sports

Baseball writers for the Spanish-language dailies have been heavy on the criticism about the level of play in this year's junior baseball tournament, and if one looks at it from a defensive perspective they obviously have a point: more than 300 errors in the first two rounds of play. The standard critique is that FEDEBEIS, which runs Panamanian baseball, was distracted during the long preparations for this year's tournament and was lax on the evaluation and development of young talent.

(We know that the head of FEDEBEIS, Franz Wever, was distracted for much of last year. A PRD legislator, he barely hung onto his seat in the assembly, and even then the Electoral Prosecutor wanted to investigate him for vote buying and other election offenses, a process that was cut short when his colleagues on the legislature's Credentials Committee prohibited all investigations of alleged electoral wrongdoing by the current crop of deputies.)

In any case, despite the criticism it seems that some professional scouts have taken a peek at the tournament and that others may be coming in to see the play in the final two rounds. As many rough edges as there are, there are some diamonds to be found in the various dugouts.

The semis will feature Group A winner Panama Metro versus Group B runner-up Herrera, with the latter group's winner Chiriqui facing the number two team in the former group, Los Santos, in seven-game series that will yield to finalists to confront one another in a best-of-seven final.

So far this year's outstanding tournament players include RBI leader Einar Atencio from Chiriqui, batting leader Roberto Villalaz (.533 in the second round) from Los Santos, a number of swift base stealers and several effective pitchers. But due to changes in tournament rules, some arguably better prospects, like Colon's Anthony González (.472), Arnulfo Marín (.400) and Andrés Rodríguez (8 stolen bases), were sidelined once their teams were eliminated. In some previous tournaments the teams making it to the next round would hold a draft to incorporate the best players of the eliminated teams.
































Also in this section:
Under-20 soccer team gets back to the world championships
Junior baseball semifinalists set

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