Pat Murphy brings in another strong class

The College Baseball Newspaper released their rankings for the Top Recruiting classes for the 2009 season. It is led by Arizona State University for the third time in the 26th year existence of the rankings. They will welcome a 20 recruit class to Tempe in the spring with 15 incoming freshmen and 5 junior college transfers. Out of the 20 recruits, 13 of them were selected in the 2008 MLB Draft. Oregon comes in second place in the rankings with their 30 recruits joining George Horton in Eugene for the return of UO baseball. Vanderbilt, Arkansas, and Georgia round out the Top 5. Read the rest of this entry »

Pirates and Alvarez agree to a contract

Pedro Alvarez and the Pittsburgh Pirates have agreed to a new contract ending a month long disagreement between the parties. Alvarez’s agent Scott Boras claimed that the contract that they signed with the Pirates was not valid because it came after the August 15th deadline. The MLBPA filed a grievance on August 27th over the issue and it was recently heard by an arbitrator on September 10th with the next two hearings were set to take place on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week. The new contract will pay Alvarez 6.355 million over the next four years according to a report by the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. Read the rest of this entry »

Coach Ed Flaherty has become a regional legend and an NACB Hall of Famer in his 22 years as Head Coach of Southern Maine.  With a career record of 689 and 301 (.695 winning percentage), Coach Flaherty figures to cross into rarefied air with the potential to win his 700th game for the Huskies in 2009.  The Huskies will also be going for their third national DIII title in 2009 after falling short in the Northeast Regional against the Trinity (CT) juggernaut this past spring.  Coach Flaherty graduated from Maine, where he played baseball.  He was inducted into the University of Maine Hall of Fame in 1992, the State of Maine Baseball Hall of Fame in 1993 and the National Association of Baseball Coaches Hall of Fame in 2005.

Last week we talked Southern Maine with Coach Flaherty. (Part 1 available here.)  He’s been kind enough to sit down with us for some more questions.
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The grievance filed by the MLBPA on behalf of Pedro Alvarez will have their case heard today. The case revolves around the validity of his contract which Alvarez’s camp says came after the midnight deadline on August 15th and the Pirates say is a valid contract. Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports says: Read the rest of this entry »

Buster Posey

I know that we talked about the San Francisco Giants yesterday about how they moved up Conor Gillaspie up to the Majors but we continue with our coverage of the Giants minor league system with an article about Buster Posey. He was added to the San Jose Giants roster for the playoffs where he made his first appearance on Saturday evening where the Giants picked up a 5-3 victory in Game 1 of their playoff series against Stockton. Posey went 1-3 with a walk and threw out a baserunner in his debut. The Giants have had Posey on three different teams in the last eight days where he started in Rookie Ball in Arizona then promoted to short-season A ball in Oregon before being promoted to San Jose. Read the rest of this entry »

Conor Gillaspie has become the first 2008 draft pick to make it to the Major Leagues as he was called up after the Giants September 6th game. He had an outstanding career with the Wichita State Shockers where he was selected by the Giants with the 37th overall pick. He ended up spending only 91 days in the minors. I talked with The Giants Baseball Blog back in June and said the following about Connor: Read the rest of this entry »

The Pittsburgh Post Gazette checks in with an article about Pedro Alvarez and his options for the next season if his contract is voided. Dejean Kovacevic was able to talk with Vanderbilt head coach Tim Corbin to discuss the possibility that Pedro would return to campus. Read the rest of this entry »

Assistant Editor Mark Rafferty sent me a link to a Fanhouse post about the Pedro Alvarez situation. Alvarez is currently refusing to take a physical or take part in a press conference under the advice of his agent Scott Boras.

Boras is stating that the contract signed by Pedro is void because it came after the midnight deadline on August 15th. Boras did not raise any issues when he negotiated the contract, but since has gotten the MLBPA on his side. They have filed a grievance on behalf of Mr. Alvarez claiming that the contract was signed after the deadline thus making it illegal. Read the rest of this entry »

Baseball Digest Daily Podcaster Eric SanInocencio recently talked with current Missouri pitcher Aaron Crow who recently turned down a multi-million dollar deal with the Washington Nationals. He was the ninth overall selection in the 2008 draft but could not come to terms thus the reason why he will be playing with the independent league Fort Worth Cats. Crow has picked up many national awards including being named the 2008 Roger Clemens award winner as the top collegiate pitcher. Crow’s stock skyrocketed last summer with an impressive Cape Cod League All-Star game where he hit 98 MPH and an impressive junior season which saw him go 13-0 with a 2.35 ERA. He also struck out 127 batters in 107.1 innings of work. Read the rest of this entry »

Brian Matusz

SAN DIEGO, Calif. ­ Former University of San Diego All-American Brian Matusz has come to terms with the Baltimore Orioles, signing his first Major League Baseball contract.

Matusz, the fourth overall pick by the Orioles in the 2008 MLB draft and the consensus best pitcher available, received a $3.2 million bonus and a four-year major league deal as part of his contract with the Orioles. That bonus is the second-highest in this year¹s draft, trailing only the $6.15
million the Rays gave No. 1 overall selection Tim Beckham. The total value of the deal has yet to be reported.

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The Cape Cod Baseball League has put out two great articles on the MVP of the league which was AJ Pollock of Notre Dame and the Batting Champ in Jimmy Cesario of Houston. Pollock finished the season leading the league in hits, doubles, and slugging percentage while finishing second in the league in batting average behind Jimmy Cesario. Read the rest of this entry »

The Cotuit Kettleers are currently leading the Falmouth Commodores in the 7th inning 3-1.  If you’re not at the game, it is being streamed online here.  Also, Nate Sandals of the Cape Cod Times is updating everyone with a live blog.  The game is moving along fast, so be sure to check out the action.  The winner of this game will face Harwich, the winner of the Eastern League, in a best-of-3 series starting tomorrow.