pitched for half of 2009 and then played shortstop for the 2nd half.
• 36. Travis d’Arnaud, TOR – With the BlueClaws in 2009 and then traded as part of Halladay deal.
• 94. Jonathan Villar, HOU – With the BlueClaws until the trade deadline in 2010 when he was a part of the Roy Oswalt trade.
• The Royals. They set a record with 9 of the top 100.

Here is a podcast from BA regarding the rankings.

Here are top 100 rankings dating back 20 years. This is something we’re going to sift through one day.

As Spring Training rolls along and full-squad workouts begin, here’s another set of links from around the baseball world to enjoy with your morning coffee. Let’s get to it, first some Phillies stories.

• In today’s Inquirer, Bob Brookover says 2001 BlueClaw Carlos Ruiz is the muse for the Phillies starting rotation: If all goes according to plan, this will be a Phillies season filled with Rembrandts, Picassos, van Goghs, and da Vincis, and almost all these masterpieces will be produced on the same sturdy canvas that is Carlos Ruiz’s catcher’s mitt.
• Charlie Manuel says Domonic Brown has a great chance to get upwards of 400 at bats with the Phillies this year. Matt Gelb has the story in the Inquirer. “The more experience we can get him in spring training, the faster he may be able to be an everyday player in the big leagues. If he has a good spring and he makes our team, I’m looking at a guy who is going to get 350, 400 at-bats. That’s a minor-league season. In a first year in the big leagues, that’s good.”
• Dave Murphy with a strong defense of Ryan Howard and his declining power numbers, noting among other things the timing of his injury last year, and the improved pitching in the NL East.
• On that note, Matt Gelb notes that Charlie Manuel wants Howard to move closer to the plate. Manuel explained, Howard was hitting these balls to left so well because of the way he was standing at the plate. He turned his power field into left when it should have been right field.
• Jimmy Rollins predicts 100 wins, and can’t imagine himself in another uniform.
  Rollins was asked if he could imagine himself not being a part of the Phillies, the only organization he has ever known. He started to get sentimental, recalling when a wide-eyed 17-year-old kid first arrived at the Carpenter Complex in Clearwater wishing he was playing for a team on the West Coast – or a team that won, like the Atlanta Braves.

  Now? Jimmy Rollins embodies the Phillies’ rise from irrelevancy to the model franchise of the National League. And if this is to be his final season in Philadelphia, maybe his departure would mark the beginning of the next chapter.

And a few from around baseball.

• Mark Feinsand in the Daily News on Yankees farmhand Andrew Brackman, a former basketball player at NC State, who talks about the transition to full-time baseball player and the mental struggle he developed from failing to find the strike zone.  “When you put pressure on yourself, it can just eat at you,” Brackman said. “That’s what happened at Charleston; it just pushed me down to the ground. Last year, I picked myself up. I felt like I had nothing to lose after the year I had in ’09, so I tried to let the game just come to me and have some fun. That’s how I’m going to look at it this year.”
• Andy Martino in the Daily News says Sandy Koufax is brightening up Mets camp.
• The father of new Yankee pitching coach Larry Rothschild became a Yankee fan because he served with Hank Bauer in World War II. Steve Serby in the NY Post.
• SI.com’s Jon Heyman on the Miguel Cabrera saga.
• ESPN’s Michael Wilbon says his beloved Cubs should do everything they can to sign Albert Pujols.
• Thomas Boswell in the Washington Post says that the Nationals wait for a winning team shouldn’t be much longer. The Nats need a pitching ace, plus another slugger, to be a winning team. But, given time and luck, those pieces are probably already on hand: Stephen Whatshisname and Bryce Somethingorother. That’s why 2011 should be a fascinating season. With a half-dozen young players with the ability to become building blocks, the Nats need to foster a homegrown foundation before adding more fancy high-priced additions.

Enjoy. Happy Sunday. Only six more weeks until the real games start.

Did you know that former BlueClaw Michael Bourn and Carl Crawford were Little League teammates in Houston?

Peter Abraham in today’s Boston Globe has the story.

HOUSTON — Ray Bourn wasn’t one of those Little League coaches who considered it a successful day if all the kids had fun. He wanted to win.

So after his Mt. Zion Angels won the first game of a district tournament in 1990, Bourn stuck around to scout the two teams playing in the same bracket. That was when he spotted Carl Crawford for the first time.

Crawford was a 9-year-old first baseman, a player so precociously talented that he was supposed to be on a team with older boys that day. Instead, he stuck with a team sponsored by the Salvation Army that was culled from residents of Houston’s gritty Fifth Ward.

“He had one hit and then another,’’ Bourn said. “I stuck around and kept watching and he had a hit the third time he came up. I loved how he swung the bat. I’ll never forget that day.’’

Ray is Michael’s dad, and then-coach. Read the rest of it. Really cool story.

Baseball season is officially here. How do we know? Because all the news stories say “CLEARWATER -” or “TAMPA -” in the dateline. With that said, with your Sunday morning coffee (and sausage links), a look around the baseball world. Here we go:

• Matt Gelb in the Inquirer asks five Phillies questions that will define the season. The first one: Will Domonic Brown win the starting job?
• Bob Brookover in the Inquirer has five Phillies minor leaguers to watch. Included: Jonathan Singleton, Jesse Biddle, and Harold Garcia.
• Paul Hagen in the Daily News with a spring training preview. The Phillies kicked off the most successful epoch in their largely undistinguished franchise history by winning the National League East title in 2007. Return with us now to those glorious days of yesteryear when the projected starters going into spring training were … Brett Myers, Freddy Garcia, Jon Lieber, Cole Hamels, Jamie Moyer and Adam Eaton…This didn’t exactly move the baseball poets to compose paeans celebrating what was in store.
• Bill Conlin in the Daily News writes “Beach ball has never been so glorious.”Neither Rome nor Clearwater Beach was built in a day.

  Tampa Bayside Clearwater is hard by U.S. 19, where Bright House Field and the Carpenter Minor League Complex form its western border. Sparkling Clearwater Beach hunkers against the Gulf of Mexico. Forget about Mr. In-Between, the urban sprawl.

  Clearwater Beach and the ballpark complex have become as much a part of Phillies Nation between pitchers and catchers reporting and the late-March exodus to Citizens Bank Park as the Jersey Shore is to ball-fan summers.

• Jayson Stark with the top stories heading into spring training includes a Phillies story. Whatever happened to the theory that no big-time pitchers would ever want to pitch in Citizens Bank Park, huh? The Phillies are turning that one into a bigger myth than Charlie Sheen’s “laugh-induced abdominal pain.”
• Not a Phillies story but maybe the biggest in baseball heading into the season…Tom Verducci of SI on the obstacles in front of Albert Pujols and the Cardinals trying to get a deal done.
• Bill Madden in the NY Daily News with an excellent rundown of leading spring storylines, starting with the Yankees, Red Sox and Cardinals.
• Did you know former BlueClaw Michael Bourn and Carl Crawford were on the same Little League team? Peter Abraham has the story in the Boston Globe.

There you go. We’ll make this a Sunday staple on the blog leading into the season.

We had a chance to talk with Phillies Employee Assistance Professional, and former pitcher Dickie Noles (right in photo, talking to Scott Palmer) at last night’s Winter Tour. You can listen to the interview in full by clicking here. Some excerpts below.

(on his current role) I’m the employee assistance professional. I handle players and any work-site and job related, or family, or life related issues. I’m a guy they can go to, a mentor for the minor leaguers, and they can find expert consultation.

(on his transition to his current role) It was not that easy. I remember it like yesterday. When I was being persuaded to do this, we had a wonderful guy who was doing it, Dr. William O’Brien. We never had EAPs when I played. We probably needed them more than anyone though, but we didn’t have them.

My first encounter with an EAP was Sam McDowell with the Texas Rangers. The next guy was an EAP state cop, Jimmy Nestor. I looked at him, he looked like Clint Eastwood, and Sam McDowell was a John Wayne looking guy. My thought was when an EAP walked into a room, you didn’t want to talk to them if you didn’t have to. So I was in that state of mind, but these guys persuaded me to it.

I had traveled with Dr. O’Brien. My role was to talk about drugs and alcohol to the minor league players, as well as pitching inside.

It’s very difficult to seek help for anyone, especially males. Building trust is the easiest way to do that. A lot of guys that come from Williamsport, they’re new. All I’m doing is reading policy and procedure, so they’re looking at me as a cop almost. You have to win their trust. Be there, and let them see you and realize that I’m there to help. What helps me is that I’ve been there, I’ve put the uniform on, and I’ve had some problems that I’ve overcame in my life. That helps a little bit too…They look at me and say “Well he’s played the game” so if they want to come to me it makes it a little easier. But then you have to show them you know what the heck you’re talking about.

(on speaking to high school students) I used to do it a lot, I’d like to do more of that. But the way baseball is set up now it’s almost a 365-day a year sort of thing. You have a lot of stuff from the commissioner’s office like steroids and therapeutic use exemptions and that sort of stuff that keeps you tied up. But that’s where my love is. I love kids.

There’s more in there, including some stuff on the 1980 Phillies and his teammate Greg Gross (also at last night’s event), who was a few years older than Noles and who Noles credits for helping to ease the transition into the Major Leagues.

Later on, during the program, Noles was asked as part of the interactive Q&A (in this case by Phillies GM Ruben Amaro) what the defining moment of his career was:

My first game in the big leagues. When I got drafted out of high school, it was rough for me. We didn’t get too many fans [in the minors], so when I got to the big leagues, it was a dream come true. We all want to reach the big leagues, that’s the pinnacle.

I didn’t have to go home to North Carolina and hear a guy ask me “When are you going to make it to the big leagues?”

Noles added that he fell in love with baseball around the time of…the 1969 Mets. “But it was bumpy on the way. The first guy I faced in the big leagues, hit a home run.”

A few BlueClaws in there. Click here to read (Insider content).

3. Domonic Brown (2008)
12. Kyle Drabek (2007)

And then from the 2010 champion BlueClaws

27. Jonathan Singleton
34. Jarred Cosart
76. Brody Colvin
93. Trevor May

It’s too bad that we never got to see Cosart/Colvin/May in one rotation (Cosart was hurt before May arrived). That said, the BlueClaws did post the best ERA of the 120 full-season minor league teams in 2010, a healthy 3.04. Plus they gave up nine runs in seven playoff games. So the pitching was certainly not lacking.