Native sons find success in minor leagues
July 30, 2008
By J.B. Wogan
Former Liberty High School pitcher Tim Lincecum might be today’s best pro ballplayer to hail from Seattle’s Eastside, but he’s not the only one.
Lincecum, a starter for the San Francisco Giants, recently earned one of Major League Baseball’s top honors by landing on the National League’s All-Star team.
“The whole state of Washington is good,” said Mark Yoshino, head coach for Bellevue Community College.
Yoshino’s Bellevue Bulldogs have had 51 players drafted by pro ball clubs since 1988. Nine of those players are currently on minor league rosters, including Skyline graduate Michael Lee.
“In terms of ratio of pros to total number of players, it’s one of the highest in the nation,” Yoshino said.
California, Texas and Florida produce more pro-level players, but they also have larger populations in general, he added.
Two Eastlake graduates – Andy Sisco and Chad Orvella – even reached the major leagues in the last few years.
Sisco, 25, started for the Kansas City Royals in 2005 and 2006 and pitched one game for the Chicago White Sox in 2007. His record in the big show was 3-9. Sisco is currently on the disabled list for the Charlotte Knights, the Chicago White Sox Triple-A team.
Orvella, 27, started for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays from 2005-2007. He went 4-10 over the three-year span. The year before his major league debut, Orvella was Tampa Bay’s Minor League Pitcher of the Year.
“There’s been a lot of us who played minor league baseball. I attribute a lot of that to our youth coaches before high school,” said Hawksworth. He played on the same little league team – the Eastlake Mariners – as Sisco and Kyle Larsen, who also went on to play minor league ball.
Hawksworth has been playing on the Memphis Redbirds, a Triple-A club in the St. Louis Cardinals organization.
Larsen played first base in 2005-2006 for the Staten Island Yankees and Charleston RiverDogs – both Single A – and now works as an assistant coach for Eastlake under J.T. D’Amico.
“My class was obviously pretty talented,” Hawksworth said. “That’s what we did though. We played baseball all the time.”
Former Skyline ace Julian Sampson agreed that competing in KingCo set the stage for higher levels of play later.
“There was a lot of talent in KingCo. I’d say it was one of the top conferences in the state,” Sampson said.
Still, the 6-foot-5, 210-pound 19-year-old said there were some noticeable differences between high school ball and the minor leagues.
In 2007, Sampson was first team all-KingCo, first team all-state and the Washington High School player of the year for baseball.
“Coming from playing a normal park with a couple bleachers, now I play in front of 7-9,000 people a night,” he said. “The hitters are a lot better, obviously. You can’t always get away with throwing the baseball down the middle. You have to mix speeds up.”
Sampson said he thought his fastball’s velocity and the depth of his off-speed pitches gave him a foothold at the pro level. His fastest pitch reaches 97 miles per hour, but he also has a curve, a straight changeup and a palm ball.
The pro schedule is grueling, too, he said.
“I haven’t been home since mid-February,” said Sampson, who was drafted onto New Jersey’s Lakewood BlueClaws in June. “It’s definitely a grind, but it’s worth it.”
Sampson, the second youngest person on his team, plays Single A in the South Atlantic League. Sampson had a 6-4 record with a 4.63 ERA, 93.1 innings pitched, 46 strikeouts and 41 walks.
Michael Lee, who shared time with Sampson in Skyline’s rotation for two years, agreed the pro schedule was demanding.
He said his Single A team -Massachusetts’s Lowell Spinners – had three days off amid a 40-game stretch.
Unlike Sampson, Lee opted to play three years of college ball in spite of being drafted by the New York Yankees after his senior year at Skyline.
“I wanted to make sure I was ready for pro ball. I thought there would be a lot better opportunities for me down the road,” the 6-foot-7, 220-pound Lee explained. “The one thing, when you’re drafted, you want to go in a system where you can develop.”
Between the summer 2005 and this June, Lee went from a 22nd-round draft pick to an eighth-round pick.
The jump allowed him to have a six-figure signing bonus with the Boston Red Sox.
In between, he played two years for Yoshino at Bellevue Community College, and one year for Oklahoma City University.
“He’s as good as anyone we’ve ever had,” said Denny Crabaugh, head coach at Oklahoma City University.
In his one season under Crabaugh, Lee posted a 10-2 record, a 2.79 ERA, with 124 strikeouts and 28 walks in 92 innings. He helped his team finish third in his college league’s national tournament.
“He had the best stuff out of anybody on our staff,” said Crabaugh, who explained that the ratio of 124 strikeouts to 24 walks was telling. “It means that he throws a lot of strikes and a lot of guys aren’t hitting what he’s throwing in the strike zone.”
Lee, currently on the disabled list, has pitched four innings as a relief pitcher for the Spinners. In his two appearances on the mound, he struck out seven batters, allowed one hit and had no walks. He is currently listed on the disabled list and said he is undergoing an arm-strengthening program.
The biggest surprise about the pro level is that it’s still just baseball, Lee said.
“I used to go to games as a kid and watch pro baseball players,” Lee said. “Now I’m playing with some people who make millions of dollars and they’re exactly like all of us. I guess I figured it would be a lot different.”
Reporter J.B. Wogan can be reached at 392-6434, ext. 247, or jbwogan@isspress.com.
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