York Revolution manager Mark Mason said Thursday night former Revs’ starting pitcher Derrick Gordon, 29, has retired.

Gordon has taking a coaching job at the high school or college level somewhere in Texas, according to Mason. Gordon is originally from Beaumont, Texas and played college ball at Lamar University, located in Beaumont. Gordon retires after spending the last two seasons playing indy ball, most recently with the Revs.

A 26th round draft pick of the Oakland Athletics in 2006, Gordon reached Class AAA Sacramento in 2010. He first came to the Atlantic League in 2011, going 7-4 with a 2.63 ERA in 11 starts for the Somerset Patriots.

Gordon joined the Sugar Land Skeeters to start 2012  in Sugar Land’s inaugural season. He went there to be closer to home.

“Sugar Land is about an hour and a half from our home. So, I decided to there,” he had said last July.

But the left-hander struggled with the Skeeters, going 1-4 with a 6.44 ERA in eight starts and seven relief appearances.

“It’s tough to get comfortable coming from the ‘pen and then into the (starting) rotation, back and forth,” he had said of his time in Sugar Land. “But it’s one of those things you gotta do. You either do it or don’t.”

York acquired Gordon in July. Mason had the hopes of turning Gordon around by getting Gordon to establish his off-speed pitches and not leave his fastball out over the plate. Whatever the method, it seemed to work. Gordon went 4-3 with a 4.29 ERA in 11 starts for the Revs.

“Every time he threw an off-speed pitch the right-handers (right-handed batters) pulled it over the grandstand (foul) because they’re thinking fastball and they’re way out in front of it,” Mason had said last July following Gordon’s first start for York. “He threw a curveball and a changeup. Every ball hit hard tonight was fastball.”

Although he had a solid year for York, Gordon isn’t a huge loss to the Revs. Not only was Gordon inconsistent, he also didn’t go long in games – only three starts did he toss at least six innings.

Changes: Gordon becomes the 14th player who finished the 2012 season with York but won’t be on the Revs’ Opening Day roster in 2013. He joins pitchers Mike Benacka, Ryan Feierabend, Ricardo Gomez, R.J. Rodriguez and Chris Waters, catchers Salomon Manriquez and Travis Scott, infielders David Espinosa, Chris Nowak and Liu Rodriguez and outfielders Scott Grimes, Brandon Haveman and Michael Hernandez.

Benacka, Feierabend, Nowak and Hernandez are in minor league (affiliated) spring training camps. Gomez will start the 2013 season pitching in the Mexican League. R.J. Rodriguez and Espinosa have signed to play in the American Association. Waters has taken a player-coach gig with a pro team in Hawaii. Manriquez was signed by Camden on Thursday. Liu Rodriguez is playing in Italy in 2013. And Grimes and Haveman have retired.

Manriquez: The Camden Riversharks announced Thursday the signing of Manriquez, along with outfielder Johnny Drennen, infielder Jeremy Barnes and pitcher Ari Ronick.

Manriquez, who played for Spain in the World Baseball Classic, batted .287 with two homers, 14 RBIs and 16 runs scored in 30 games for the Revs last season. It marked the second time of his career playing for York. The Venezuela native first suited up for the Revs in 2010, hitting an impressive .327 with three homers and 15 RBIs and 13 runs scored in 26 games.

Mason said Thursday that Manriquez previously played for new Camden manager Ron Karkovice in Newark in 2009. Karkovice, the former longtime White Sox catcher, is taking over the Sharks’ managerial duties this season after serving as Camden’s bench coach in 2012.

 

Rice: Former Revs’ reliever Scott Rice threw one inning of scoreless ball in relief for the New York Mets in big league spring training Thursday. Facing the Detroit Tigers, Rice replaced reliever Pedro Feliciano in the top of the eighth inning. The 6-foot, 7-inch left-hander allowed a single to left to Kevin Russo but followed that by getting Victor Martinez to ground into a double-play. Rice then struck out Matt Tuiasosopo for the final out (in case you’re wondering, Matt is related to Roniah, the fake Manti Te’o girlfriend).

With the performance, Rice improved his ERA from 4.50 to 3.86 this spring. It marked his fourth appearance for the Mets thus far in camp.

Peeples: The Lancaster Barnstormers announced Thursday the return of left-handed pitcher Ross Peeples, 33. Click here to read more on the signing.

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Here it is, the fourth and final recap of the 2012 York Revolution squad, this time on the bullpen and catchers (sorry catchers, no separate post for perhaps the toughest position in baseball). My apologies on getting around to this late, been a little busy covering high school sports as we get into the time of the year for league titles, playoffs, districts and beyond, as well as catching up on reading all the Sports Illustrateds that have been laying around the house for weeks (seriously, who can read those things front to back each week?) and breaking my ankles jumping on and off the Baltimore Orioles’ bandwagon (don’t act like you weren’t doing the same). Anyway, before we get to that, wanted to point out a couple newsworthy items worth checking out:

- Atlantic League expansion…to the Caribbean?: YDR Revs’ beat writer Jim Seip did a good job reporting on Peter Kirk’s intentions of possibly expanding the Atlantic League to the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico or Cuba (yes, really, Cuba). This would make sense, considering at least a fifth of most Atlantic League rosters are made up of players from the Caribbean. A roster could easily be filled should the league want to travel far down south. And if it can be any kind of draw like Sugar Land, why not give it a shot? The only question mark would be travel costs. It makes no sense to do it if the league loses money.

- Camden front office: The Riversharks sent out a press release Monday announcing longtime general manager Adam Lorber is being promoted to general manager AND team president. Lorber has served as the team’s GM since 2003. In addition, Lindsay Rosenberg, who has spent the last four seasons in group sales has been promoted to the position of assistant general manager. Rosenberg earned a bachelor’s degree in Sports, Entertainment and Event Management from Johnson and Wales (Rhode Island) University in 2009. While attending school, she had opportunities to work at both Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, MA and at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia.

Now on to the recap….

 

As far as publicity goes, the guys in the bullpen have it tough. Position players and starting pitchers normally get most of the attention. On the rare occasion a reliever gets anything said about him, it’s normally because he’s been lights-out as a closer or a set-up man or he made an impressive spot start. So, if a reliever doesn’t fit that category, he’s probably left out on the street with the rest of the guys who don’t get much attention, even if they might have an interesting back-story. So, lets just say this blog post is my attempt at making up for all of that….

At the start: At the start of the year, York’s bullpen consisted of right-handers Dumas Garcia, Ricardo Gomez, Omar Javier, Santo Luis, Stephen Penney, R.J. Rodriguez, Shaun Garceau and Adam Thomas and left-handers James Houser, Yunior Novoa and Ian Thomas. By the end Gomez, Novoa, Penney, Rodriguez and Thomas were all that were left of the original bunch. Newcomers on York’s year-end roster included right-handers Mike Benacka and Kris Regas and left-hander Wade Korpi.

Come and go: Garcia (1-0, 6.00 ERA, 27 games), Garceau (0-0, 7-71 ERA, 3 games), Houser (2-1, 5.50 ERA, 33 games), Javier (1-6, 5.66 ERA, 22 games) and Luis (0-0, 4-50 ERA, 3 games) were all released at some point in the season, while right-hander Andy Wells (0-0, 16.61 ERA, 3 games) and left-handers Matt Chico (1-3, 7.50 ERA, six starts) and Victor Garate (0-0, 5.40 ERA, 1 game) were on the short list of pitchers who joined York mid-season but would be released before the end of the year.

Picked up: Thomas the only York reliever and one of three Revs’ players to earn a big league contract this season (all three were pitchers)  in 2012. The 25-year-old earned his first affiliated contract after putting together a 0.96 ERA in 9.1 innings of relief for York. He had spent his first three pro seasons with independent club Winnipeg (Northern League/American Association) before coming to York. In 26 relief appearances for Rome, the lefty went 5-0 with a 3.15 ERA, striking out 58 and walking 15 over 45.2 innings pitched.

8th/9th inning guys: Right-hander R.J. Rodriguez started off the year as the Revs’ closer but lost the job to Ricardo Gomez when he left for the Mexican League mid-season. Adam Thomas served as the Revs’ set-up man the majority of the first-half and then split the duties with Rodriguez when he returned. Rodriguez did fill in as the ninth-inning guy occasionally in the final couple months. Rodriguez went 2-3 with a 2.02 ERA and 13 saves over 55 appearances. Thomas had a 8-2 record and 3.65 ERA in 67 appearances (64 innings), striking out 42 and walking 15. Gomez collected 17 saves, 2.66 ERA and 4-1 record in 46 games (47.1 innings).

Middle relief: Left-handers Yunior Novoa (2-6, 4.71 ERA, five starts, 38 games), Kris Regas (3-2, 2.78 ERA, 44 games) and Wade Korpi (4-0, 2.26 ERA, 3 starts, 18 games) and right-hander Stephen Penney (2-1, 3.13 ERA, 62 games) had good seasons in the ‘pen.

Novoa went back-and-forth between the bullpen and starting rotation at the start of the year before serving mainly as a reliever in the final few months. Korpi ended up being a good mid-season pick-up for the Revs. The lefty was lights-out in his three spot starts, putting up a stellar 1.93 ERA in 9.1 innings.

One other middle reliever, Mike Benacka, joined York in the final month of the season and had a 1-0 record, 3.00 ERA and one save in six relief appearances. But he took the loss after giving up four runs on one hit and two walks in 2/3 of an inning in Game Two of the Freedom Division Championship Series against Lancaster. The Revs didn’t like what they saw, either, sending him back to the Laredo Lemurs (American Association) after the season.

Catchers: Instead of dedicating a whole blog post to the catchers, it’ll be included here as more an honorable mention (sorry Travis Scott and Salomon Manriquez). York started off the year with Scott and Salvador Paniagua behind the dish. Etch’ used the left-handed hitting Scott and right-handed hitting Paniagua as a platoon. York released Paniagua on July 19 and signed Manriquez the next day. It’s tough in the Atlantic League to find a solid defensive catcher who can also hit well. And when that rare guy comes along, he’s normally picked up right away by a big league club since that’s so rare. That’s why it’s tough to be hard on Atlantic League clubs about not finding a solid-hitting catcher. Plus, it has to be hard on catchers to have a good batting average considering they’re not playing every game for obvious reasons.

With all that being said, Scott had a .228 average with seven homers and 28 RBIs in 81 games while Manriquez finished with a .287 average, two homers and 16 RBIs in 32 games. Manriquez upped his batting average in his final 18 games, during which he went he hit .387. Paniagua departed mid-season with a .227 average over 40 games.

(Note*The following stats are through Game 2 of the FDCS) As far as how they performed behind the plate, Paniagua caught in 40 games (38 starts) and caught a total of 328.2 innings. York pitchers had a 4.11 ERA with Paniagua catching. Revs’ pitchers were about the same in the 601.1 innings with Scott behind the dish with a 4.12 ERA. Manriquez, meanwhile, made 32 starts to help Revs’ pitchers get a 3.63 ERA in his 275.1 innings catching. However, all three had trouble throwing out runners at second and third. Paniagua caught 5 of the 40 guys who stole on him, while Scott gunned 12 of 48 and Manriquez nailed down just three of 25 base-stealers. That’s a combined percentage of 17.7 (20 caught of 113 base-stealers).

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At the start: York’s infield at the start of the year had Chris Nowak at first base, Andres Perez at second, Danny Gonzalez at short stop and Ramon Castro at third with depth coming from back-ups in utlity man Joe Spiers and player-coach Liu Rodriguez.

With so many infielders, York soon shipped Spiers to Lincoln (American Association) on May 21 for a player to be named later – opting to give him an opportunity to play more often with the Salt Dogs instead of sitting on the bench in York. Spiers, who York acquired from Lancaster in an off-season trade for a player to be named later,  played in just three games for the Revs, batting 2-for-7 at the plate (.286) with a double, RBI and one run scored. He went on to bat a collective .305 with two homers, 29 RBIs 53 runs scored and 33 stolen bases in 86 games split between Lincoln St. Paul (American Association).

In the middle: York took a big blow to its lineup when Nowak got picked up June 22 by the Mexican League’s Mexico City club. Outfielder Michael Hernandez would end up playing first during Nowak’s brief absence. The Revs also signed Kyle Haines to provide some depth in the infield. However, Nowak soon returned July 2 after being cut by Mexico City – the team apparently needed to trim its roster for the playoffs and decided between Nowak and Johan Limonta (more on him later).

York released Haines a couple weeks later. He held a .217 average with a double, two RBIs and two runs scored in the eight games he played for the Revs. Haines soon found work with Lancaster and finished the year batting .239 with a homer, eight RBIs and 12 runs scored 42 games for the Barnstormers. He also had two at-bats in the Freedom Division Championship Series against York.

Anyway, the Revs ended up making a huge upgrade at short stop (and no, I’m not talking about the size of the players involved) by signing Joe Thurston and trading away Danny Gonzalez to Lancaster.

Gonzalez hit a disappointing .249 in 75 games for York. For what it’s worth, he also had three homers, 20 RBIs  and 39 runs scored. He didn’t have a great glove, either. Perhaps that’s why Thurston looked so good at short. Or perhaps it’s because he’s arguably the best short stop York has had at the position. Outside of four games at Class AA Reading in 2007, Thurston hasn’t played below the Class AAA level since 2001. The former big leaguer – mainly with the St. Louis Cardinals -  owns a career .291 average in more than 1,100 games at the Class AAA level. He went on to collect a .314 average, eight homers, 28 RBIs and 46 runs scored in 58 games for the Revs. In addition, consider that he put up those numbers after sitting out the previous couple months since the Minnesota Twins released him from Class AAA Rochester in mid-May.

The Revs also added infielder Johan Limonta (remember him?) in early August. He came up from the Mexican League’s Mexico City ballclub, where he batted an astounding .384 in 27 games. The Cuban defector wound up .277 with one homer and 15 RBIs in 39 games for the Revs.

Saying goodbye: Ramon Castro entered the 2012 season on thin ice with Andy Etchebarren. Sure, the infielder had put up good numbers since coming to York in 2010 and helping the ball club win back-to-back league titles. But at times during those two seasons, Etch’ would have appreciated a little more hustle from Castro. So, Castro was already on a short leash when he did something Etch’ didn’t approve of during a game Aug. 29 at Southern Maryland. Etch’ soon suspended Castro for what he called an “on-the-field incident.” The team would cut release him just a few days later. There could have been other factors into his release as well, like his 10 errors at third base or his .288 average in 105 games (a good average, but off from the .323 average he had in 2011 and .339 average he had in 2010).

In the end: By the of the end of the year, York’s infield consisted of Thurston at short stop and Perez at second base. With the departure of Castro, Limonta moved to first base while Nowak moved from first to third.

Nowak and Perez clearly had the the best seasons of any Revs players in 2012. Nowak became the club’s all-time leader in homers (59) and set York’s single-season home run mark with  34 dingers, which led the league. A clear candidate for the league’s MVP honor, Nowak was also the league’s highest home run total since 2005. His 107 RBIs were also tops in the league and the most since 2005. Twenty-one of his 34 homers came at Sovereign Bank Stadium, which set a club record for homers hit by a Revs’ player at home in a single season. He also holds the all-time stadium record (30). Though Nowak fnished with a .285 average, he did bat an impressive .320 in the final 67 games.

Perez, meanwhile, just had career-highs in homers (23) and RBIs (85). He ranked fourth in the league in homers and fifth in RBIs. He scored 86 times. In addition, Perez made quite an improvement moving from the outfield, a position he had played most of his career, to second base. Player-coach Liu Rodriguez can be credited with a nice job teaching Perez the tricks of the trade at second base.

Who should stay/go: I guess I should always preface this by saying if the team can afford the player then he should return. It’s recommended Atlantic League clubs pay out a maximum to a player of $3,000 a month. And after the years Nowak and Perez had, one can imagine they’ll be asking for raises.

With that being said, Nowak and Perez should be brought back. As should Thurston.  Nowak and Perez and still young enough to draw interest from major league clubs in the future (remember, that’s what the Atlantic League is here for, to send guys to the bigs). I hesitated on Thurston a little bit considering his age (32). I get the fact that he’s put up good numbers and consistently made dazzling plays at short. But there comes a point when Atlantic League clubs should cut ties with a player when he becomes older and not just keep him around because he puts up good numbers while scouts have very little interest of him because of his age. However, Thurston was last in the majors in 2011 at the age of 31. And he’s put up good numbers everywhere he’s been. So, I imagine there are still some scouts out there who are still interested in his services.

Limonta, meanwhile, is a different story. Don’t get me wrong, I like the guy. He seemed like he is good for the clubhouse and he was always respectful with the media. This is moreso because of the defense. Should Nowak return, I’d rather see him back at his normal position at first base. As much as Nowak improved through the season at third, he did end the year with a team-high 18 errors, which  tied for seventh in the league. So, put Nowak at first and find a solid defender at third who can match or do better than Limonta’s .277 average.

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Though most nights York’s catcher has been batting near the bottom of the lineup, the topic of catcher has still been an interesting one nonetheless.

Up until this point, Revolution skipper Andy Etchebarren has been comfortable using catchers Travis Scott and Salvador Paniagua as a platoon. While Scott has been swinging a hot bat as of late, York has seen little improvement out of Paniagua at the plate this year.

Now, we learned Friday the Revs have cut ties with Paniagua, releasing him to sign catcher Salomon Manriquez, who will make his return to the club since playing for the Revs in 2010.

Manriquez: The 29-year-old Manriquez comes over to York after being released by the Lincoln Saltdogs (American Association) on Wednesday. He split time earlier this season between the American Association’s Lincoln and Wichita clubs, batting a combined .275 with a homer and 11 RBIs in 36 games. He also spent time playing in the Mexican League earlier this season and had a minor league spring training tryout with the Los Angeles Dodgers, according to Revs’ baseball operations manager Andrew Ball.

Back in 2010, Manriquez was batting .327 in 26 games for York when the Revs shipped him to Lancaster for pitcher John Muller and back-up catcher Adam Witter – Manriquez played in eight games for Lancaster before the New York Mets came calling for his services and assigned him to Class AA Binghamton.

At the time, the move was met with much criticism (Etch’ hadn’t yet won an Atlantic League title, so fans didn’t yet have complete faith in the skipper). How could York trade away the slugging Manriquez, an Atlantic League All-Star with Newark in 2010? But Etch’ made the move to allow catcher John Pachot to assume full-time duties. Pachot went on to live up to the billing as one of the top defensive catcher’s in the league.

For what it’s worth, the Revs now have four players on the roster who are from Venezuela, with Manriquez joining newly acquired left-hander Victor Garate and infielders Ramon Castro and Liu Rodriguez.

Paniagua: A year after he batted .251 in 57 games for the Revs in 2011, Paniagua hit just .227 in 40 games this year. He leaves York with some memorable moments in a Revs uniform.

Last season, he edged out Octavio Martinez for everyday catching duties in the final month or so of the season, then went on to provide a pair of clutch hits in a Game 2 victory over the Lancaster Barnstormers in the Freedom Division Series, including a seventh-inning tiebreaking homer.

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