With the draft just a little under 48 hours away, most college, high school and junior college Baseball players are preparing for the MLB First-Year Player Draft, hoping their name will be called by the time Round 50 comes to a close.

Most players won’t care who drafts them, they just want an opportunity to show what they can do.  Can you blame them?  They obviously want a big signing bonus but most would trade in the big cash just to play pro ball.

Once a player is selected, the tendency is to look up the teams in the organization of which you were drafted, and see if you know anybody else in the club’s system.  That’s where we come in.  

Last year we had comments and emails from players and their families, and we even had some interviews to go along with those comments, but the fact of the matter is this is one of the first sites they’ll see, seeing as how we cover a short-season team, a good starting spot for a young player’s career.

Well, let’s try to make it easier for you to figure out stuff about the Vancouver Canadians, in the 2nd edition of ‘A draftee’s guide to Vancouver Baseball’. 

1. The Nat is not a hitters park:

Nat Bailey Stadium, home of the C’s, is about as much of a Hitters Park as Wrigley Field is new.  When it is considered a Hitters Park, Kirstie Ally will be slim.  Do you get my point?  It really isn’t.

There were 10 homers for Vancouver at home last season, in 38 games.  That’s average of 0.26 home-runs for the home team per game.

Obviously if you’re a pitcher this will probably go well with you, and take into consideration there were only 6 home-runs for the opposition last year at The Nat.  Yes 6 homers, and that’s a grand total of 16 in 38 games.  That’s less than half.

Leave the ball up and you can still be punished, with a ball to the gap or down the lines, but if you’re a hitter, the right field corner is a great spot to leg out a triple, and if there’s an errant throw on the play, you could end up having a Triple+Error, like Dusty Napoleon last year, and have an Inside the Parker.

This field is even smaller than it was three years ago, so don’t complain, we’re not used to HR’s.  Everett?  Go ahead, knock yourself out.  If you’re lucky you can hit 6 home-runs as a team in one game there, as they did on September 3rd, 2006.  The Canadians won 20-7 and had a run each inning except the 5th, when Everett scored 7 (on two homers).

2. To club or not to club:

Since all of the players will be between 18 (Nino Leyja) and probably 23/24, they all want to do one thing in a country where the legal age is 19.  I think it’s obvious.  

In Vancouver the biggest hot-spot is The Roxy, a popular nightclub in Downtown.  Here’s the thing, you’ll get hit, fined, suspended and eventually released.  Just ask Shawn Martinez who got beatup at the club five years ago, before being suspended which lead to his release the next season.  He didn’t even take part in the fighting part, he was just a victim.  Learn from this kids, Roxy at your own risk.  Although I must say, I’ve heard it is a great spot if you be careful of obnoxious drunks.

If you don’t believe the Martinez story, ask your Pitching Coach Craig Lefferts, he was his Pitching Coach then as well.

3. Yes it’s cold, get over it:

We’re Canadians, don’t live in Igloos, it doesn’t snow after March, and it heats up in July.  We use a ‘Celsius’ tracker for temperature, yes it sounds foreign I know, and it is much more accurate than your way to figure it out.

The average temperature for Vancouver last year in June when the C’s were at home was 71 degrees, and there was only 4 games out of the 9 that were not Sunny.

July was on average 70.1 degrees, including 10 out of 11 straight games where it was exactly 70.

August was a chilly 68.6 on average at The Nat.

On the road?  For the season, it was 81.3 degrees on average.  The coldest game on the road was just 3.6 degrees cooler than August’s average in Vancouver, and that was a pair of 65 degree games at the end of the season (September 1, Salem-Keizer, August 27th, Everett).  The coldest series on the road was 66.3 during that Everett series.

The warm series were in Tri-City near the end of July, 89.4 after 5 games, 88.6 in Spokane (August 6th through 10th), and a season-high 93.4 degrees while in Boise, during Independence Day.

Don’t worry boys, you can get your tan on in Boise, in the 102 degree heat (July 3rd).

4. The Spencer Flynn’s:

Who is Spencer Flynn?  He botched a call in a meaningless afternoon game in 2007, where he called a ball that landed 5 feet foul, a fair ball.  He is now in the California League and I heard he’s doing better now, but the fact of the matter is these are Rookie Umps who are mostly just starting out their careers.

Honestly, I can tell you all these umpires do try their hardest, but as they’re just starting out there will be mistakes, and there will be blown calls.

It’s part of baseball.  Most of them are former players so just picture yourself in their shoes, before you throw a fit at one for a bad call.  Karma.

5. A community Team:

This club is locally-owned, which is the best case scenario, in my opinion, for a Minor League Team.  You have one of, if not the best, staffs in all of professional baseball, and a group of volunteers that keep the place running smoothly.

President Andy Dunn has turned this team around, after helping with the Expos and Nationals, and I believe the Marlins as well, years ago.  Dunn is the guy you would want to be running a team you play for.

The GM Andrew Seymour is a promotions master, and runs this club very very smoothly.

The Media Relations man/Broadcaster Rob Fai is the best in the business, and Jason Takefman and his ticket staff get the word out for fans to see you guys play.  It really is one of a kind at Nat Bailey.

Groundskeepers, lead by Tom Archibald, keep the field in the best shape it’s ever been in, as well.

The owners visit the games, mingle with the crowd, and are just always there.  Jake Kerr and Jeff Mooney are the reason that professional baseball is thriving in this city.

6. Field Staff Second-to-None:

Manager Rick Magnante is eighth all-time in Canadians victories by a Manager, and is into his fourth season with the C’s, which as Rob Fai pointed out on the weekly radio show this week, is a first in the 104 year history of professional baseball in Vancouver.  Magnante may just be my favourite go-to-guy in all of baseball.  He knows the game, he knows tendencies, and more importantly for me, can put together a phenomenal interview.  ’Skip’ is a real treat.

Pitching Coach Craig Lefferts pitched in almost 700 MLB games for the Cubs, Padres, Giants, Orioles, Rangers and Angels, where he amassed 101 saves, 1 complete game, 45 starts, and a WHIP of 1.25.

Lefferts was once a 13-game winner in the Bigs, and was the closer for the 1989 San Francisco Giants as they went to the World Series against Tom LaRussa’s Oakland Athletics.

Hitting Coach Casey Myers, (left) a former Pac-10 Player of the Year (back-to-back years), spent parts of two seasons in Vancouver, one on rehab, one just because that’s where he was assigned out of college, and knows more than anybody that The Nat is tough for hitters.

He had 7 homers in 2001, and 0 in 2006 after 17 games.  Myers was a teammate of guys like Rich Harden and Dan Johnson, and spent five seasons in Midland (AA).

Travis Tims and the training staff are excellent, and Clubhouse Manager Glenn Hall, or ‘Glenn Magic’, is the best, by far, Clubhouse man in all of baseball.  He is phenomenal, and a class act at that.

7. Salem Keizer = Kings:

The Salem-Keizer Volcanoes have won the Northwest League for 5 of the last 9 seasons, including three years in a row.  The San Francisco Giants put all the prospects on this team for a year, and sometimes too, just to dominate the NWL.

This year, however, will be different.  Our boys from Vancouver will win the West Division, I’m sure of it.

8. The Nat Notes factor: 

So by the end of reading all of this you have to be wondering, what the hell is Nat Notes and why do you guys cover the Canadians?

We’re two fans who watch most of the home games, if not all, and listen to the radio webcasts when we can when Vancouver’s on the road (FYI radio broadcasts by Rob Fai are fantastic on the C’s site), and we are in no way affiliated with the Vancouver Canadians, or their staff.

The point of this site is to give parents, friends and baseball fans alike a chance to read about the team, how their friend, brother, son or ex-teammate is doing, and all the roster moves and such that come with that territory.

While this is a blog, it means our opinion, which it really is an opinion, can tick people off, or can make people agree with us.  But while that’s the case, if there’s anything you don’t like being posted on here, whether it be a nickname we give a player, or something we write about that you don’t agree with, comment at the end of the post.  We’ll respond, guaranteed.

Happy reading, and good luck boys.