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December 20, 2012

Perfect Game Presents

Scouting the Cape Cod League's Top 100 Prospects

by Allan Simpson

On December 5, 2012, Baseball Prospectus and Perfect Game announced a partnership to help promote and cover the game at both the amateur and professional levels. As a result of this partnership, Baseball Prospectus subscribers will now get the opportunity to read some of the great premium content being published by Perfect Game for its members. Today, courtesy of Perfect Game, we bring you this special report on Cape Cod League prospects by Allan Simpson.
 

A juiced baseball that led to a dramatic increase in home runs was the No. 1 storyline in summer-college baseball in 2012, and nowhere was the surge more impactful than in the Cape Cod League, the nation’s showcase summer circuit.

A total of 382 home runs were hit in the Cape during the regular season, more than the two previous seasons combined. In 2011, just 159 home runs were hit by Cape players; in 2010, 158.

Harwich broke the existing Cape single-season record of 59 (set in 1981 by Orleans during the league’s aluminum-bat era) by clubbing 64. With eight homers in his first 15 games, Mariners outfielder Phil Ervin (Samford) eclipsed the season-long total of the home-run leader in both of the last two seasons.

Every team in the league saw a dramatic increase in home-run production with the exception of Chatham, which led the Cape with 24 in 2011. The Anglers still managed to top that total with 26, but that figure was the lowest in the league this summer.

League champion Wareham improved from six home runs in 2011 to 51 this season, and slugged 15 more in seven playoff games. Appropriately, the Gatemen won the Cape League title in dramatic fashion by homering twice in the ninth inning to overcome a 5-2 deficit, only to launch two more home runs in the 10th inning of an improbable 8-6 win over Yarmouth-Dennis in the third and deciding game of the championship series.

No game may have symbolized the Cape’s wacky, home-run filled season more than the final one, with the two teams combing for eight homers. Wareham outfielder Kyle Schwarber (Indiana) earned playoff MVP honors by launching two dramatic homers—the first leading off the ninth inning, the second a game-winning, two-run blast an inning later.