ATLANTIC LEAGUE COUNT IN MAJOR LEAGUE CAMPS UP TO 20 WITH 56 FOR ENTIRE INDY LINEUP

The Atlantic League should be popping buttons of pride with at least 20 of its former players wearing major league uniforms in spring training, if only for a day.

This league that caters mostly to more experienced professionals had 15 players on our original list of those due in major league camps which we covered in a recent Independent Baseball Insider column, including 11 non-roster invitees, but at least five more have gotten a pass of one day or more to join baseball's top echelon. All of Independent Baseball can claim at least 56 of its former players in big league camps, either as 40-man roster players, invitees or up from minor league camp for a day.

The latest pair of Atlantic Leaguers to appear in exhibition games are batting 1.000, too, with Corey Smith, who played third base when Newark, NJ won the '07 championship, getting a two-run double for the Los Angeles Dodgers and veteran major leaguer Jason Lane, who was at Southern Maryland (Waldorf) for a time last season, collecting a run-scoring single for Toronto.

POSITION PLAYERS AWAITING NEW OPPORTUNITIES

A couple of days ago we listed the pitchers with Independent playing time who were with major league organizations at the end of last season and are believed to be without jobs (some may have chosen to retire) at this time. Today it is the position players in similar situations:

CATCHERS: None.
INFIELDERS: 1B Jason Botts, Christian Colonel, Fernando Cortez, Keoni DeRenne, 1B Trent Lockwood, Wes Long, Brian Myrow, Ramon Nivar, Argenis Reyes, Gabe Suarez, 1B Ryne White, 1B Dustin Yount.
OUTFIELDERS: Cory Aldridge, Charlton Jimerson, Jacque Jones (likely retired), Kevin Mahar, Val Majewski, Andres Perez, Michael Ryan, Mike Spidale, Matt Watson, Matt Wilhite.

We welcome clarifications from this list to RWirz@aol.com.

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WHERE ARE THE PITCHERS? WE HAVE 25 WHO SEEM TO BE FREE AGENTS

It seems unlikely this far into spring training that very few of the former Independent players who had major league organizational jobs at the end of last season and did not get an new contract earlier in the offseason will be asked back for 2011. As a result, the following 25 pitchers appear to be available (unless they have opted to retire):

Jason Anderson, Federico Baez, Steve Bray, Kyle Carr, Travis Chick, Brendan Donnelly, Derrick Ellison, Seth Etherton, Mark Holliman, Ryan Houston, Jason Jarvis, Jason Jones, Taylor Lavigne, Dan Leatherman, Chris Malone, Tom Mastny, Brian Mazone, Kyle Middleton, Josh Muecke, Oneli Perez, Adam Pettyjohn, Edwar Ramirez, Rick Rivas, Patrick Ryan and Preston Vancil.

If anyone has seen that someone on this list has signed either with an organization or an Independent team, I invite you to pass that information along to RWirz@aol.com.

We will have a list of unsigned position players in a day or two.

SPRING TRAINING ROSTERS SWELLING

A heavy portion of today's Independent Baseball Insider column, our subscription newsletter that is weekly from now through September, will be devoted to how former Independent players who are in major league spring training camps are doing.

One of the nuggets we have uncovered includes a list of six players not originally on either 40-man rosters or non-roster invitees who have appeared in at least one major league exhibition game. That brings the number of Indy grads involved in big league camps to at least 54 with more expected to show up. We track them as best we can.

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WHO ELSE WILL SHOW UP IN SPRING TRAINING GAMES?

We featured the former Independent players--all 48 of them--who will be in major league spring training camps in yesterday's Independent Baseball Insider column, but with teams frequently making players available for a specific exhibition game and wanting to take a look at them we can imagine numerous other familiar names showing up in box scores.

These would seem to be some of the likely candidates, listed by major league team with their former Independent affiliations in parenthesis:

Arizona--RHP Brian Sweeney (Lafayette, IN, Heartland League, and Somerset, NJ, Atlantic League, although he did not appear in regular season games for the latter).
Baltimore--RHP Chris Jakubauskas (Lincoln, NE, American Association; Orange County, Golden League; Florence, KY and Ohio Valley, Frontier League); LHP Alberto Castillo (Newark and Camden, NJ, and Road Warriors, Atlantic League; Schaumburg, IL, Northern League).
Oakland--RHP Mike Benacka (River City, Frontier League).
San Francisco--OF Justin Christian (Southern Maryland, Atlantic League; River City, Frontier League); LHP Justin Dowdy (Wichita, KS, and Shreveport, LA, American Association; Alexandria, LA, United League; Calgary, CA, Northern League; Rockford, IL, Frontier League).
Seattle--RHP Scott Patterson (Lancaster, PA, Atlantic League; Gateway, Frontier League).

We invite readers to help us watch for others who show up in major league games with this information sent to RWirz@aol.com.

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NEW GIANTS OUTFIELDER CREDITS 'HARD WORK' OF INDEPENDENT BASEBALL

Justin Christian has been squarely in our sights for a few years now, certainly since the spring of 2008 when this now 30-year-old outfielder who started out in Independent Baseball was in the major league spring training camp of the New York Yankees.

Fast forwarding to today, everyone in the Indy game should want to reach out to Christian and give him a friendly pat on the back or a hearty "thank you".

Christian just signed a minor league deal with the defending World Champion San Francisco Giants. It is what he said to MLB.com writer Jesse Sanchez that makes the Indy game look good.

"The reason I believe I was able to get to the big leagues is because I had to grind and work hard in Independent ball," he told Sanchez, who was covering the Caribbean Series where Christian was the centerfielder and leadoff hitter for Mexico.

"You are not getting a lot of looks from scouts (in Independent leagues), but for me, it made me appreciate my opportunity with the Yankees that much more because I know the road I had taken was a difficult one."

Christian got into 24 games with the Yankees in 2008, and those 40 at-bats (10 hits, six RBI, seven steals) represent his entire major league regular season experience so far. He did not even get a major league spring training invitation from the Giants, yet he sounds grateful.

The speedster spent much of 2003 and 2004 breaking into the pro game at O'Fallon, MO with the River City Rascals of the Frontier League, not a great distance from Southwest Missouri State where he had been in college. (He also had played for Auburn.) He worked his way up through the Yankees' chain for three and a half years before the major league shot, and he was once again in the Bombers' minor league system for most of last season after starting out with two games back in the Indy world (3-for-9) with Southern Maryland of the Atlantic League.

"Christian is a grinder", Sanchez wrote. "He's the undrafted baseball lifer with an independent streak and an international flair for the game."

The 6-foot-1 native of Lincoln, NE went to winter ball without a job for this season. "The entire time I believed I was going to have the opportunity to sign with a team, I just didn't know with which team," he said. But pounding out a .356 average in 64 games with 55 RBI and 24 steals in 25 attempts in the Mexican Pacific League earned a the in the San Francisco system.

It is a safe bet Christian will continue grinding away.

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WE HAVE TIDBITS ON MIKE TORREZ'S NEW JOB, THE 69 ORIOLES WHO HAVE BEEN IN THE ATLANTIC LEAGUE AND WHERE TO FIND CAREER RECORDS

Some leftovers on the day after another lengthy Independent Baseball Insider column...

FINDING CAREER STATS

If you get frustrated as I do in finding up to date career profiles, especially combining Independent and affiliated (sometimes even college) statistics, check out TheBaseballCube.com.

The Cube helped, for example, in tracking down details on 2010 Sioux City, IA (American Association) outfielder Jon Mark Owings, who recently signed with Arizona.

NO INVITATION FOR CASTILLO OR JAKUBAUSKAS

I may have been wrong in believing lefty Alberto Castillo and newly-signed righty Chris Jakubauskas would get major league training camp invitations from Baltimore. The O's, one of the last teams to reveal their basic non-roster invitee list, did not include either of these pitchers.

Our count remains at an impressive 26 non-roster invitations although there usually are some stragglers who will increase the number. We will run down the complete list of Indy players in big league camps in our February 17 Insider.

69 ORIOLES HAVE PLAYED IN ATLANTIC LEAGUE

Veteran baseball writer Lisa Winston, now working for Peter Kirk's Opening Day Partners, came up with a very impressive note. She determined no less than 69 Baltimore Orioles (these weren't minor leaguers, either) have played in the Atlantic League, with 17 of them in this eastern-based Indy league last summer.

MIKE TORREZ RETURNS

Who can forget Mike Torrez? The big right-hander, who did the Yankees two huge favors while pitching, is back at Newark, NJ, this time as general manager of the Bears, who have moved from the Atlantic League to the Can-Am.

Torrez won two games in the 1977 World Series for the Bronx Bombers, but is better remembered by many for giving up that famous playoff home run to the Yankees' Bucky Dent the next year, depriving Boston of going to the World Series.

Torrez, now 64, won 185 games during his major league mound duty.

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