Winter ball stats downunder and more

You can find a lot of the stats for Indians' players at the MLB.com link:

http://mlb.mlb.com/milb/stats/org.jsp?id=cle

It even lists Trent Baker playing in the Australian Baseball League.  However, you may not know that other Indians prospects are playing in the Australia for Brisbane.  The Indians prospects on that team include:

Ryan Battaglia C
Mitch Nilsson C
Andrew Campbell 2B

Martin Cervenka, the Eastern European catcher they signed a couple of years ago is not on one of those teams which is not surprising as he is probably back in Europe attending high school.

The neat thing about the Australian league is that it is actually their professional league (see the information about the separate MLB academy program below).  A number of the guys on those teams were actually born in the '80s and a few in the '70s. 

If you are interested on how the above prospects are doing this winter, here's a link to the stats for the Brisbane Bandits:

http://web.theabl.com.au/stats/stats.jsp?sid=l595&t=t_ibp&cid=4065


One more point:

The Australian professional league that occurs in our winter (their summer) is not like the MLB Academy program (MLBAAP) on the Gold Coast that occurs during our summer (their winter). The later is mostly, if not completely, deep, deep prospects who may already be signed (or not) but have not played in the US yet (and may never even make it that far) as they are not ready for that level of competition.  Cervenka played in the MLBAAP academy program last year, as it occurred in his summer vacation from high school.

Here is a link to a press release on the MLBAAP that occured in our summer (May-July) in 2010:

http://www.baseball.com.au/default.asp?Page=66205

Note that Battaglia, Nilsson and Campbell are listed.  I also communicated with someone who knows MLBAAP well and he said:

"There are a number of Indians here in that program ( Ryan Battaglia C, Mitch Nillson C (nephew of David Nillson ex MLB catcher and All Star), Andrew Campbell SS, Martin Cervanka C  from Europe. I have attached the latest stats from the program in spreadsheet. Ryan battaglia had a slow start due to a niggling injury but is tearing it up in the last few weeks."

 

Here are the stats from last year's MLBAAP program for Cleveland Indians prospects:

 

Player	avg	gp-gs	ab	r	h	2b	3b	hr	rbi	tb	slg%	bb	hbp	so	gdp	ob%	sf	sh	sb-att	po	a	e	fld%
CAMPBELL,Andrew	.333	38-36	105	23	35	5	0	0	8	40	.381	16	2	14	2	.431	0	1	9-15	39	75	24	.826
NILSSON,Mitchell	.281	37-35	96	11	27	8	0	1	18	38	.396	15	1	20	2	.381	1	0	5-7	58	32	2	.978
CERVENKA,Martin	.260	33-31	96	12	25	4	0	0	9	29	.302	7	1	9	0	.317	0	0	3-4	133	8	8	.946
BATTAGLIA,Ryan	.243	40-40	107	14	26	9	1	1	19	40	.374	23	3	24	1	.385	2	0	5-6	157	21	6	.967

 

Ah, just when you thought there was a slight respit in getting baseball stats!