a dabbler's journal

Lugnuts Notes: Series at South Bend Silver Hawks

July 3 to July 4

Lugnuts 2 games, Hawks 0 games
Lugnuts are 8-6 (.571)
Tied with the Whitecaps for first place, one game ahead of Michigan and Fort Wayne
Thorn threw a complete game on Tuesday
Tim Grieve’s been reassigned to Wilmington

Tuesday’s was the fourth consecutive excellent game; Wednesday, while less than perfect, was an easy win. Thorn’s CG was 99 pitches, according to pitch chart (I sat behind the gun again).

Turns out Grieve was in Lansing on a rehab assignment. Nothing against that, but I always imagined the first Lugnut to get a promotion would be someone I’ve seen enough to appreciate. Oh, well; player development counts more than my expectations.

Additional note on Grieve: Tim’s brother, Ben, is a highly-regarded prospect in the Oakland organization; he played the first half of last season for the Whitecaps. Their father Tom was once a major leaguer and is the former GM of the Texas Rangers.

Cepeda hit a home run in South Bend, his first as a professional. The crowd didn’t properly appreciate it, of course, but the Lugnut players were delighted, and astonished. He’s been hitting really well since mid-season.

Spokane Indians Roster

Just some sketchy information. I’ll do the same with GCL team soon.

Coaching Staff

Manager: Bob Herold
Coaches: Jeff Garber & Buster Keeton

Pitchers

Alonzo Aguilar      1995 draft; East Los Angeles JC; 1995 GCL Royals
Brandon Baird (LH)  1996 draft; Wichita State
Jamie Burton (LH)   1995 GCL Royals
Enrique Calero      1996 draft; St Thomas
Jake Chapman (LH)   1996 draft; St Joseph's
Steve Huesten       1996 draft (round 10); California State
  (I've got references to this player with his name spelled three ways....)
Aaron Lineweaver    1996 draft; Dallas Baptist
Scott Mullen (LH)   1996 draft (round 7); Dallas Baptist
Taylor Myers        1996 draft (round 2); Green Valley HS (Henderson, NV)
Donald Quigley      1996 draft; Sonoma State
Allen Sanders       1995 draft (round 7); Lee (TX) JC; 1995 GCL Royals; 1995 Spokane
Craig Sanders       1995 draft; University of Nebraska; 1995 Spokane; 1996 Lansing
Jason Simontacchi   1996 draft; Albertsons College
Ethan Stein         1996 draft; North Carolina
Modesto Villarreal  1995 Spokane; 1996 Lansing

Catchers

Roman Escamilla     1996 draft; Texas
Juan Robles         1995 GCL Royals; 1995 Spokane; 1996 Lansing

Infielders

First Base
Jason Layne (LH)    
Kit Pellow          1996 draft; Arkansas
Second Base
Kenderick Moore     
Third Base
Courtney Arrollado  
Kris Didion         1996 draft; Riverside CA
Shortstop
Eric Sees           1996 draft; Stanford
Brett Taft          1996 draft; Alabama

Outfielders

Carlos Beltran (SH) 1995 draft (round 2); Arroyo PR; 1995 GCL Royals; 1996 Lansing
Brandon Berger      1996 draft; Eastern Kentucky
Jeremy Giambi (LH)  1996 draft (round 6); California State
Scott Harp          1996 draft; Dallas Baptist
Rick Pitts (SH)     1995 GCL Royals; 1996 Lansing

Designated Hitters

Doug Blosser (LH)   1995 draft (round 3); Sarasota FL; 1995 GCL Royals; 1996 Lansing
Tony Miranda        1995 draft; Cal State Fullerton; 1995 Spokane

Tags: lansing lugnuts, luggie notes, midwest league

joel

says:

July 5, 2013 at 12:37 pm

Reposting a day late again. Such is life.

I’ve already discussed Grieve and Cepeda, and plan talk about Thorn some other day. Jose Cepeda would never develop any power, which certainly didn’t help his major league prospects.

A few notes on the 1996 Spokane Indians:

Hueston’s the proper spelling. I think.
Most of these guys, including manager Bob Herold, would eventually play (manage) for the Lugnuts, mostly in 1997.
Beltran, Berger, Giambi, Pellow, (Kiko) Calero, Mullen, and Simontacchi would eventually play in the majors.
Ignoring Beltran, Jason Simontacchi probably had the best major league career of these. Some would pick Jeremy Giambi, I expect.
But Kit Pellow‘s the most interesting name on this list.

Before I go into detail about his career, let me say this: Kit Pellow was a fun player to watch. He was a big guy who played full-out, charging around the third base corner. And he could just rake at the plate.

He played hard, but he didn’t defend well. I wrote a little profile of Pellow for the 1998 Lansing Lugnuts magazine. My writeup included this: “Can you say Bobby Bonilla? Howard Johnson? The offensive contributions of these big-league third basemen more than make up for their defensive weaknesses. Pellow should take notes.” (Actually, this is editor Mary Connors‘ rewrite of my comment, incorporating a clarification from an email. Mary was always more conscious than I was of the difference between what I knew and what my readers would know.)

Pellow’s major league career is insignificant, except that he broke up a Tom Glavine no hitter. But his minor league career, almost entirely at the Triple-A level, is really quite remarkable. This man was a threat hit thirty or more home runs per season, and knocked in tons of baserunners. But he did that hitting in Omaha and Colorado Springs and Saltillo (where he won the Mexican League Triple Crown in 2008). And you’ve got to think that any player whose career includes stints in Korea, Mexico, and China is playing for the love of the game.

Kit apparently never learned to field. Nonetheless, you might suppose that Jim Leyland or Davey Johnson would have found a way to get him into the lineup.

Just in case you think I’m being hard on Pellow’s defense….

In the event you’ve just stumbled onto this entry, here’s an explanation of what I’m up to. With an index!