Maness and Roller Take Home Organizational Awards
November 01, 2011 | Baseball
Nov. 1, 2011
Chris Heston Stats l Seth Maness Stats l Kyle Roller Stats
GREENVILLE, N.C. - Former East Carolina All-Americans Seth Maness and Kyle Roller were named player's-of-the-year by their organizations following their stellar 2011 baseball seasons.
Maness, who was the St. Louis Cardinals' 11th round selection in the June 2011 First-Year Player Draft, became the organization's most-traveled newly-signed player in 2011 making stops at three different Cardinals minor league clubs before heading home for the winter. Along the way he was named to the New York Penn League All-Star roster and named The Cardinal Nation/Scout.com Minor League Rookie Starting Pitcher-of-the-Year in 2011 and the Batavia Starting Pitcher-of-the-Year as well.
In 53 regular-season innings across three levels, Maness struck out 42 and walked just five while holding opposing batters to a collective .194 average. His ERA was 1.53 and he induced over three ground ball outs for every fly ball.
The four-time First-Team All Conference USA selection started his professional career with the Batavia Muckdogs where he appeared in 10 games, including seven starts with a 0.91 ERA and had a 0-1 record. He fanned 31 and walked just three in 39 2/3 Batavia innings and limited NYPL batters to a .185 average. Following a scoreless inning of work in the August 16 NYPL All-Star game, Maness was promoted too A-Advanced Palm Beach. In just 10 days in the Florida State League, he was called upon three times in relief where he pitched scoreless ball in two of three outings, including picking up his first professional win. Overall, he allowed four runs in 8 1/3 FSL innings, fanning eight and walking just two.
His final stop of the season was with the playoff-bound Quad Cities River Bandits of the Class-A Midwest League. Maness appeared in two regular season games, yielding just one run in five frames with three punch-outs.
Roller, who just completed his second year in the New York Yankees organization, was named the Minor League Hitter-of-the-Year by the YES Network. The hard hitting left-hander and SAL Mid-Season All-Star selection had a huge split year almost equally between Low-A Charleston and High-A Tampa where he batted .284 with 16 home runs and 57 RBI in 110 games. His .371 on-base percentage was the highest among Yankees farmhands, while his .482 slugging percentage ranked second among players that came to the plate at least 300 times. His 31 doubles and 16 homers ranked third and fifth in the system, respectively, and his 18 hit-by-pitchers were far and away the most in the organization (he showed off that skill last year as well).
Former First-Team All C-USA selection Chris Heston capped off his third year in the San Francisco Giants organization posting a 12-4 record with a 3.16 ERA, both of which led the California League in 2011. He was a CAL Mid-Season All-Star and took home CAL Pitcher-of-the-Week honors on May 16 after striking out eight batters in seven innings where he allowed just four hits in a 2-0 win over the Stockton Ports. On the year he struck out 131 batters, while walking 40 in 151.0 innings and held opposing hitters to a .259 average.
