ORLEANS — Each year, while the best collegiate players are occupied in Omaha at the NCAA Division I College World Series in June, coaches across the Cape Cod Baseball League search for their temporary replacements to start the season.
These players, often on day-to-day contracts, fill more than 40 percent of the league’s 300 roster spots at the beginning of the summer depending on the year, estimated Andrew Lang, president of the league.
Their number typically declines throughout the two-month season, eventually reaching zero in late July. Players signed after July 22 this year must be on permanent deals.
The chance to play for a Cape League team, if only briefly, is a coveted opportunity for any college baseball player. Nearly 30 percent of current Major League Baseball players at one point played during the summer on the Cape.
“It’s the ultimate sports story,” Lang said of the Cape’s interim players. “Every single day, it’s like a tryout for them. It’s a lot of pressure.”
While the College World Series is a primary driver of the need for temporary players, it is not the only factor. Teams may need replacements because of injuries (both before and during the season), losing players to the MLB draft in July, and even finishing up exams at school.
For those who manage to stick it out through the season, the league can provide national exposure. “You never know what can happen,” Lang said. “You can get hot. You can make an all-star team. You can be a permanent player. You can be MVP of the league.”
According to Orleans Firebirds Manager Kelly Nicholson, the team had seven temporary players on its roster of 30 as of June 19. They likely had twice as many temps last summer, said Firebirds General Manager Sue Horton, who attributed the difference to the Cape season beginning five days earlier and the unpredictability of the college postseason.
The Firebirds try to keep temporary players on the roster for at least 10 days and do not ask potential players to come to the Cape until they know for sure they’ll need extra help, according to Nicholson.
“We feel that we owe that to them,” Nicholson said.
Nicholson said the team doesn’t see players on short-term contracts as temporary, highlighting the fact that some stay all summer. Last year, pitcher Derek Clark originally joined the Firebirds on a temporary basis, according to the manager.
Clark, who before the summer played for Northwood University, a Division II school in Michigan, found out that there was a spot for him on the Firebirds only a week and a half before the 2023 season began. To put that timeline in perspective, there are likely some collegiate players who have already locked up spots for the Cape League in 2025, according to Nicholson.
Clark had no backup plan in mind. Instead, he felt the best thing to do if he were released was to return home and work on his game for the following season.
“I was just gonna stay in the moment and whenever they sent me home, they sent me home,” Clark said. “I felt like I didn’t really have anything else to prove in any other league.”
But Clark said that, after the College World Series concluded three weeks into the season, Nicholson pulled him aside and told him that the team had decided to keep him on for the rest of the summer.
“It was just an awesome feeling to get that opportunity,” he said.
Although Lang emphasized that many aspects of roster construction, including the signing of temporary players, are team-dependent, he noted that players often come from smaller and in some cases lower-division schools. That trend, though, has lessened in recent years because of an overall increase in the quality of play across the collegiate game.
“I just wanted to show everyone that you can’t really count out the Division II guys,” Clark said. The reliever went on to post a 1.80 earned run average over 40 innings pitched and was selected to the East Division’s all-star team.
The opportunity to play in the all-star game and the resulting exposure to scouts can be “life-changing” for temporary players, according to Lang.
Clark was not drafted last year but said his success on the Cape has made a difference to his prospects.
“At this time last year, I was talking to pretty much no one, and now it’s definitely skyrocketed,” he said, speaking about MLB teams in the draft. “It’s been a pretty crazy two years for my career.”
But not all temporary players are fighting to make the team. Current Firebirds pitcher Sean Matson (Harvard) is draft eligible and on a temporary contract as a result, according to Horton. The team expects to have Matson, who won the league’s Most Outstanding Relief Pitcher award last year, until the draft and then will “see how it goes,” Horton added.
“It’s like doing a baseball sudoku puzzle,” Nicholson said of the constant roster changes. “We just have to find the right pieces to fit.”
Horton did not have a specific number when asked how many temporary players typically are able to extend their stay for the full summer but said that it is “quite a few.”
Nonetheless, temporary players who struggle to make a strong first impression need to have a backup plan. Released Cape players often trickle down into other summer leagues like the nearby New England Collegiate Baseball League and the Futures League.
According to Lang, other collegiate summer leagues are “constantly calling” Cape League teams to figure out which temporary players are being released and if they can be the recipient of the premier league’s runoff talent.
In some cases, the Firebirds staff will help a released player get placed elsewhere on the Cape, or in another league altogether, according to Horton. For others, as Clark had imagined, getting cut from the Cape may mean that it’s time to return to practice on campus or just spend time at home, according to Lang.
Back at Eldredge Park, the home of the Firebirds, the roster turnover doesn’t bother fans.
“That’s the way the game goes,” said Anita Payne, a fan for two decades who came from East Harwich to watch this season’s home opener. Payne likened the Cape League’s turnover to the professional game, in which “next thing you know” players may be released.
“Do you notice the changes? Yeah,” said Gail Spink, who comes to every Firebirds home game and coordinates the team’s anthem singers. Then, referring to the roster lists handed out throughout the season, she added: “That’s why I’m glad they hand out these sheets every week.”
