State College Spikes ready to embrace MLB Draft League opportunity as season begins
The State College Spikes released their Opening Day roster Sunday evening, a day before the team’s inaugural season in the MLB Draft League was set to begin with a Monday evening contest against the Williamsport Crosscutters.
The 24-man active roster (as of Sunday) is made up of MLB Draft-eligible players from college institutions across the country. Some players have come from as far as Belgium and France, while others are from much closer, such as State College native Kevin Karstetter.
Karstetter, who addressed the media Sunday afternoon along with Spikes manager Delwyn Young, is excited to play on a field that’s just a few miles away from where he grew up, playing for the State College Little Lions before moving to Florida to enroll at IMG Academy. As he makes his homecoming, he wants to use this opportunity as a stepping stone to his next goal: playing professional baseball.
“This is home and I obviously grew up coming to Spikes games,” Karstetter said on Sunday. “I know how important baseball is up here with the talent and everything. I kind of represent the whole town and I’m going to try to play my hardest. I know that the fans will enjoy it. He (Young) doesn’t know that we get crowds here, so he’ll enjoy it as well. It’ll be great. I’m really excited.”
The freshman infielder now attends the State College of Florida, where he batted .296/.386/.394 with 60 hits (11 doubles), three home runs, 30 walks and 47 RBIs this season. He had six steals on the year with 42 runs scored and 38 strikeouts. Karstetter is also joined on the Spikes’ roster by college teammates catcher Jack Anderson, of Gibsonia, and outfielder Cameron Lee, of Frankfurt, Illinois.
Karstetter is hoping to use this opportunity with the Spikes to boost his future MLB Draft stock, or even his possibility of getting drafted this year.
“We get 68 games to really figure ourselves out and see how good we can get,” Karstetter said. “The foundation is going to be really good. We’ve got great coaching; I’m trying to learn from these guys. So, when I do get into pro ball, I’m ready. That’s what I’m trying to get out of it. I’m really excited.”
Just like any year in baseball, the rosters will rotate throughout the season. The MLB Draft is just 20 rounds this season — down from the original 40-round MLB Draft in 2019 and years prior. Players will be drafted and report to their respective parent clubs. Undrafted players will remain on the roster, while new players may be added. It’s just a new wrinkle of the MLB Draft League.
Usually in baseball, players are beginning their seasons around Valentine’s Day in February. For Young, a first-year manager who played in parts of five Major League seasons as well as spending time in the minors, putting in that amount of time is difficult as a husband and father. With the MLB Draft League only taking up three months, he felt that this would be a chance to get back to the game that he loves.
“It’s (just) more so that we’re trying to get this league to run as best as we can,” Young said. “Whether it’s this league or another league, rosters are always revolving. That’s the hardest part about baseball is trying to maintain a roster and trying to maintain a healthy roster. My experience in baseball is no different than any other years. It’s just different challenges.”
Young will revolve his lineups from day to day with changes made to get players scouted throughout the season. His goal is for the players to take advice on how they can improve their play, utilizing exclusive technology that the MLB Draft League has to offer over other summer leagues in the country.
Baseball has always been a data-driven game, whether it’s the statistics that one would read on the back of a baseball card or even the advanced statistics that one would see on FanGraphs or Baseball Reference. Even with the implementation of high-speed camera usage to fix a batter’s swing or a pitcher’s release point or the availability of numbers to bring context a player’s on-field value, the importance of analytics hasn’t really changed in the eyes of Young.
“I think that they’re important in any era that we’re in,” Young said. “I think that as a person, we’re entitled to our opinion, but we’re not entitled to facts. So, in my opinion, we’ll use Kevin as an example — in the running (department), I can say that Kevin is not an average runner. But for the fact matter, the analytics and the numbers, it’s different.
“I have to find a way figure out the best part of his analytics, whether it’s running, throwing to put it in the conversation with somebody and help them to understand how to figure out the value of a player. I don’t think that baseball has really changed since 1990 to 2021. The only thing that’s been altered is the fact that we’ve changed the words from statistics to analytics.”
While there are still plenty of unknowns as the MLB Draft League makes its debut, one thing is certain — players like Karstetter are excited to embrace the opportunity to play, and Young is ready to help them make the best of their time in State College.
This story was originally published May 24, 2021 at 8:35 PM.
