Minor League Notebook : So Far, Numbers Show That Katella’s Shaw Made Right Choice

Head north from Milwaukee on State Highway 41 for about two hours, get off on College Avenue in Appleton and take a right on Douglas.

And there you are. Goodland Field. Home of the Class-A Appleton Foxes.

Appleton, Wis. (pop. 59,032), is quite a few orchards and a few thousand miles from Orange County. But it might be the perfect place for a young pitcher to blossom.

That’s what is happening to Kevin Shaw, 18, who graduated from Katella High School a year ago.

Shaw, a right-handed fastball pitcher, was drafted by the Kansas City Royals last June in the eighth round. He had spent two years on Katella’s varsity, where he was a forgotten star in the stellar Empire League. Despite his 1.44 earned-run average his senior season, the Knights finished 5-9 in league play and 11-14 overall.

“They called me a sleeper,” Shaw said. “I thought I should have gone higher in the draft.”

Shaw is proving that his instincts were right. A starter, he leads the Foxes with an 0.61 earned-run average and a 4-1 record. He has struck out 16 and walked 17 in 44 innings.

“He’s had some very good outings for us,” Appleton Manager Brian Poldberg said. “He’s been one of our more consistent pitchers.”

Katella Coach Tim McMenamin said he thought Shaw was strong enough to play in the majors. “He was throwing 90 miles an hour in high school,” McMenamin said. “The team would just make a few mistakes.”

Shaw, who had signed a letter of intent to attend Brigham Young University, waited until the Royals offered what he felt he was worth before he signed.

“I had to think about it for a while,” he said. “But I would have gone to college just to play baseball, so I figured I might as well play in the pros.”

He signed July 5, three days after his 18th birthday.

He went directly to Sarasota, Fla., to play rookie ball, in which he finished with a 1.44 ERA, best on the team. He spent six more weeks in Sarasota playing instructional-league ball, then returned home to Yorba Linda for a few months before he headed off to spring training and eventually to Wisconsin.

When he got to Appleton in April, it was still snowing.

“My arm started stiffening up,” Shaw said. “I’d never pitched in 30-degree weather before. It was totally different.”

Despite the initial cold shock, which caused him to miss a few starts because of tightness in his shoulder, Shaw has warmed up to Appleton.

“It’s a pretty nice little town,” he said. “We get good crowds, especially if there’s a special event like beer night. I miss the ocean, but it’s nice to see another part of the world.”

Shaw is seeing the world of the Midwest through the windows of a team bus as it cruises to such stops as Madison, Wis.; Waterloo, Iowa, and South Bend, Ind.

And he may be seeing it for a while, according to Poldberg.

“He’s definitely a prospect,” Poldberg said. “But he’s still probably four or five years away (from the majors). He’s working on his curveball and his changeup, the things he’ll need in the big leagues. But they’ll want him to have success on every level.”

So far, Shaw is enjoying this initial success.

“I think I made the right decision,” he said. “Sure, I could be playing for a four-year university. But I’m doing really well here.”

John Fishel, a former player at Loara High School and Cal State Fullerton, is tearing up the Pacific Coast League in his first year of triple-A ball with the Tucson Toros.

Tuesday night, against the Colorado Springs Sky Sox, Fishel went 3 for 5 with 5 runs batted in and a pair of two-run home runs. His offensive output led the Toros, who are affiliated with the Houston Astros, to an 11-5 victory.

The two homers were Fishel’s fourth and fifth in the last five games, and he leads the club with 12. In his first season in triple-A ball, he is hitting .297 with 45 RBIs.

But Fishel still trails a teammate and fellow outfielder, Cameron Drew from New Jersey, who also is in his first year playing triple A. Drew leads the league in hitting with a .368 average.

However, when the Astros called up an outfielder Saturday, they took Tucson’s other starting outfielder, the one with the lowest average.

Louie Meadows was hitting .263 when he was called up. But he had already been there once before, for a brief period in 1986, proving that experience can outweigh statistics.

Former UC Irvine outfielder Brady Anderson is doing his best to prove that the Boston Red Sox made a mistake by sending him down to the Pawtucket Red Sox triple-A team three weeks ago.

Monday, in a game against the Indianapolis Indians, Anderson came in as a pinch-hitter in the seventh inning with the Red Sox trailing, 1-0. With the bases loaded, Indianapolis brought in relief pitcher Kurt Kepshire to face Anderson.

Anderson hit a grand slam, giving the Red Sox a 4-1 lead and eventually the victory.

Former Angel Manager Jim Fregosi benefited from the St. Louis Cardinals’ minor league system. After three seasons managing the triple-A Louisville Redbirds, Fregosi moved into the head job with the Chicago White Sox.

But the Cardinal affiliation is being less kind to Jim Fregosi Jr., an El Modena graduate. Fregosi is in his fourth season in the Cardinal system and his second season with the double-A team at Little Rock, Ark.

Although he hasn’t matched the success of his first year in the minors, when he batted over .300, Fregosi had been fairly consistent for the past two seasons. He hit .244 in 1986 and .267 last season.

But this season, Fregosi has dropped to .189, with 25 hits in 132 at-bats and only 12 RBIs.

“I’m just not playing every day,” said Fregosi, who was an All-American shortstop at the University of New Mexico. “Now I’m a utility player, playing everywhere. I was platooned from day one of this season. It was an organizational decision. I don’t know why.”