Ash Hints Huntsville Will Be Well-Stocked Position-Wise in 2008

[Mass Haas]

Link while active, text follows:

 

http://www.al.com/stars/huntsvilletimes/index.ssf?/base/sports/119728176199720.xml&coll=1

 

Brewers exec: Stars roster to have talent

Ash says lineup will include more major prospects

By MARK McCARTER

Huntsville Times Sports Staff, markcolumn@aol.com

A third straight trip to the Southern League playoffs is hardly a guarantee for the Huntsville Stars.

However, according to Gord Ash, the assistant general manager for the Milwaukee Brewers, it'll be a team much more populated by prospects headed toward the major leagues.

"I just don't see the collection of veteran players, the fill-in players you've had in the past," Ash said at the recent Baseball Winter Meetings in Nashville. "I see more prospect guys on your team."

It's something to which Huntsville fans have become accustomed. There have been a couple of waves of top players coming through, Corey Hart and J.J. Hardy in 2003, Prince Fielder and Rickie Weeks the next season, then Ryan Braun and Yovani Gallardo in 2006.

A new wave is behind them. Said general manager Doug Melvin, "There's a good group of guys. Maybe not like the others. I think Braun and Fielder are (players you see) every 10, 12 years."

A name quickly moving to the forefront is outfielder Matt LaPorta, a first-round pick out of Florida last spring who hit .318 with 20 homers at low-A West Virginia. It would seem a big jump to Double-A from there, but he had a league-leading six homers to go with 22 RBIs in 30 games in the Arizona Fall League, where he was named to the All-Prospect team.

Cole Gillespie, a star on Oregon State's NCAA championship team, should also arrive in Huntsville after batting .267 with 12 homers and 62 RBIs at Brevard County. Lorenzo Cain (.276 and 24 stolen bases) will get a good look, and there is incumbent Michael Brantley. Charlie Fermaint has been another "keep-an-eye-on" player, but he is only 22 and hit just .234 with a strikeout for nearly every four at-bats at Brevard.

Mat Gamel, who joined the Stars in time for the championship round of the playoffs, should be the third baseman. He was named MVP of the Hawaiian Fall League, batting .333 with a league-leading eight homers and 25 RBIs in 33 games.

Ash said he expected Chris Errecart (.262, 10 HRs, 55 RBIs) at first base but that the middle infield "will have some flexibility." Alcides Escobar could return at short, where he played the second half of the season and second base will depend on Hernan Iribarren's spring training performance.

Angel Salome, a 5-foot-7 catcher, is the Brewers' next good prospect at that position. He hit .318 with 53 RBIs at Brevard and should step in for Lou Palmisano, who goes to camp on the Brewers' 40-man roster but is expected to be Nashville's catcher.

Pitching will be the wild card, with fewer prospects and likely fewer earning promotion from Single-A. Josh Wahpepah went 9-5 as a reliever at Brevard and Steve Garrison was the most effective starter behind Will Imnan, whom the Brewers both traded in August.

On the Hook: Ash is sold on the Stars' new pitching coach Chris Hook, even if the leap from the independent Frontier League to Double-A seems a big one.

"He's a young, intelligent guy," Ash said. "He doesn't have a lot of experience, but we think he's on the fast track. We believe he's going to be a difference-maker. He's got a great work ethic and got a little bit different approach in how he sees things. He's a little more technologically inclined. I think he'll mix in with the so-called 'new wave' thinkers in the game."

Brewers on draft: Huntsville is not expected to benefit directly from the Rule 5 draft of veteran players. The Brewers scooped up three pitchers for the Triple-A level from other organizations, which will impact Huntsville only because of a backlog of experienced pitching.

Bo Hall, who played for the Stars last season (5-2, 3.46 ERA in 34 games as a reliever) was drafted by the Yankees. Ex-Huntsville second baseman Callix Crabbe (.287 at Nashville in '07) was chosen by San Diego. Crabbe had little future with Milwaukee, with Rickie Weeks in the majors and prospect Iribarren coming up behind him.

Milwaukee optimism: The Brewers were in the pennant race until the last weekend of the season, and general manager Doug Melvin is trying to find the right pieces to get the team over the hump. He'll continue to look for a third baseman so that they can shift rookie of the year Ryan Braun to left field. Braun's defensive progress has been very slow, and with the sense of urgency to win now in Milwaukee with this nucleus of players, they need a better glove at the corner.

"We've got a very, very special group of young men that are going to be together for four, five, six years, and I think that you have to do everything that you can do now," manager Ned Yost said. "I think we've got the ability to compete and we've got the ability to win, and you'd better take full advantage of it and put your best team out there every single day."

Starbrites: Jack Zduriencik is as responsible as anyone for the Stars' recent run of success and for Milwaukee's emergence as a contender. He's the Brewers' special assistant to the GM and director of scouting, a good baseball man and a good guy. Zduriencik was named Major League Executive of the Year at the recent winter meetings, an award that has almost exclusively gone to general managers and owners. ...

Seen at the winter meetings: Robert Portnoy, the former Stars broadcaster. He's the play-by-play man for the Albuquerque Isotopes and is "moonlighting" from baseball this winter as the voice of that city's NBDL team. ... The Brewers have named Jeff Isom as the manager at Single-A West Virginia, promoting Mike Guerrero (brother of Stars' coach Sandy Guerrero) to the Brevard County (Fla.) manager's job. ... Former Huntsville reliever Marino Salas was traded Friday to Pittsburgh as part of a trade for reliever Salomon Torres. ...

The Southern League passed a bylaw to require the participating teams to wear contrasting jersey colors, avoiding instances where, say, Huntsville and Chattanooga would both take the field in red jerseys. It will be up to the home general manager to determine the colors. ... The league board of directors spent much of its time at the winter meetings discussing the potential sale of the West Tenn DiamondJaxx. President Don Mincher is "optimistic" a sale will soon take place and be approved by all necessary parties.

[TooLiveBrew]

"Jack Zduriencik is as responsible as anyone for the Stars' recent run of success and for Milwaukee's emergence as a contender. He's the Brewers' special assistant to the GM and director of scouting, a good baseball man and a good guy. Zduriencik was named Major League Executive of the Year at the recent winter meetings, an award that has almost exclusively gone to general managers and owners. ..."

 

Thanks for linking that, MH. Yikes - is there any way Jack Z. is still our scouting director at this time next year?

[Mass Haas]

Speaking of Huntsville, staff there just posted several of their commercials and such (from this past year and years prior) on You Tube. Many of these were tucked away on the Stars' site as well:

 

http://youtube.com/profile_videos?user=HuntsvilleStars&p=r