http://minorleaguesource.com/baseball.html

The New Hampshire Fisher Cats have extended their player development contract with the Blue Jays to 2014.  There was previous speculation about how Ottawa was going to get a team for 2013 (most likely Binghamton) and they would push to be a Blue Jays affiliate.  With this announcement, the latter won’t happen next year, and it seems less likely now that the former will occur either.  I think there’s a high likelihood of Ottawa getting a minor league team again, but when is unclear.

Also with this announcement, I think there’s a fairly good chance that this September will be a repeat of that in 2010 where none of the AA teams change affiliations.  I could see the Brewers trying to explore some other options, but it appears that things may have settled out at that level.

And that picture above, it’s Kyle Drabek pitching for the Fisher Cats from my visit in 2010.

For AA, currently there are 11 of 30 PDCs that expire at the end of 2012.

http://minorleaguesource.com/pdc.html

Today I was able to meet Butch Hobson at an event at Gardner’s Mattress & More in Lancaster, PA.  Hobson is currently the manager for the Lancaster Barnstormers and was a third baseman for the Red Sox, Angels and Yankees from 1975-1982.  He was also the Red Sox manager from 1992-1994.  This is probably also the closest that I’ve seen a player’s autograph match the one printed on the card.

Originally I was planning on seeing Phillies 3B Placido Polanco at the Wilmington Flower Market, but since I already have a card signed by him, and none by Butch Hobson, I decided to get an autograph I didn’t already have.  Just wish that they weren’t at the same time so I could have tried to do both.

While at the Reading Phillies game on Sunday, I was able to get autographs from two of the Erie coaches including Manager Chris Cron and Hitting Coach Jerry Martin.  As I’ve mentioned previously, Reading is a great place for autographs and while there were a number of people focused on specific players, I was the only one who was trying for autographs of the coaches, who were former major league players.  I came up short on Pitching Coach Ray Burris though, keeping me from completing the trifecta.

For those who don’t remember every single player that ever played major league baseball, Chris Cron played in 12 major league games with the 1991 Angels and 1992 White Sox (6 each).  Jerry Martin had an 11 year major league career from 1974-1984 playing with 5 teams.

I was able to take in my first game of 2012 yesterday.  I went to see the Reading Phillies take on the Erie SeaWolves on an overcast day.  The game was pretty entertaining as Erie won 9-4.  Reading Starting Pitcher David Buchanan had put up pretty good numbers going into the game, but got hit hard for 9 runs (8 earned) capped off by a grand slam by Erie 3B Wade Gaynor.

The game featured two of the top catching prospects in Erie’s Rob Brantly (who was DH for this game) and Reading’s Sebastian Valle.  Brantly went 2-5 with an RBI double and Valle went 1-4, also with an RBI double.

I’m hoping to get to more games this month, so I’ll have to see what transpires.

http://minorleaguesource.com/baseball.html

http://minorleaguesource.com/baseball.html

http://minorleaguesource.com/baseball.html

The Erie SeaWolves have extended their player development contract with the Tigers to 2014.  This one is a little bit of a surprise for me because there always rumors about Erie losing its Eastern League team in favor of a NY-Penn League team, so I’d have to think that in the near term that Erie is likely staying put.

I wouldn’t think the Tigers will lock in for the next two years if there was uncertainty about where the team would be.  There have been rumors about Erie moving to Montreal, but there hasn’t been much discussion on that front.

For AA, currently there are 12 of 30 PDCs that expire at the end of 2012.

http://minorleaguesource.com/pdc.html

http://minorleaguesource.com/baseball.html

For AA, currently there are 13 of 30 PDCs that expire at the end of 2012.

http://minorleaguesource.com/pdc.html