Mormon Baseball

Posts Tagged ‘Jeremy Guthrie’

When the Yankees’ play-by-play radio announcer, John Sterling, says (as he does every game) “You just can’t predict baseball,” I can’t help laughing—because he says it so often. The thing is, though, he’s right.

And in the first week of baseball for 2013 I saw that he is right again. Who would have predicted, even given his strong performance in spring training, that the Mets’ John Buck would have the best batting average among the Mormons in professional baseball? Better than Bryce Harper? Better than Jacoby Ellsbury and Darwin Barney? But here we are, after a week of play, 20 at bats for Buck, he is hitting .400 with 9 rbis and 2 home runs.

Starting the season last week, I thought Harper was the one with the hot bat. He homered in each of his first two at bats for the season (what a hot dog!) and had to endear himself to fans when he checked with his team mates (because he didn’t want to seem cocky) after the second home run to see if it was all right to take a curtain call. Alright? Of course its alright! You just hit back-to-back home runs! when no one else on the team could hit Ricky Nolasco! Yes, Bryce, take the curtain call.

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I’ve neglected following the transactions and changing status of the Mormon players for the past several months — a bit of a vacation, I suppose. But with spring training rapidly approaching, I thought I should get the status up to date and start following where everyone is. Today’s update only includes the players who played in the Majors last year.

There are still a couple of players who have played in the majors in previous years whose status is uncertain—Kyle Farnsworth and Brandon Lyon both had strong enough years in 2012 that I think they are likely to be picked up by someone.

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One time Baltimore Orioles ace Jeremy Guthrie, a returned missionary who served in Spain, has landed a contract with the Kansas City Royals for the next 3 years. The deal, worth $25 million, inline with the contract he signed last year with the Rockies and inline with his career high.

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Mitch Maier

Even though the post season games are still being played, the post season roster shuffle has already started, and one Mormon player has already suffered a setback. The Kansas City backup outfielder Mitch Maier was released by the Royals on October 5th, leaving Maier looking for a new team. Maier ended the season in the minors, after hitting just .172 at the plate in the majors, down from .263 in 2010.

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I don’t normally begin my write-up talking about a minor league player, but this week the stellar pitching of Taylor Cole with the Vancouver Canadians (A short season) kind of demanded front billing. Cole came close to baseball’s ultimate performance, a pitching performance over 7 2/3rds innings marred only by a teammate’s error. Still, Cole was pitching a no-hitter for his 6th win of the season when he was pulled from the game against the Yakima Bears. The Northwest league’s regular season has ended, Cole finishes the year with a stunning (and league-leading) 0.81 era. He will likely pitch in the Canadians’ post-season games, which start today.

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The Mormon domain—that part of the Western U.S. where Mormons are a significant portion of the population—first gained a major league team in 1998 when the expansion Arizona Diamondbacks started playing. Since then several Mormons have played on the team, but recently there hasn’t been a Mormon for local fans to cheer. That changed again Sunday when the Diamondbacks traded for Matt Lindstrom.
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A reader has alerted me to another Mormon playing professional baseball, Lance Pendleton, who is currently with the Durham Bulls in the Tampa Bay Ray’s organization. After he was drafted by the Yankees out of Rice University, Pendleton has spent 6 years in the minors, rising to even the major leagues, debuting on April 15th of last year. Unfortunately, his numbers aren’t very strong this year — a 4.49 era so far — so a return to the majors seems unlikely at the moment.

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Jacoby Ellsbury

I’m late preparing this information for 2012, but since I’m going tonight to a game for the first time this year, I thought I’d better get this information together and post it. After a good year last year that saw two Mormons in baseball’s All-Star game and at one point perhaps 13 active players who are Mormon, the prospects for this year look promising, but not at the level of 2010.

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The first weekend of April is a time when we look for information, for an understanding of the changes that have happened in the last six months and how that will help us prepare for the next six months.

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