Each year Indians face uphill climb

Back at the ballyard, baseball’s stubborn constants remain a comfort and a blessing.

You can never have enough good pitching, speed never goes into a slump and in time a minor league marketer will figure out how to attach a sponsor’s commercial to the act of a player adjusting his protective cup.

The next generation of Spokane Indians is here, most professionals for barely a week and a few down to their last look. For now, err on the side of hope: The chances of any of them making it to the major leagues are better than the odds of one of them eventually testing positive for a female fertility drug.

But apparently that gap is closing.

It’s hard to know which is text and which is subtext for our summer missionaries – winning a pennant, as the Indians did a year ago for the eighth time in their short-season history, or accelerating their careers. On opening night, the only urgency but the moment, and the Indians seized it with a crisp 5-3 victory over Yakima.

On average, four Indians each season will make it all the way upstream to The Show from the Northwest League. In all, 98 have, most recently John Mayberry Jr., who homered in his major league debut last week – for Philadelphia. Spokane’s parent club, the Texas Rangers, traded him away in the offseason.

So that’s four – maybe – out of 34 this year.

But there are long shots and longer shots, and way out there beyond Mine That Bird is baseball’s longest shot: the free agent.

You have to admire how baseball has wrapped its arms around this annual process of restocking the talent pond. Once the amateur draft stretched to 100 rounds and 1,739 players, mostly George Steinbrenner wanting to show off the Yankees’ scouting database. Now they wrap it up in a mere three days, 50 rounds and 1,500 or so picks. And this with Latin American players ineligible.

Amazingly, a few warm bodies are still left to hustle a gig with any organization which, despite the cattle call, might have an entry-level hole to fill.

Infielder Denny Duron wasn’t shocked to find himself undrafted. Out of eligibility at Pepperdine – and thus out of leverage – he admitted that his hitting stats “weren’t all that great,” though he was the West Coast Conference’s defensive player of the year. When the draft heaved to a close, he phoned scouts he knew to gauge interest and then got a call from the Rangers asking if he’d like to report to Spokane – where, it so happens, his former high school coach, Tim Hulett, is in his third year as manager.

“This is the first step because I didn’t know if it would be in the cards,” said Duron. “Now I want to make something special happen.”

Just cracking the regular starting lineup is something special. Going all the way is something else.

Only one of the 15 Rangers farmhands who launched careers here and have appeared in a major league game was signed as a free agent: outfielder Kevin Mahar, a part-time player in 2004 called up briefly in 2007 but who now toils again in Double-A in the Phillies’ organization. Going back to Class A baseball’s return to Spokane in 1983, a few free agents have carved out notable careers – Sandy Alomar, Jose Valentin, Ricky Bones – but only one other major leaguer, pitcher Glenn Dishman, was draft eligible and not selected.

So Duron has a tough climb. So does outfielder Aja Barto – his towering homer proved to be the difference Saturday – who passed on signing after being a 14th-round pick out of high school in 2005. They’ll have company – 12 Indians are free agents, the most since 2004.

And maybe the biggest obstacle is mere opportunity. Organizations have more invested in their draft picks, especially from the higher rounds.

“They’ll get the first look,” Hulett allowed, “but it’s about developing all of our players.

“There are always long shots. You’d hate to lose a guy because you missed him in the draft and he’s one of the best pitchers ever – and that’s happened. And it can still happen even with all the technology and scouting today. Everybody is going to get their shot and a chance to perform.”

And a chance to be one of the final four standing. Baseball, after all, is a game of averages.