The Unsung Heroes; A deeper look into the Hawks’ front office
By: Eric Tartaglia
The Hyannis Harbor Hawks 2022 Cape Cod Baseball League season has been nothing short of exciting and although much of the success can be credited to the coaching staff and players, this team’s accomplishments would not have been possible without the help and support of the Hawks’ General Manager, Nick Johnson, the Director of Baseball Operations, Mazdak Darvari and the Assistant General Manager, Zach Chase.
Johnson, a former resident of Los Angeles, California, recently moved to Barnstable, Massachusetts, last year to take on the full role of General Manager. Johnson has been with the organization in the past, however, interning and volunteering for the Hyannis team from 2011-2014.
Although there was a several-year gap since being with the team, Johnson had very high expectations for a Hawks squad that had been mediocre, at best, in years prior.
“My expectations were to win the division and win the championship,” said Johnson. “I honestly didn’t go, ‘oh let’s make the playoffs.’... To me, when eighty percent of the teams make the playoffs, you can’t miss it.”
Johnson knew that he wasn’t going to be able to do everything on his own and with that in mind, allowed for the partnership of Hawks’ Director of Baseball Operations, Mazdak Darvari, and Hawks’ Assistant General Manager, Zach Chase, to come together and put the Hyannis Harbor Hawks back on the map.
“He (Johnson) totally sold me on the whole thing,” said Darvari. “He told us we were going to be super involved and that we were going to build this thing together.”
It takes more than just simply being a fan of baseball to put together a team as successful as the 2022 Hyannis ballclub and Johnson emphasized that his knowledge about the CCBL was a perfect fit with Darvari’s ability to find the right collegiate talent.
“When I first talked to Mazdak, I told him ‘you know more about baseball than I do.’,” said Johnson. “What I can offer you is that I know more about this league and I know how to recruit and with your knowledge in college baseball, especially in the Northeast, I think we can do something special.”
Not only were they able to do something special, but Darvari, a 2022 UMass Amherst graduate, was the leading force in finding guys like Jay Driver, Jordy Allard, and Mike Sirota, all of who have had amazing showings apart of Hyannis this year.
Many people have no idea how hard it is to build a baseball roster, especially in the CCBL when players are coming and going as quickly as they do. It takes hours upon hours and most nights staying up during the early morning hours to find the right guys for the organization.
“When Mazdak came on, we already had about two-thirds of the team already locked in,” said Johnson. “His deep dive in analytics has allowed us to find guys that we need to have here and he has been pretty spot on about every single guy we have brought in.”
The hard work and dedication that these three front office partners endured over the course of the season were exponential. Chase, who also works for MLB Network, noted that most nights he was up late due to his job and would stay up even later to find guys for the Harbor Hawks.
“I have to stay up late a lot, sometimes until three-four in the morning,” said Chase. “So very often I would tell Nick, ‘I just found a bunch of other guys and I was awake anyways. I could not sleep and I just wanted to find more and more and more’.”
Just like Johnson and Chase, Darvari has also put in a lot of hours and has learned a lot in his position as Director of Baseball Operations with the Harbor Hawks.
“I have spent four to five hours on the same player and being patient has helped,” said Darvari. “I have gone through thousands of players and ninety-nine percent aren’t going to pan out and sometimes you just have to be like ‘yep, I spent five hours watching that guy but he’s just not a Cape league player so that (being patient) has helped.”
The Harbor Hawks have seen approximately 26 players come and go over the course of the season and Johnson even stated how much more challenging it has been than they initially thought.
“Maybe I thought it was going to be a little bit easier than it has been,” said Johnson. “Roster turnover has definitely been harder than anticipated and juggling vaccine mandates along with COVID-19 cases was not anticipated.”
Despite the fact that these three did not expect these situations beforehand, they were able to adapt in times when needed, building a team that has brought the franchise to heights they have not seen in several years.
Right after the halfway mark of the 2022 CCBL regular season, the Hawks were atop the West Division for the first time since 2015 after defeating Cotuit, and Johnson’s expectation of winning the President’s trophy seemed to become more of a possibility.
However, after a tough stretch in the later parts of the regular season, the Hawks would fall to the third seed of the West Division and would ultimately finish there when the season ended.
“Honestly, I think I failed at my initial goal,” said Johnson. “We had a chance to win the division and we played poorly down the stretch but I am happy we made the postseason and I think we had a really good year but still not thrilled with a third-place finish in the West.”
The Hawks’ players seem to not be thrilled either and have used that to motivate them so far in the 2022 CCBL playoffs.
The Harbor Hawks were able to pick up their first playoff win since 2015 when they defeated the Cotuit Kettleers 9-4 in game one of their first-round series. The team did not stop there as they would go on to win game three to give the Hyannis-based team their first playoff series win since 2015 as well.
The Hawks, who have not won a CCBL championship since 1991, will look to fulfill their GM’s hopes of winning it all as they take on the Bourne Braves in the second round of the CCBL West Division playoffs with the first game of their best-of-three series kicking off on August 7, at 6 p.m. at Doran Park.