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Knudson: The 2011 All-Knudson Team

By Mark Knudson, The Mtn. Insider
May 31, 2011

The trouble with postseason awards is that they rarely take into consideration what happens in the postseason. MVP’s, etc. are almost always handed out at the end of the regular season, leaving out the performances that happen in the most important games of the year.

We’re going to fix that with the second annual All-Knudson Mountain West Conference Baseball team. For this team, it all counts.

This team is picked on the basis of not just MWC regular season play but also the non-conference and, most importantly, the performances that came in the recently concluded MWC tournament. In the case of guys like TCU pitcher Kyle Winkler, who sat out the tournament with a “tender” pitching arm, we have to fall back on the body of work we have to examine. Otherwise, if you stepped up in the post season, you made a case when it mattered the most. In this space, we reward the guys who grind it out and walk the walk from the beginning of the season to end.

Friday starting pitcher: Even though he was held out of the tourney, the aforementioned Kyle Winkler was superb all season and the MWC tournament would probably have ended differently if he had been able to take the mound for TCU. He ended up leading the MWC in ERA at 1.40, went 8-2 and held opponents to a meager .201 batting average. Winkler’s strikeout to walk ratio was 98/13. Stellar.

Saturday starting pitcher: The league coaches voted Tanner Peters of UNLV the Pitcher of the Year and no question he was outstanding this season. 9-4 with a 1.50 ERA and 105 K’s against just 24 walks. He led the league in complete games with eight and innings pitched with 120. A great, great year. In my mind, Peters is a notch below Winkler, but nonetheless any coach would love to roll him out there every Saturday.

Sunday starting pitcher: Utah lefty Rick Anton won nine games, including an excellent outing in the tournament, and was one of the key reasons the Utes had a memorable final season in the MWC. Final numbers for Anton: 9-2, 2.52 ERA and 85 K’s against 25 walks.

Relief pitchers: TCU freshman Andrew Mitchell did some starting and relieving for the Frogs this season, so we put him in our bullpen. 5-1 with a 3.13 ERA is pretty darn good for a freshman, but when teams hit just .206 against you, that’s special. His teammate Trent Appleby was also outstanding in long relief, going 4-2 with a 3.14 ERA and eating up a lot of innings. Utah’s Tyler Wagner didn’t always look pretty doing it, but the big right-hander registered 12 saves and four wins during the season to go with a 2.04 ERA, which is pretty impressive in a short college season.

Catcher: He had the task of replacing all-everything catcher Bryan Holaday, and Josh Elander will be the first to tell you he’s still got a ways to go to do that. Still, after coming back from an injury to start the season, Elander hit .344, good for fourth in the Conference, and added five home runs. He stepped it up in the tournament, hitting .416 and playing excellent defense.  

First Base: As no-brainer as any award can be: C.J. Cron of Utah could very well be the national Player of the Year, so he was an easy pick and the league’s Player of the Year. All Cron did was hit better than .400 all season and win the league’s unofficial triple crown. His final stats were .434, 15 home runs and 59 RBI. While getting pitched around most of the time, he walked 31 times and struck out just 21. Cron was pressing in the Conference tourney and didn’t do a lot of damage. Still, his overall season was one for the record books.

Second Base: His regular season was just so-so, but BYU’s Dane Nielson was outstanding in the tournament. For the year, he hit an okay .279, but in the tourney, Neilson was Mr. Clutch for the Cougars, getting at least one hit in every tournament game. He also posted an excellent on-base percentage of .421 for the season. On top of that, he also was a standout on a defense that turned nine double plays and a triple play in San Diego. Neilson was the best in the Conference and turning the DP.

Shortstop: It was a down year at the position in the MWC. TCU’s Taylor Featherston got the preseason hype but he played poorly in the field, leading the league in errors with 27 and posting a subpar fielding percentage of just .900. Meanwhile, Utah’s James Brooks outhit Featherston .372 to .336 and had eight fewer bobbles and a better fielding percent at .925.

Third Base: A star was born in San Diego during tourney week. Freshman D.J. Peterson of New Mexico earned the tourney MVP Award, staying a key contributor even after getting hit on the wrist with a Wagner fastball on the second to last day of the tourney. He could have opted out, but he didn’t. He continued to swing a hot bat and was so impressive that TCU intentionally walked him in the championship game. His tourney performance capped a season where he hit .324 and led the league in doubles with 31, and was second only to Cron in total bases with 132. His short, compact swing is a coach’s dream.

Left Field: TCU leaned heavily on Jason Coats all season and he responded by hitting .332, with eight home runs and 56 RBI, which was second only to Cron. He was third in the league in runs scored with 52.

Center Field: Another youngster, San Diego State’s Cody Smith, was a standout in the tournament after putting together a great freshman regular season for the Aztecs. Smith ended up hitting .320 on the season, stealing 15 bases and driving in 30 runs. He’s another young player with a textbook swing and he’ll be a star in this league.

Right Field: TCU’s Brance Rivera fashioned a 27-game hitting streak during the regular season to help post a .331 average, with seven home runs and 36 RBI. He was a key bat in the TCU line up all season.

DH/Utility: Air Force sophomore Garrett Custons was a catcher for the Falcons this season, but that was more out of necessity than anything else. He can play the outfield and also DH of course, and after hitting .330 with six home runs and 23 RBI, he will be counted on to do even more damage next season.

Finally, I want to acknowledge three of the league’s coaches for outstanding seasons. His colleagues named Jim Schlossnagle of TCU as the league’s Coach of the Year for the sixth straight time. I see it a little differently. To me, Schlossnagle, who has built a top ten program and is one of the best in the business, set the bar very high and once again met those expectations. So he’s not the coach of the year; he’s better than that. Henceforth, the All-Knudson Team’s coach will be awarded the “Jim Schlossnagle Coach of the Year Award.”  

This year, the Schlossnagle Award has to be shared by Utah’s Bill Kinneberg and New Mexico’s Ray Birmingham. You have to reward a guy whose team was picked to finish sixth in the league and ended up second. The Utes had a much better farewell season in the MWC than their talent level should have allowed. And you also have to reward a coach whose team did finish sixth in the regular season and ended up winning the Conference tournament.

As Birmingham says, “There’s a method to my madness.” It’s a winning method.
See all of Mark Knudson's blog entries HERE.