Catfish manager learns, leads team through down and (eventually) up summer

First-year Cape Catfish manager Phil Butler consoles a Cape player during the team's Prospect League South Division Playoff loss against Thrillville on Thursday in Marion, Ill.

Tony Capobianco ~ Tcapobianco@semoball.com

Every experience in life is an opportunity to learn and guiding a baseball team through the Prospect League for the first time in his career proved that to be the case for Phil Butler.

The first-year Cape Catfish manager rode a series of lows (initially) and highs (to close the summer season) and found the experience enlightening.

“I’ve done it in the Great Lakes League,” Butler said recently. “This league is a little bit different. It is a little bit more pitching heavy.”

The Catfish, who advanced to the league postseason for the fourth time in five years after winning the South Division second-half title, had a strong pitching staff throughout the summer.

Cape finished the season with the league’s best ERA (4.45) and WHIP (1.39).

“Our arms were so good,” Butler said, “I didn’t have to do a whole lot outside of coaching those guys through the pitch-calling side of it.”

The Catfish fell at Thrillville in the South Division title game to end their season, but Butler’s guys closed the summer by winning 12 of their last 14 games.

“We had some mature guys on our (pitching) staff,” Butler said, “who helped out the younger guys.

“It’s been fun.”

Cape finished the season with a 31-26 overall record, which was the seventh most victories in the 18-team league.

In the second half, the Catfish won the South Division title with a 17-10 mark after laboring to a 14-15 record in the first half.

Cape struggled offensively throughout the first half of the season and led the league in strikeouts as a team until the final three weeks of the summer when its bats got hot.

“The offensive guys,” Butler explained, “took the approach that we wanted them to have when they go up (to bat). That was to attack balls in the middle of the plate and do damage.

“They did that (throughout) the whole second half.”

Butler’s job was a multi-faceted one, in that, he is expected to win games, but also, this being a college-level league, he is expected to develop his players, as well.

He said that “both are fun,” but he really enjoyed making an impact on his players off the field.

“The most important thing to me,” Butler said, “I want them to get better at baseball and I want to win games, but if they can leave here as better young men than when they showed up, then I’ve done, what I feel is my job more than anything else.”