Tag Archives: Australian Baseball League

18 Nov

catching up

With five hits in his last three outings, Anthony Alford appears to be finding his stroke in the Australian Baseball League. The former Mr. Baseball from Petal High is 5-for-12 with a home run, six runs and two RBIs in his last three games for Canberra. For the young ABL season, Alford is at .219. Drafted by Toronto in the third round in 2012, Alford has just 94 minor-league at-bats to date as he had been focused on football, which he has now given up. … Mississippians Hunter Renfroe and Tim Anderson got kudos from mlb.com’s Jim Callis for their work in the Arizona Fall League, which wrapped up last week. Mississippi State product Renfroe, a San Diego prospect, batted .284 with a league-best six homers and 20 RBIs. He also led the AFL in extra base hits, total bases and slugging. Anderson, a Chicago White Sox prospect from East Central Community College, hit .301 with six steals. “(F)ew shortstops can match his tools,” Callis wrote. … Tyrell Jenkins, the 6-foot-4 right-hander acquired by Atlanta from St. Louis in the Jason Heyward deal, posted a 2.22 ERA in the AFL. Jenkins, 22, is a candidate for the Mississippi Braves’ roster in 2015, which will be his sixth pro season. He pitched in high-A ball this past season. … Former M-Braves star Jeff Francoeur will get another shot (how many is that?) at making a big league club next spring, this time with Philadelphia. Francouer had a big year (.289, 15 homers, 69 RBIs) in Triple-A with San Diego in 2014, though he didn’t hit at all in his MLB trial. … Ex-MSU standout Tyler Moore is batting .299 with six homers, 17 RBIs and 19 runs in 22 games in the Dominican Winter League as he attempts to improve his stock in the Washington organization. … Mississippi Gulf Coast CC alumnus Roy Corcoran, 34, is pitching in the Mexican Pacific League. The onetime major leaguer is 2-3 with a 3.66 ERA for Hermosillo. Corcoran, who originally signed with the Montreal Expos in 2001, pitched in independent ball the last two years. His last MLB season was 2009; he has a career 4.17 ERA in 82 games. … Belhaven University is ranked No. 14 in the NAIA preseason poll. The Blazers open the 2015 campaign on Jan. 30 at Smith-Wills Stadium in Jackson. William Carey also opens that day in Hattiesburg.

09 Nov

here and there

Hunter Renfroe mashed a grand slam in a televised Arizona Fall League game on Saturday. The former Mississippi State standout and San Diego prospect is batting .271 with five home runs and 19 RBIs in the AFL. … East Central Community College alum Tim Anderson, also playing in the AFL, had another three-hit game on Saturday and is batting .313 with two homers and five stolen bases. The Chicago White Sox prospect missed a big chunk of the 2014 season because of a broken wrist. “I definitely saw some things that helped me become a better ballplayer,” he told mlb.com about his downtime. … Former Petal High star Anthony Alford, understandably rusty, is 2-for-16 with eight strikeouts in the Australian Baseball League, where Toronto sent him to get some work in preparation for his return to the minors in 2015. … Belhaven University senior second baseman Paul Pickerrell has been named to the NAIA preseason All-America team. The Pearl River CC transfer batted .345 with 38 runs and 38 steals for the Blazers in 2014. … Preston Brown threw five scoreless innings and Reid Humphreys, the former Northwest Rankin High star, went 2-for-4 with two runs and two RBIs as the Maroon beat the Gray 8-0 in a Mississippi State fall scrimmage on Saturday. … Hinds CC, the NJCAA Division II runner-up in 2014, will open its 2015 season on Feb. 7 in Raymond against Mineral Area (Mo.) College. The Eagles will play 28 MACJC games next season. With Meridian re-joining the state association, every team in the league will play two games against every other team. There are still North and South divisions, but the playoff qualifying system has been altered slightly.

06 Nov

love for the glove

One of the fun things about watching the Atlanta Braves on a regular basis is marveling at Jason Heyward’s skill with the glove in right field. The former Mississippi Braves star catches everything. He was justly rewarded on Wednesday as the Wilson Defensive Player of the Year. Ex-M-Braves shortstop Andrelton Simmons was also named to Wilson’s nine-man all-defensive team. Both Heyward and Simmons previously won Rawlings National League Gold Gloves. Along with Heyward’s glove and Simmons’ rifle arm, there are other treats provided by other former M-Braves in Atlanta: Freddie Freeman’s stroke, Evan Gattis’ power, Craig Kimbrel’s heat, Alex Wood’s “funkiness,” the grit of Tommy LaStella and Phil Gosselin. Those things are fun to watch. Of course, for longtime Braves fans, it would be more fun to watch the team make a deep postseason run. Haven’t seen that in a while. P.S. The Cincinnati Reds were named the Wilson Defensive Team of the Year, which is a nod to, among others, Zack Cozart and Billy Hamilton. Former Ole Miss standout Cozart and Taylorsville High product Hamilton man the key positions of shortstop and center field, and both are very good. … Anthony Alford, the former Mr. Baseball from Petal (see previous posts), went 1-for-4 with two strikeouts as the Canberra leadoff batter in his Australian Baseball League debut.

27 Oct

eye on 2015

The calendar still says 2014, but in a real sense the 2015 season already has started for Tyler Moore. And it has started well. The former Northwest Rankin High, Meridian Community College and Mississippi State star hit his fourth home run on Sunday in the Dominican Winter League. Moore has 10 hits all told in 28 at-bats (.357) with 10 RBIs for Toros del Este. Moore, who spent most of 2014 with Triple-A Syracuse, will go to spring training in February vying for an MLB roster spot with Washington – or perhaps with some other big league club. The right-handed slugger, who has spent parts of three seasons in the majors with the Nationals, has 18 career MLB homers and 106 minor league bombs. P.S. Former Petal High standout Anthony Alford, returning to baseball in Toronto’s system, will play the outfield for Canberra in the Australian Baseball League. The Cavalry’s season starts Nov. 6. Alford, the former Ole Miss and Southern Miss football player, is joined on the Canberra roster by Marcus Lemon, a onetime Mississippi Braves player who is the son of Jackson native and former MLB star Chet Lemon.