College baseball: ‘It starts now’ for UH-Hilo baseball

As Major League Baseball prepares its red carpet treatment for the postseason and shows the exit door to all of those clubs whose season didn’t meet expectations, it tells us one thing on the Big Island.

Of course, it’s time for fall ball, and if it seems like nothing more than a little stretching and loosening up of the arms for the season ahead, guess again.

“Really, it all starts now,” said Kallen Miyataki, the UH-Hilo coach who was hoping for better weather for the first fall workouts. “We have a lot of work to do and you need to all start out headed in the same direction, so this is a key time for us.”

The school’s struggles in baseball have been well documented, last season’s 9-33 record was not outside the norm for a severely under-funded program that has always struggled to meet a financial level that might allow the Vulcans to recruit more expansively.

UHH has a collegiate record losing streak of 24 straight years that covers the NCAA Division I and II and NAIA levels.

In that regard, Miyataki has taken on the challenge personally, helping organize several fund-raising ventures to help pay the recruiting bills.

“I’m seeing the difference,” he said last week, “even if you can’t necessarily see it on our roster as it sits today. What I’m seeing is the response we’re getting from places we never really from before. We are in certain areas of Canada, Texas and other places they didn’t know about us, it’s been encouraging, the interest we’ve received.”

That could turn into future dividends, but at the moment, Miyataki is concerned with a more basic approach to the players on campus.

“It’s all about the process and that’s what starts right now,” he said. “We have had young men here who didn’t really understand about the process, but it’s real, it’s life, it’s about learning life skills and it goes like this — what we do here is not (the players’) process, it’s not their summer league coach’s process, it’s our process.

“Fall ball, you can say, is about a lot of things, but what it’s really about, after you get past all the other stuff, is the process. Who do we have out there who doesn’t just nod their head when we say something but actually understands the process? We need to find out those answers in fall ball.”

In the past, because of the funding discrepancy UHH faces against most teams it competes against, Miyataki has referred to it as a “development program,” and that manifested itself last spring when Jordan Kurokawa developed into a prospect signed by the Philadelphia Phillies, where he still competing in Florida. Had he been a junior instead of a fifth-year senior, Kurokawa probably would have been drafted much higher, but, it’s a process.

Miyataki has a handful of returnees he expects to improve and lead in 2017, including first baseman Phil Steering, the best hitter a year ago with a .327 average, but in a weak-hitting lineup in a spacious ballpark, he had just 12 RBI. Jake Grijalva (.239, 18 RBI), is expected to be the starting third baseman; Edison Sakata (.238) returns to play shortstop where he was among the best throughout the season a year ago, but made a couple costly errors that must be improved up; Michael Jenkerson (.291, team-leading 41 hits), is back in centerfield and will be expected to create more concern on the base paths which he might be able to do is he develops more plate discipline, as reflected by 8 walks and 33 strikeouts.

There are some interesting possibilities on the pitching staff with some young left-handers joining the squad who, Miyataki believes have some genuine potential.

“I’m kind of excited about these young arms we want to develop,” he said, “but the question always is, ‘How long will it take them to get ready?’ and a big part of that comes with buying into the program, letting us coach them.

“That’s the part that start right now,” he said, “and if we get of on a good foot now, it can only help later.”