Cal notes: Sanders settles into unique role
If not many people around baseball understand what Anthony Sanders' job entails, that's OK. Everybody on the Modesto Nuts does.
"My title is the supervisor for this club. I'm basically like a fourth coach here, and that's a lot of different titles, as far as helping out [coach Lee Stevens] with the hitting, [Brandon] Emanuel with pitching and the manager [Fred Ocasio]," Sanders said. "My duty is to oversee the staff and all the operations that go on here, and communicating with everybody in the front office in Denver as well."
Sanders managed Rookie-level Grand Junction from 2013-2015 and was the hitting coach of Class A Short Season Tri-City from 2007-2012, but he's been familiar with the role of developmental supervisor since the Rockies created it in 2013. They remain the only Major League organization to have that position with each affiliate.
"When I first heard about it, everybody was kind of iffy, like, 'What's going on here?'" Sanders said. "I'm used to having rovers coming in and out, but what I've learned is that the communication is 100 percent better [with a developmental supervisor]. You don't have people coming in for one week who haven't been in the grind and seeing these kids, so there's no misleading the kids and hearing different voices probably when they shouldn't be."
For some managers, a "fourth coach" with such a general purview may seem like nothing more than an extra headache. That's not how Ocasio sees it.
"I think it's a great position. There's a lot of stuff that happens during the game, and another set of eyes will see [things I won't], and we talk about it," he said.
Clear and frequent communication between everybody -- Sanders and the coaching staff, Sanders and the players, Sanders and the front office -- has been crucial.
"The one thing with this organization that I really respect, one thing we do really right, is everybody's on the same page," Sanders said. "There's no hidden agendas for anybody. Everybody knows what's going on, what their plan is, what they're working on. It makes everything a little easier, and easier for the coaches to coach."
For several Nuts players, including catcher Dom Nunez (the Rockies' No. 8 prospect) and center fielder Wes Rogers (No. 29), Sanders was their first manager in pro ball, and working with him again as a developmental supervisor has been a boon.
"If I have a question, I know I can go to him for anything," said Nunez, who played for Grand Junction in 2013 and 2014. "He saw me pretty much my worst year, my first year right when I signed, and I had a good year when I went back, but the competition at the Rookie level compared to this level is a big difference. Not that I wanted to show him [how I've improved], but more [I was excited] to keep working with him, because he's definitely helped my career so far."
Sanders is a former outfielder -- he played in the Majors for parts of three seasons -- and Rogers, as a first-year pro in 2014, benefited from that experience.
"[We did a lot of] working on balls close to the fence, because he knew that was my weakness, and he hounded me and hounded me about it," the 22-year-old native of South Carolina said. "He always wants you working on your weakness to make it one of your strengths. He's definitely a guy for the players."
There have been moments when Sanders, who's not in the Modesto dugout during games, has had to hold back from being too much "a guy for the players."
"The hardest adjustment for me is just letting the coaches coach," he said. "There are times when I'm watching from the stands, and I have a good relationship with Wes Rogers and [Forrest] Wall, and I can see their tendencies, and when they're going to steal a base, for example. I'm used to being over there at first base, telling them, 'OK, it's time to go,' and things like that. It's little things like that [where] I have to sit back and let it happen."
Despite those temptations, Sanders is comfortable as the developmental supervisor, and Ocasio's players are happy, too.
"With Anthony Sanders, he gets along really good with all the players, so they understand the role," the manager said. "It's all about communication. If you let them know, 'This is my role, this is what I'm here for, this is what I do,' the players know. We've had this four years already, so they know the role of the supervisor, and I think Anthony does a good job."
In brief
That's a lot: San Jose welcomed the franchise's seven millionth fan to Municipal Stadium on Sunday. Rolando Jorquera was the lucky winner, and win he did: the Giants rewarded him with, among other things, a 2016 season pass. Jorquera recently moved to the Bay Area and was late to the game because he'd been waiting for the cable guy to show up. "Although this is our first San Jose Giants game, we now look forward to coming back several times this year with our season pass," he told the team. "This is unbelievable, we never win anything!"
He won't back down: Through the games of June 6, Mariners prospect Kyle Petty had surged to the top of the Cal League leaderboard with a .335 batting average. Since May 19, he's 29-for-69 (.420), having gone hitless in only one of 17 games over that span. He also has a .414 on-base percentage and .526 slugging percentage through 56 games with the Blaze this season.
Braaaaaaaains: The 66ers put on their fourth annual Zombie Apocalypse Night last Thursday. San Manuel Stadium was converted into a zombie survival zone, the team wore survivalist jerseys and at least a few young fans got fully into the spirit.
Josh Jackson is a contributor to MiLB.com. Follow and interact with him on Twitter, @JoshJacksonMiLB.