The last 48 hours have given baseball fans in Missoula their first view of what the roster for the Missoula Osprey will look like when the team opens the Pioneer League season Monday evening in Helena against the Senators.
After Missoula’s parent club, the Arizona Diamondbacks, assigned four more players to the Osprey on Thursday, the current roster includes 28 players.
Here’s a link to Missoula’s most up-to-date roster, sent to media members late Thursday afternoon. Copy and paste the address below into your address bar:
Junior outfielder Adam Eaton from Miami (Ohio) University is one of two picks from the top-20 rounds in this year's draft that were assigned to the Missoula Osprey on Wednesday.
The Arizona Diamondbacks announced Wednesday the signing of 15 selections from this year’s Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft and six have been assigned to the Missoula Osprey, the team’s Pioneer League affiliate.
Two of the six were chosen in the top-20 rounds of last week’s MLB draft – 17th-round selection Derek Eitel, a 6-foot-4 200-pound right-handed pitcher from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology and 19th-round pick Adam Eaton, a 5-9, 180-pound outfielder from Miami (Ohio) University.
Others who have inked contracts with the D-backs and will be sent to Missoula are catcher Andrew Whittington (33rd round), outfielder Christopher Jarrett (42nd), infielder Eric Groff (44th) and outfielder Javan Williams (45th).
That makes a total of 14 players who have been assigned to Missoula by the Diamondbacks organization. More details on the status of the Osprey roster will emerge before they’re slated to arrive in town Thursday evening.
Missoula Osprey career home runs leader Bobby Stone will begin his third season in Missoula on Monday. Photo by TOM BAUER/Missoulian
These are anxious times for Missoula Osprey baseball fans as the countdown to opening day stands at five.
Just a week after the Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft, the O’s parent club, the Arizona Diamondbacks, is slowly beginning to reveal who will make up Missoula’s opening day roster when the team begins the 2010 Pioneer League campaign Monday night in Helena.
In the next 48 hours, we should know a lot more about the team than the eight players who have currently been assigned to play for the Osprey. Most likely, that information will come Wednesday or early Thursday – the Osprey are slated to arrive in Missoula on Thursday evening and hope to work out at Ogren-Allegiance Park on Friday.
Since the draft was completed, I’ve kept a close eye on the transactions wire. But I’ve yet to see any indication that a single player from this year’s draft has signed a contract with the D-backs.
That makes me wonder if Missoula’s roster will see multiple changes over the course of the first month of the season as draftees begin to sign on the dotted line.
The Diamondbacks can’t evaluate new talent and assign freshly-signed players to a minor league team without working them out. That leads me to believe the Osprey will be heavy on players who have previously been in the D-backs’ system when the season begins.
And that’s good news for Osprey fans. Over the years I’ve noticed the division-rival Billings Mustangs, who always field a competitive club, tend to stock their team with players who have at least a year of professional experience.
It’s no secret the transition from the high school or college ranks to even the lowest level of pro ball isn’t easy and sometimes a titanic struggle. Most of the hitters have little experience with a wood bat, often making the first few weeks in the minors an adventure at the plate. And the pitchers have never faced lineups with professional-grade hitters in all nine spots in the order.
If as I suspect, the majority of the original Osprey roster will feature those with minor league experience, it’s quite possible Missoula will have and early upper hand in claiming the league’s first-half championship and guarantee the Osprey a spot in the PBL playoffs.
There are few things in this world I enjoy more than feeling like a member of the Missoulian coverage area’s sporting community.
As a 16-year transplant to Missoula with no immediate family currently living west of Cleveland, I consider it an honor and a privilege to have forged myself a space among the area’s athletic family over the course of my nine years of writing sports for the Missoulian.
That’s where I’ve met some of the finest people I know and I’m now pleased to call many of these good folks my friends. Developing relationships with people like long-time Missoula soccer coach Geoff Birnbaum, Missoula Mavericks manager Brent Hathaway, Thompson Falls softball coach Randy Pirker, Hamilton activities director Darrell Holland and Whitefish volleyball coach Jackie Fuller, just to name a few, is what makes my job seem less like a job and more of a hobby.
But over the years it’s been the athletes themselves – high school, college and professional – whom I’ve had the most fun building relationships with.
It might come off as a simple pleasure, but I relish getting a chance to watch World Cup soccer matches with former Missoula Sentinel three-sport star and University of Montana soccer goalkeeper Grace Harris. Things like getting invited to a high school graduation party for athletes I’ve covered or going out for pizza with the parents of Maverick baseball players make me thankful to live in a community such as this.
I imagine I speak for the entire Missoulian sports staff when I say that it is with great pride that we strive to do our best to give these athletes and their coaches the recognition and credit they deserve.
So thank you athletes and coaches alike. Thanks for your dedication and thank you for making covering western Montana athletics for the Missoulian as enjoyable a job as I could possibly hold.
Brody Miller of the Missoula Mavericks slides safely into home, beating the tag of Kalispell pitcher Mario Venturini during the fourth inning Thursday night at Lindborg-Cregg Field. Photo by MICHAEL GALLACHER/Missoulian
Believe me, in the grand scheme of things I know I have very little pull when it comes to the fate of the universe. In short, I’m well aware it’s not all about me.
But sometimes I can’t help but think I have a bit of a curse on teams I cover for the Missoulian. You could ask former Loyola Sacred Heart girls’ basketball coach Cara Cocchiarella about her 2003-04 Breakers team that lost a total of four games, but that’s another story for another time.
Take for example last night’s Class AA Missoula Mavericks game at Lindborg-Cregg Field.
My previous post from yesterday afternoon on prosandpreps.com was a plea to the public to come watch watch a team I consider the best Missoula legion ballclub I’ve seen in my years covering the Mavericks for the Missoulian.
I explained how the Mavs were set to take the state by storm, starting with their conference opener against the Kalispell Lakers last night. There was little doubt in my mind the Mavericks would use Thursday evening to add to their 23-game winning streak and their stellar 31-1 record.
“Come out to support your local boys on the diamond this evening. You won’t be disappointed,” I wrote.
Then the Mavs’ “outstanding defense” uncharacteristically committed seven errors, their “intimidating” batting order managed six hits – all by the combination of second baseman Brody Miller and left fielder Matt McMann – and the Lakers dealt Missoula a 7-6 defeat.
Did my post lauding the Mavericks have anything to with last night’s sub-standard performance? I highly doubt it and I sure as heck hope not.
I agreed with Missoula manager Brent Hathaway and assistants Brian Moser and Conor Dwyer when we discussed before the game how the streak would have to end at some point. One day, the defense was bound to have a tough go, while the Missoula offense that came in hitting .389 as a team would go cold and the starting pitching would suffer.
That game came last night, and now the Mavs are pleased to have a chance to erase last night’s memory with two conference clashes in the next two days in Whitefish against the Glacier Twins. They’ll even get another shot at the Lakers in Kalispell next Tuesday.
So let’s make a deal. If you don’t write off the 2010 Mavericks after just one disappointing conference game, I’ll do my best to keep from putting the Heinbach Hex on them the rest of the season. I don’t think that should be a problem for any of us. – Michael Heinbach
The 2010 Class AA Missoula Mavericks are hot, hot, hot.
With all the buzz surrounding the Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft and the impending arrival of the 2010 Missoula Osprey to the Garden City in a week, many have overlooked some special baseball already being played here in town.
Tonight (Thursday) at 7 p.m., the Class AA Missoula Mavericks begin their Western Conference campaign with a nine-inning game against the Kalispell Lakers at Lindborg-Cregg Field.
Despite ominous weather reports calling for scattered showers this evening, tonight would be a perfect time to check out a ballclub that’s set the standard for legion ball in the state to this point of the season.
The Mavs have rolled to a 31-1 record, winning each of their last 23 ballgames. And local baseball fans are starting to take notice as evidenced by the Mavericks’ largest home attendance of the season Sunday, when Missoula scored 31 runs and smacked 27 base hits in a doubleheader sweep of the Bitterroot Red Sox.
Under the guidance of 18th-year AA manager Brent Hathaway, these Mavs are playing like the odds-on favorite to win the state tournament in late July, something Missoula hasn’t accomplished since 1998.
The Mavs feature outstanding defense combined with the most intimidating legion batting order I’ve seen in my time at the Missoulian. That has this Maverick team primed to break its state-championship drought.
So if you’re a baseball junkie (like myself) and don’t mind dodging raindrops, come out to support your local boys on the diamond this evening. You won’t be disappointed.
– Michael Heinbach
By selecting Texas A&M right-hander Barret Loux on Monday with their first pick and sixth overall in the 2010 Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft, the Arizona Diamondbacks began a trend they followed up on during Tuesday’s second day of the draft.
Between the first and 30th rounds, the Diamondbacks, the parent club of the Missoula Osprey, picked 18 pitchers. The D-backs didn’t take a position player until the ninth round, when they called on Zach Walters from the University of San Diego.
And it appears Arizona is bullish on big men taking the mound.
Loux stands 6-foot-5. J.R. Bradley, a high school fireballer from West Virginia and Arizona’s second-round pick is 6-4. The team’s third-round selection, California high school righty Robby Rowland, stands 6-6.
Arizona followed those picks with pitchers Kevin Munson (6-2), Cody Wheeler, the shortest of the group at 5-11, Blake Perry (6-5), Jeff Shields (6-3) and Tyler Green (6-1).
“The word of projection that we talk about in the scouting world, they have that,” Diamondbacks scouting director Tom Allison told the Arizona Republic of his new stable of arms. “They have tremendous frames that we feel they’re going to fill into and will have those good, solid, sturdy major-league bodies with strength, athleticism and fluxion.”
Following Walters, the D-backs chose catcher Kawika Emsley-Pai of Lewis-Clark State and Clemson shortstop Mike Freeman.
While the draft is a chance for Osprey fans to guess who might be sent to the Garden City to play for the Osprey, even the team’s executive vice president Matt Ellis will be left in the dark for the next week.
Draftees who choose to sign soon will be sent to the Diamondbacks’ extended spring training facility in Tucson, Ariz. There, they will work out before getting divided into minor league rosters on or about June 16.
Once named to the team, the Osprey plan on flying to Missoula on June 17 before they begin the season June 21 at Helena. Missoula’s home opener is June 25 against the Billings Mustangs.
While I was in Billings for the All-Class state wrestling meet I got a phone message from Mike Norman of Cleveland, Ohio, who was going to be in Missoula the following week for the Big Sky Documentary Film Festival.
Well, I forgot to get back to Mike, but here’s a clip from his film, “Pinned,” which follows two high school wrestlers on their quest to become state champs. One of them, Lance Palmer, even drew the attention of Stephen Colbert, for obvious comedic reasons — he pissed off PETA.
Missoula’s KGRZ radio (1450 AM) will carry the Loyola Sacred Heart boys’ and girls’ championship basketball games from the District 6-B tournament in Hamilton on Saturday.
LSH faces Florence in both games for the district title. The boys’ game tips off at 6:30 p.m. and the girls’ game starts at 8 p.m.
The four seniors that comprise the Missoula Sentinel wrestling team’s “Death Row” – Josh Hamilton, Tanen Doty, Jace Prideaux and Bentley Alsup – were selected to compete in this Saturday’s Tournament of Champions in Great Falls, meet sponsors announced.
In case you missed it, Doty explains how the group earned their nickname “Death Row” immediately after he won the 171-pound weight class for Class AA in this story from last weekend’s All-Class state wrestling meet in Billings.
Not to give it away, but the moniker has something to do with the foursome wrestling back-to-back-to-back-to-back starting at weight 160 and ending at 215. The “Row” had a combined record of 132-24 this season. Doty was 34-5.
