Cedar Rapids Jefferson graduate Connor Van Scoyoc is pitching in Triple-A for the first time in his professional baseball career. He also has a new role as a reliever.
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Cedar Rapids Jefferson graduate Connor Van Scoyoc is pitching in Triple-A for the first time in his professional baseball career. He also has a new role as a reliever.
Catcher-first baseman Nate Baez began this season with the Cedar Rapids Kernels as a part-time player at best. But the 12th-round draft pick of the Minnesota Twins in 2023 made so much of the opportunities he did get, he has forced his way into an everyday role and in the three or four hole in the lineup. He is second in the Midwest League in batting average and fourth in OPS.
Ryan Cameron likely is going to be the primary goaltender this coming United States Hockey League season for the Cedar Rapids RoughRiders. The 17-year-old from suburban Philadelphia recently was named USA Hockey’s Goaltender of the Year after a standout season for Lone Star of the junior North American Hockey League. Cameron participated this weekend at C.R.’s main tryout camp.
Cedar Rapids Prairie grad Corbin Day has gone from teaching part time at Kennedy High School four years ago to a role as “Advanced Scout, Run Production” with Major League Baseball’s Minnesota Twins. He is with the team daily, home and away, supporting its hitting coaches with game planning and other tasks.
“I don’t even give him the steal sign. He has the green light,” said Kernels Manager Brian Meyer.
Starting pitcher Jose Olivares through a season-high five innings Wednesday afternoon at Veterans Memorial Stadium as the Cedar Rapids Kernels beat Lake County, 1-0. The 22-year-old from Venezuela has the makings of a future major leaguer.
Outfielder Gabriel Gonzalez has always been known as a good hitter. A back issue last season with the Cedar Rapids Kernels prevented him from showing that. But he’s healthy this season and hitting a ton the first month and a half of the Midwest League season.
Shortstop Kaelen Culpepper was the first-round pick (21st overall) of the Minnesota Twins last summer out of Kansas State. He has flashed his skills in the early going for the Cedar Rapids Kernels in between injuries, including one Wednesday in a 7-6, 11-inning loss to Peoria.
Iowa Heartlanders head coach and general manager Derek Damon will leave the ECHL hockey club to take over as head coach and president of hockey operations of the Des Moines Buccaneers of the junior United States Hockey League. Damon was an assistant coach for Iowa in its inaugural season of 2021-22, taking over at head coach/GM in the summer of 2022. The Heartlanders and Bucs both are owned by New York businessman Michael Devlin
Pitcher Alejandro Hidalgo of the Cedar Rapids Kernels was part of a trade that sent him from the Los Angeles Angels to the Minnesota Twins organization in 2022. He missed all of last season with a shoulder injury but has returned and shown big league stuff.
The United States Hockey League has concluded the two phases of its 2025 draft. In Tuesday’s Phase II, the Cedar Rapids RoughRiders selected winger Cade Sherman of Rosemount High School in Minnesota. He’s the son of Matt Sherman, who started three years as the University of Iowa football team in the 1990s.
Cedar Rapids Kernels catcher-first baseman-designated hitter Nate Baez didn’t get a whole lot of playing time in the first week or two of the Midwest League season. But he got four hits in a game he did play in, he continued to follow up that performance with more good performances and now he finds himself with a .353 batting average and more walks than strikeouts while playing most days.
Here is your second look at how Eastern Iowans and former University of Iowa baseball players are doing in the early going of the 2025 Major League Baseball and minor league seasons.
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