Check part one of our Preview of the Dutch Major League
Some notes on each of the eight teams:
Corendon Kinheim
It is going to be difficult for CORENDON to repeat their success of 2007, when they won the Dutch championship in addition to the European Cup. However they can rely mostly on the roster of last season.
They added national team outfielder Bryan Engelhardt, who gives head coach Ben Thijssen another option alongside Dirk van’t Klooster and batting champion Danny Rombley. To strengthen the pitching staff, they signed right-handed pitcher Cliff Foster, who receives starting duties on the first weekend besides opening game pitcher David Bergman. Foster replaces Vaughan Harris in the rotation. National team member Michiel van Kampen is their closer. They also brought in Gregory Halman and Tom Stuifbergen, though both will be playing in the United States.
The team batted a league best .331 during 2007, which was nearly 40 points higher than the runner up. KINHEIM brings back all the key players, which will lead to another playoff berth. If they can defend their title depends on the others.
Prediction: They will be back in the hunt for a third consecutive title.
DOOR Neptunus
After dominating the Holland Series for years, the two last seasons must have disappointing for the club. Nevertheless they had a pretty successful campaign. DOOR finished only a half game behind KINHEIM in second place after the regular season and ran into a hot KONICA MINOLTA squad in the playoffs. Such things happen.
They led the league with an ERA of 1.74, which was a half run better than the pack. They will only miss reliever Chris Ryan, who went back to the States. Berry van Driel will replace him. They also brought in Eugene Kinsale and Derick Francisca for the outfield to reinforce the offense, which batted .292 last year. Pitching wise Leon Boyd and Diegomar Markwell are the 1-2 starters for the team this season.
NEPTUNUS is definitely motivated to get back to victory lane. If they can match the offensive production of KINHEIM, than they are capable to pass them with their pitching staff, which should lead the league again.
Predicition: They should mark the dates in the calendar for a meeting with KINHEIM in the Holland Series.
Konica Minolta Pioniers
The squad from Hoofdorp upset DOOR NEPTUNUS in the playoffs and reached the finals for another time. They were pretty satisfied with the final standings, as their regular season was not that perfect. They won just 22 games and ranked third. Their stats were not impressive as well with a team batting average of .260 and a team ERA of 3.42. These numbers were still better than the most of the other teams, but lacked behind the top two.
During the winter they hold on to the majority of the 2007 roster. They even increased the depth on their pitching staff another time with the signing of Jan Rehacek of the Czech Republic. Nelson Santander, Richard Orman and Roger Kops are supposed to start. Dave Draijer closes out the games. Santander and Kops will pitch at the opening weekend. Offensive wise they still miss a slugger. Glenn Romney led three players with averages higher than .300.
The PIONIERS could challenge and irritate KINHEIM and NEPTUNUS, if they can produce more runs. The pitching staff is certainly deep enough to be competitive.
Prediction: A berth in the playoffs is likely.
L&D Amsterdam Pirates
The PIRATES gave everything and KINHEIM had to go to a decisive fifth match in the playoffs, to eliminate the AMSTERDAM squad.
They made some changes during the offseason. Rikkert Fanyete takes over as new head coach. He welcomes the most important acquisition Ryan Murphy for the new season. The multi-talented player led RCH with a .365 batting average and with an ERA of 2.64 in a league best 112.2 innings pitched. They also had signed outfielder Derick Francisca. Although he switch to DOOR NEPTUNUS several days before he season started. The teams sends starters Kenny Berkenbosch and Pim Walsma to the mound on the opening weekend. League MVP Fausto Alvarez leads the offense for another campaign with his monstrous power numbers. National team catcher Sidney de Jong and Murphy, who plays the infield, if he is not pitching, are going to support him. Loek van Mil, who is also new on the roster, should be not available as he is marching through the minor league system of the MINNESOTA TWINS.
With Murphy on their roster they are capable to repeat the performance of last year. If they manage to get production alongside of Alvarez, the PIRATES would be in good shape.
Prediction: They can challenge the PIONIERS for third.
HCAW Mr. Cocker
MR COCKER won 17 games last season and finished in fifth, missing the playoffs.
They were one of the few teams in the Netherlands, who looked outside of the league for new players. They signed the Swedish baseball league MVP Adam Sowell. The American starts on opening day and should be one of the better pitchers in the league. The second major acquisition is pitcher Fernando Gutierrez, who is from Venezuela and won the Spanish championship with the MARLINS PUERTO CRUZ in 2007. He is also a member of the Spanish national team and appeared at the Baseball World Cup and the Final Olympic Qualifier this March. He also was claimed by the NEPTUNUS, but the league approved his status for HCAW and he is likely to serve as the closer of the staff. Kevin Roovers is expected to start in game two. Stephen Spragg and Andre Simpson left the club.
They could improve the pitching department this winter. Nevertheless MR COCKER still lacks production from their batting order.
Prediction: Are some good pitchers enough to reach the playoffs? Probably not.
ADO
The team with the three letters as team name won 15 games last season and were ranked sixth at the end.
ADO faces a difficult year. Several of their best players left the club like Harvey Monte, Rob Cordemans and Berry van Driel. If newcomers like the pitchers Alex Smith and Brent Henry replace is unlikely. But we will see. New head coach Ron Steward does not have an easy task. The British national team pitcher Smith is going to start on opening day with southpaw Henry to follow on Sunday.
ADO is not going into the season to expect to stay in the race for a playoff spot. They are amore likely to look back to try to defend against a potential relegation. The results from the preseason tournaments also indicate nothing good.
Predicition: They may drop some more games than last year but will stay in the league.
Sparta/Feyenoord Rotterdam
The finished in seventh with 13 wins in 2007 and revamped the roster in the following winter months.
New coach Steve Janssen came together with pitcher Rob Cordemans, infielder Percy Isenia and outfielder Harvey Monte. They also brought back starter Rudy Seebus, who pitched in 71.2 innings last year. Eddie Oropesa left SPARTA. They will also miss Dwayne Kemp, who signed with NEPTUNUS, but plays in the United States this summer. Cordemans starts in game one. Seebus is probably on the mound for the following match.
FEYENOORD had a quit successful preseason, outscoring their opponents 60-36 in nine games. If the bats stay hot during the year, than they could make a step forward and challenge the PIRATES, PINOIERS and HCAW for the remaining spots in the postseason behind KINHEIM and NEPTUNUS.
Predicition: Due to the lack of depth pitching wise they will miss the playoffs narrowly.
RCH MediaMonks
They won twelve games and avoided the ninth and last place in the standings by just a win.
During the offseason the MEDIA MONKS lost their best player with Ryan Murphy. However they tried to replace him with several newcomers. They extended the contract of Petr Baroch and added a few more players from Eastern Europe to the squad. Marek Deska comes from Poland. Tomas Casa and Jakub Malik played in the Czech Extraleague. And finally the Rumanian Mihai Burlea joins the team in May after finishing his college season. They also brought back the Mexican Al Morales, who will pitch and serve as coach. He led the team to the Dutch Major League in 2006, but played in North America last year. The Cuban Hector Iglesias Duarte will add some depth to the outfield and hopefully strengthens the offense too. Morales will start the opener, followed by Jean-Paul Gulinck in the second game.
However despite the signings, they didn’t impress during the preseason. They lost four of five and managed barely a tie. Especially the offense was lifeless with just six runs.
Predicition: If Al Morales is capable to bring back some magic from 2006, they could pass ADO for seventh place.
Kinheim has already won 2 straight
Kinheim also won the Holland Series in 2006 and is going for a third title and not second.
http://www.honkbalsite.com/competitie/2006/hollandseries.html
Sorry, that was bad. We need to double check better. Thank you for the heads up.