A’s preview: Hungry guys
Posted: May 27, 2008
The 46th edition of the Sheboygan A’s baseball team might be the young-est in its history.
There are 28 players listed on the opening day roster for the A’s, who open their season on the road at 8 p.m. today against the Howards Grove Riverdogs. Their average age: 21.8 years old.
The team gets to find out early just how much of a challenge the A’s 60-plus game schedule can be, with five games in the first week of action, and a long string of road games.
After playing their home opener Friday night against Forest, the A’s don’t return to Wildwood Baseball Park until a June 14 doubleheader against Lombard.
“We’ve talked about being young before, but it pales in comparison to this club,” general manager Denny Moyer said. “These new young kids have good credentials, but we’ve only seen them at a few practice sessions so how they will fare in this competition is an unknown. But they certainly have enthusiasm, have desire, they really want to be here, and, trust me, in a 60-game schedule attitude and desire are critical factors.”
New manager Chad Gehr has tabbed Lucas Wilsing to start tonight at Howards Grove and Drew Powers to start Wednesday at Little Chute.
The A’s return their two top hitters and their two top pitchers from a 2007 club that finished 29-27, taking second in the Northeastern League and fifth in the Wisconsin State League.
Fifteen players return from last year for the A’s, meaning about half the roster is new and extremely young.
The only 30-year-old on the roster is Mike Johnson. The next oldest player is Ben Stanczyk at 26. Everyone else is 24 or younger.
The club appears to have solid position players. The pitching is solid as well, but a little short in numbers, as the A’s lost veterans Zach Raff, Chad Pierce, Tom Eckhardt and Tim Hoy, who combined to throw 170 innings last year.
“There is no question that we could use two more solid pitchers,” Moyer said. “Chad and I have been calling around trying to find people to eat up the innings we lost.”
The top two returning hitters are Tim Patzman (.358, six home runs, 39 runs batted in) and Most Valuable Player and Most Valuable Defensive Player Grant Berkovitz (.347, 5, 52).
The top two returning pitchers are 2007’s co-Most Valuable Pitchers Wilsing (5-1, 2.06) and Mike Rauwerdink (6-1, 2.36). Wilsing will also play first base and serve as designated hitter when not pitching.
Other returning pitchers are veteran Aaron Sorenson, who hopes to come back from some nagging arm problems; Ryan Schmitz, who suffered through a long season with back problems but appears to be 100 percent this year; Zach Hoch, whose live arm got him four saves last year; Brad Mey; and Powers and Eric Dayton, who are available on only a part-time basis. Johnson, a club veteran and former manager, will also help out from time to time, as will infielder Taylor Schwarz.
Returning position players in addition to outfielder Patzman and infielder Berkovitz are catcher/infielder Tim Salm, infielders Sam Radbil and Schmitz and outfielders Graham Bintliff, Jon Valdez and former catcher CJ Skelton.
Among the new position players are South grads Frank Raff and Ben Hendricks.
Article by Sheboygan Press Staff
The Sheboygan A's are members of the Wisconsin State League and Northeastern Wisconsin Baseball League. The A's have helped develop more than 43 players that have reached professional baseball, including 2002 World Series Champion Jarrod Washburn (Anaheim Angels). All Sheboygan A's home games are played at Wildwood Baseball Park in Sheboygan. Connect with the A's on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.
