NOTES FROM THE NAT: Vancouver Canadians news

Well, that didn’t take long.

The new ownership group of Jake Kerr and Jeff Mooney took barely a week to find their new President and Chief Operating Officer of the Vancouver Canadians, and the person they’ve selected has a very thick resume. Her name is Aileen McManamon (pictured left), and from what I can dig up, she’s one of those ultra-motivated, ultra-educated, "let’s break into groups"-type of folks that wake up at 5am every morning and get right into moving mountains, one ton at a time.

Assuming there aren’t two Aileen McManamon’s in Vancouver, she’s a US-born marketing and tech executive who has taught at UBC, has worked with the Tour De France and the 2006 Torino Olympics and Paralympics, is a prime mover behind (and Executive Director of) the Canadian Institute for Market Intelligence, and hasn’t always enjoyed the "laid back" attitude of the BC corporate world.

What does she know about baseball? Well, she’s apparently a lifelong fan, and coaches the West Van Indians Little League team, which is a decent start. Certainly if her career trail shows anything, it’s that when she takes an interest in something, she owns it within a year or two, so I’d expect her to kick The Nat into shape pretty darn quick and be a front runner for NWL Exec of the Year before long.

Or she’ll go insane trying to make the rusty old set-in-it’s-ways Nat work like a well-oiled machine, and she’ll be in a padded room by the end of the 2007 season, muttering "more mini-donuts!" over and over.

An interesting side-note from this announcement is that it didn’t come in the normal way - via a mass email from GM Delany Dunn, or a hurried note from a press box intern. Rather, this announcement came from a professional corporate PR firm called Reputations. And they don’t come cheap. The seachange has started folks.

The only question now is, will the Vancouver Canadians start booming with this much high-powered corporate juice behind them, or will the ‘old baseball’ world clash with the new thinking and leave blood spattered across Section 9? To say there are some nervous folks at The Nat right now is an understatement.

The best advice I can give them is fairly simple, and it’s advice I’ve personally learned several times in similar situations… "Keep up, or crack open the want ads."

If you want to see Ms McManamon in action during an event at Torino 2006, there’s some video of her at YouTube (they really do have everything!).

From the Contra Costa Times:

Tuesday’s intra-squad game at Papago Park will feature pitchers Ron Flores, Scott Dunn, Marcus McBeth, Connor Robertson and David Schafer. The game will begin between 10:30 a.m. and noon. … Wednesday’s intrasquad game at Phoenix Muni will feature Lenny DiNardo, Kaz Tadano, Mike Mitchell, Erasmo Ramirez and Jay Marshall. … Brad Halsey will start the A’s Cactus League opener Thursday against Milwaukee at Maryvale, with Jason Windsor also slated to go that day. Joe Kennedy will start the following day at Phoenix Muni against the Brewers. … Reliever Santiago Casilla (formerly Jairo Garcia) is expected in camp today.

Mitchell is apparently really putting himself out there, throwing some serious stuff that has people giving him a second glance. A good spring could see Windsor push his way into Oakland’s starting rotation ahead of Joe Kennedy, but he’d have to be REALLY good. Marcus McBeth was filthy in Fall Ball, so expect to see him push for closing honors in Sacramento, with room for a mid-season call up to the A’s if he keeps in form.

The official letter that explains it all:

Dear Friends, Colleagues and Partners,

As you may know, I joined what is now the Vancouver Canadians right out of college when the team was located in Southern Oregon.  While I have loved every minute of it, it has been my only work experience.  For some time, I have had a desire to take a new and exciting direction in my career.  This may be in the world of investment, it could be to travel and experience the rest of the world, or as many of you know, I’ve expressed interest in getting involved in the National Football League

I spoke with Jake Kerr and Jeff Mooney, soon to be new owners of the C’s, when we first met over 6 months ago.  We discussed my future and as requested, have helped them get their feet on the ground during the first six months of ownership transition.  Now that we are on the brink of the sale of the club to the new ownership, and the transition being complete, I’ve talked to Jake and Jeff about moving on.  So, as of Monday, February 19, I will be resigning as President of the Vancouver Canadians.

As difficult as it is for me to leave the exciting opportunities with the new Vancouver Canadians, I am eager to move my career in a new direction.  I will be available to help with specific projects as the Canadians head towards the season opener, and accordingly will not be leaving until April 1^st.  After April 1^st, I will act as a consultant for the team, will make sure my clients partnerships with the club are looked after and will be available as needed.

I will always feel a part of the Canadians family.  I am also confident that Jake, Jeff, and the excellent team left behind will take C’s baseball to new heights.

I want to thank you all for your friendship and support over the past seven years here in the Vancouver and I’m sure we’ll stay close with our shared love of the Canadians and the Nat and my continued involvement in professional sports.

Sincerely,

Dan Kilgras

President, Vancouver Canadians

Classy exit.

The NFL, huh? Well, I guess when you’ve been dealing with 32 home games a year for long enough, a sport that only plays ten home games per season would have some appeal.

Say what you will about Mr Kilgras (and there are as many detractors as fans out there, as there always will be with a GM or President), but you’ve got to give credit to the guy for playing this the right way, looking after the team’s best interests as well as his own, and also, making it all the way from the position of intern to the top of the corporate ladder with the one company.

Yes, Dan and I have had our disagreements over the years (and then some), but we always managed to find a solid middle ground in which we could co-exist, both serve the team’s interests, and not feel like either of us were getting the worst of the deal. And that’s not easy, being as we’ve both got a little alpha dog in us.

Sure, there have been times when I’ve shaken my fist at the general direction of the guy’s office and muttered something vaguely Monty Burns-like, but I’ve also got to admit that, if not for Kilgras’ forward thinking, this blog wouldn’t get nearly the access it does to games, players, management and information. Most blogs are frozen out of ‘official accreditation’, which is an incredibly dumb policy seeing as there are so many great bloggers out there pulling ‘larger than newspaper’ numbers of readers, but the C’s have assisted this blog wherever and whenever they could, almost from the outset. Without Kilgras and GM Delany Dunn having the smarts to put up with my big, uncontrollable mouth bitching from the sidelines, even when I’m saying things they don’t want said, who knows if Notes From The Nat would even exist. It certainly wouldn’t exist in its current form, that’s for sure.

So thanks, Dan. Well played, sir.

Anyone want to lay down a fiver on who will take his place?

I’ve been told by two people now that Global News made mention last night that Vancouver Canadians President Dan Kilgras has resigned.

We’ve yet to receive confirmation from the team or anyone close enough to Kilgras to give a definite yea or nay, and there isn’t mention of the story in any Vancouver printed press that I can find, nor in online sources, so please take this as unverified speculation and not hard, cold fact. As soon as I have definite word, one way or another, it’ll be on the blog, you can rest assured.

Personally, I’d be surprised if it were true, being as the team seems destined for some major changes in the coming few years with new owners and the Parks Board pumping dollars into Nat Bailey Stadium upgrades. That, combined with the knowledge that Kilgras (correct me if I’m wrong, someone) has a minor share in the team, make me doubt the validity of the rumor.

That said, we are talking short season ball - it’s hardly the career pinnacle for an ambitious sports exec, and Kilgras is a US citizen, so could conceivably be eager to settle south of the border… and let’s face it, new ownership at a sports team usually coincides with personnel changes down the line.

One thing is for certain, there’ll be some tumultuous times ahead as the new C’s owners put their stamp on the place - and personnel that keep it running. Watch this space.

In other news, Eric ‘Moonlight’ Sheridan, who played for a single game for the C’s in 2006 before being cut by Oakland, has been re-signed for season 2007 as a non-drafted free agent. He’ll likely rejoin the C’s when the season commences. (Thanks to Jeremy at the Roadkill Sports Blog for the tip)

UPDATE: I’m prepared to say the Kilgras resignation is now confirmed. Kilgras was reportedly on WX 1130 today confirming he’s left the club. Those who heard him on the air said everything seemed cordial and happy, but sources closer to the club are staying very much tight-lipped on the circumstances surrounding his exit, as there seems to be a little concern that maybe further changes are ahead. Expect the team to make an announcement tomorrow or the next day, but as of now, Notes From The Nat is saying yes - the position of Vancouver Canadians’ Team President is vacant.

And thanks to those folk who have emailed in with news to date - it’s appreciated.

Got to hand it to the guys at Athletics Nation - they’ll be the first team blog that gets media accreditation by a major league franchise, if there’s any justice in the world. Today they unveiled an interview with new A’s manager Bob Geren, on the same day they ran the latest in their series of diaries by A’s prospect Brad Ziegler.

And that all comes barely a week after an indepth interview with A’s GM Billy Beane (part 1, part 2).

We may get some good interviews with new draftees here at Notes From The Nat, but that’s some serious heavy-hitting over at AN - and some interesting observations have come out of those pieces. Like this one from Ziegler, that answers the question I’ve always had about why pitchers never seem to know what speeds they’ve been hitting on the gun after a game.

While velocity is definitely important, the A’s prefer that we focus a little more on some other various aspects of pitching and not primarily on velo. One of the biggest reasons teams use radar gun readings in pro ball is to make sure pitchers are healthy (consistent velocity every outing), aren’t tiring in games (no velocity drop in the late innings), and making sure off-speed pitches are at effective velocities in relation to that of the fastball.

Huh. I did not know that. Here’s me always thinking they’re looking for that fastball that touches 96mph, and in reality they’re looking at the slow stuff more intently. I guess it makes sense.

Ziegler also discussed the events that surrounded the Philadelphia Phillies cutting him from their organization, saying that he "wasn’t good enough to pitch low-A ball".

When I was released, the first thing my agent (Rob Martin) did was contact A’s assistant GM David Forst to see if the team was interested. We hoped that they would be, based on the previous interest they showed by drafting me in 2002. However, at the end of spring training, everyone’s always cutting down rosters, so there wasn’t much room. The A’s wanted to ensure I was healthy from my tendonitis issue, so they suggested I go play in an independent league first and then see if a spot opened up at some point during the season.

After a month in Schaumburg, IL (Northern League), I received three or four offers from teams (including Oakland) presenting me with a opportunity to get back into affiliated ball, but Rob thought I could potentially hold out for a slightly better offer. Less than a week later, the A’s offered me a chance to pitch in the starting rotation in high-A Modesto. I agreed to the deal before Rob finished his sentence.

If you’re anything like me, you’ve seen a million ‘player diaries’ over the last couple of years, and usually they’re a great example of sleep-inducing cliche-speak (see Travis Buck’s MiLB.com Fall Ball diaries and Kevin Mellilo’s Scout.com diaries as proof). Ziegler’s AN series, on the other hand, is great ‘inside baseball’ stuff, and if he can keep it up on a bi-weekly basis as he has been to date, it promises to be a must-visit stop on my bookmark list for a long time.

Vancouver baseball folk are a hardy band of pioneers. Back in the Triple-A days, you’d often find 1000 or so brave souls venturing into the April rain in the vein hope that a ball game might happen. Generally, if it did, it was a shortened one, but hey, beer is good, no matter what’s happening on the field (tip your hawkers, people).

Triple-A ball is long gone in V-Town now, but University of British Columbia (UBC) baseball has all but taken its place.

What’s that, you say? Not into metal bats and catchers getting automatic pinch-runners? Quit being a baby already and go to a game.

UBC ball kicked much hiney at The Nat last season, pushing the giants of Lewis-Clark State all the way to the end of the playoffs and giving those who pooh-poohed the thought of the school ever qualifying for NCAA admission plenty of reasons to think again. Thunderbirds standout and 2006 Premier’s Athletic Award winner Connor Janes was drafted by the Arizona Diamondbacks and had a good season in rookie ball (.375 and two home runs for Missoula) before being elevated to short season ball (.197 over 17 games), while former UBC starter Jeff Francis is doing great things in the majors after getting his start in Vancouver’s friendly confines.

But as far as I’m concerned, it doesn’t matter that the TBirds are great, or good, or even crappy (and with a freshman-heavy lineup this season, they may well be more of the latter). It’s baseball, and it’s on at Nat Bailey Stadium, and that is a good thing, no matter whether they win, lose, or get rained out.

Want more info? The RoadKill Sports Blog has a great season preview (the owner of that blog will be doing some C’s game reports for us this year, as well as some interviews for Scout.com), and TBirdBaseball.net is always a great source of game-specific info, rumors, and insider scoops. You could go to the UBC site and sign up to listen to their road games online, but just between you and I, this little black duck won’t be bothering until it’s free.

News out of the A’s minor league system has it that 2004 Vancouver Canadians catcher and 1st round draft pick, Landon Powell, has trimmed down to 245lbs (and trust me, that’s a considerable amount of trimming), and has never looked better behind the plate.

From the SF Chronicle’s Susan Slusser:

Landon Powell, all 6-foot-3, 245 pounds of him, put on a show for those A’s players who were working out in the weight room at Papago Park on Monday. The catcher grabbed a jump rope and skipped through a snazzy routine, whipping the rope from side to side, whistling it around and around, alternating feet and throwing in some speed work.

He’s done that since he was a kid, Powell said, using the drills to make his feet quicker behind the plate. It has worked — manager Bob Geren said Powell looks terrific defensively, and specifically mentioned his footwork.

Two years ago, Powell couldn’t do any conditioning after major knee surgery. He missed the entire season, and his weight ballooned to 280 pounds. That became a concern, slowing Powell down on the bases, and the A’s development people began to prod their former No. 1 draft pick to slim down.

I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that the fact that fellow 2004 draftee, Kurt Suzuki, is generally considered a year or two away from the bigs was also a major kick up the backside for Powell, but hey, whatever it takes…

"With that body, he wasn’t going to play in the big leagues,” director of player development Keith Lieppman said. "It’s been an ongoing process, and we eventually got to either/or. There were certain incentives, and then everything came into perspective. We wanted him to imagine what he’d look like in a major-league game — did he want to look like Jason Varitek or like he’s 280 pounds?”

The A’s flat out told Powell, 24, that he wouldn’t come to big-league camp this spring unless he weighed 245 pounds. That’s precisely what he got down to after becoming more aware of his eating habits. "Now, I don’t think of food as a matter of taste — I think of it as fuel,” he said. "I eat for energy rather than for fun.”

This is even better news when you consider that, as a catcher, his surgically repaired knee would never have held up more than a couple of years under his old poundage. If the big guy can bring it down even further, say to 230 lbs, and can retain that power stroke that had him going 1st round in the draft, he may just chase Suzuki all the way to the bigs.

So which catching prospect will win the race to the starting spot in the majors? Tough to say. If it comes down to pure talent, Powell will beat Suzuki every time - Powell has been a star since he was a kid, while Suzuki only made his school team as a walk-on, but Zook has always had Powell beaten in the hard work department, having built a career on essentially heart, perspiration, determination and balls. If pushed, I’d give the nod to Suzuki, but if the big man is slimming down and taking his job seriously at last, boy howdy, are we going to have an embarassment of riches on our hands behind the plate.

Also in Slusser’s piece, you’ll find some big news on Dan Meyer’s potential recovery from an injury that has all but killed his career - could he be about to (finally) crack the big team? 

On Monday, Meyer’s bullpen session went so well, he kept asking to throw more, staying out in the drizzle after the rest of the pitchers had gone inside. "It was raining, and I was having fun,” Meyer said. "It’s been awhile since I’ve felt like that.”

He wowed John Baker, who had caught the lefty numerous times at Triple-A Sacramento but had never seen him like he was Monday. "His mechanics had really changed because of that injury,” Baker said. "Now he throws like I think he did with Atlanta, and it’s so different. It’s so drastic, even the ball spins differently. It comes out of his hand differently. … He looks like a new person.”

Picture credit: Dave Sandford/Scout.com