Most baseball seasons can be remembered by a catch-phrase, and here’s one that fits the Greensboro Grasshoppers for 2008.

 

The Year of the Phenom.

 

“Phenom” is a throwback word referring to a young player having a great season, a virtual can’t-miss prospect. You rarely hear it these days, but when Hoppers manager Edwin Rodriguez applied it to Mike Stanton and Matt Dominguez, it seemed to fit.

 

“They’re two young kids, 18 years old, and they had a tremendous season,” Rodriguez said. “Coming into the season there were a lot of question marks about them, but we were watching two phenoms. Two years from now, three years from now, they’re going to make an impact in the big leagues.”

 

The question marks were because of their youth. Dominguez was the Florida Marlins’ first-round draft pick in 2007 and Stanton was their second pick, both out of high school. Each  played only briefly last summer and there was much curiosity about how they would do being thrown into a full season. 

 

Stanton’s year was well-documented as he belted 39 home runs and drove in 97 runs while hitting .293. He fell one short of the South Atlantic League home run record. Stanton lost two games to rainouts in Kannapolis late in the season and was on deck when Tom Hickman ended the season with a solo home run in the bottom of the 12th inning against Lexington on Sept. 1. 

 

Stanton didn’t make the North Division roster for the South Atlantic League All-Star game – an egregious oversight – but he made the post-season all-star team. At 6-5 and blessed with tremendous athletic ability, he played right field and center field with ease. And he improved as the year went on – .281 with 15 homers, 47 RBIs, 16 walks and 86 strikeouts in the first half, .306 with 24 homers, 50 RBIs, 42 walks and 67 strikeouts in the second half.

 

Dominguez was somewhat overshadowed by Stanton’s season. But the numbers he put up were terrific – .286 with 18 homers and 70 RBIs in 88 games. Bear in mind that he didn’t join the roster until May because he was recovering from mononucleosis. He used the rest of the first half to play his way into shape, hitting .313 but with only two homers and seven RBIs in 21 games.

 

But his second half rivaled that of Stanton. Dominguez hit .291 with 16 homers and 63 RBIs (13 more than Stanton) and he played in 67 of the team’s 68 second-half games. Part of his success was because opposing teams pitched so carefully to Stanton, but Dominguez took advantage of those situations, especially with men on base.

 

Those two players led a Hoppers power surge. The team finished with 161 home runs, 49 more than the next best team. Bryan Petersen mashed 19 homers in 79 games before being promoted to Jupiter and then to the Carolina Mudcats. Hickman added 15, Hunter Mense 13 and Ryan Curry chipped in with 10.

 

Mense hit .289 with 25 doubles and Curry, after a 1-for-27 start, pulled his mark up to .264 with 26 doubles by hitting .275 after the all-star game. Ozzie Martinez hit .296 in 88 games.

 

“The thing I will remember the most is how everybody has gotten better from the beginning, going down the line from Dominguez to Stanton to Hunter Mense, Martinez, (Emilio) Ontiveros,” said hitting coach Jorge Hernandez. “That’s one thing I can take with me from this season. I’m real pleased with the way they battled all season long and finished strong.”

 

Pitching was another story. Although the bullpen was strong, the starters struggled all year and were the main reason the club managed only a 66-72 overall record. While there was an occasional bright spot among the starters, like Stu Alexander’s 5-3 record and 3.56 ERA after the all-star game, much of the time they failed to pitch at least into the sixth inning, taxing the pen.

 

Two members stood out in particular – A.J. Battisto and Corey Madden. Battisto pitched in 49 games, compiling an 8-1 record with a 1.55 ERA and 101 strikeouts in 81 1/3 innings. He led the team in strikeouts, unheard of for a middle reliever.

 

Madden went 5-0 with a 1.09 ERA and an astounding 92 strikeouts in 58 innings. He appeared in 42 games before getting a look in Jupiter, where he appeared in eight games and compiled a 0.79 ERA and struck out 12 in 11 1/3 innings.

 

Rodriguez said Madden went from being a suspect to a prospect.

 

“He was very close to being released (after 2007),” Rodriguez said, “but he went back home, he worked on his stuff and he came back a different pitcher. They’re talking Double-A maybe next year. The right people were watching him in Jupiter and he was pitching lights out.”

 

Another reliever, Garrett Parcell, saved 17 games in the first half but strained his forearm and pitched only once in the second half. 

 

Most of the core of the Hoppers roster will move to Jupiter next season. A few players may return to start the 2009 season here, especially young pitchers like Jay Voss, Kyle Kaminska and Alex Sanabia.

 

Coaches are like players in that they also want to move up in the organization. Rodriguez spent two years in Greensboro and may get a shot at Jupiter.

 

“For 29 years now, I’ve been doing this one year at a time,” he said. “Who knows? I like the organization. The Marlins, they pay attention to the minor leagues. It makes it fun when you see you are making an impact and making a difference in the organization at the big league level, getting those guys ready.”

 

It’s unusual for an organization to send a manager to a farm team for three straight years, but Rodriguez said it would be fine with him.

 

“I don’t mind coming here,” he said. “Minor leagues is minor leagues. I love it here.”

 

Hernandez spent his first season with the Marlins after four years of coaching in independent leagues.

 

“My main goal is one day to make it to the big leagues,” he said. “But I have a job to do and that is to continue to develop these kids and make them better each and every day. If it’s meant for me to be in the big leagues one day, great. If not, I will just continue to do my job in the minor leagues.”

 

OTHER HIGHLIGHTS: The South Atlantic League All-Star game at NewBridge Bank Park was a fun affair that drew 8,367 fans who watched appreciatively as the North Division pounded the South 13-4.

 

Three Hoppers pitchers – Madden, Battisto and Parcell – appeared in the game with Parcell getting the final out with a strikeout.

 

That attendance, by the way, was the best among the five Class A all-star games and fourth among the nine played throughout the minor leagues (not counting the Futures Game in Yankee Stadium). The SAL game topped the Double-A Southern League game, played in Zebulon, by 2,700 people.

 

The Hoppers organization continued its success of outstanding attendance figures. The club drew 440,787 fans, just 331 short of breaking its franchise mark set last year. The Hoppers drew more fans than any other SAL team, although Lakewood had a higher average attendance (6,345 to Greensboro’s 6,298). That’s because Greensboro played all 70 home games and the BlueClaws lost three to rain.

 

The team has drawn more than 400,000 fans in each of its four seasons in its new park.