Season Preview: River Cities

Mammoth Moves Make Marietta More Monumental.

As I sit here synching my new iPod (all team employees got one engraved with the team logo on them for the championship) I figure I can out do Mack in the season preview department.

Unlike people, like, say Mack, I entered this offseason with a nice, shiny, meaningful trophy commemorating my defeat of say, MACK, in the postseason. And it is shiny.

Not that Mack will ever see it at his place. But he can stop by the cabana sometime here on the Muskingum River and see it. He can't TOUCH it. But he can see. No touchee.

Deciding not to just coast into my repeat season I determined that there were places that I was, gee whiz, OVERstocked with talent. My minors has become fruitful and it was time to take some players who had become major contibutors out to have them shot.

If only our elected leaders would do the same to their contributors, right?

With Major League roles being claimed by SS John Hukill RF Patrick Valdes and others it was time to commit to them. Therefore certain highly contributing players were out.

Chet Edwards, for one, a very good player for River Cities for three seasons. He made two all star teams at two different positions, 3B and SS and won a title last year. But his position shift after the acquisition of Robert Fout prior to 2008 was the harbinger of doom for him. With Hukill killing the ball at four levels (combined 45 HR and 123 RBI from A all the way up to the majors) there was simply no room for Chet and his $6 million dollar salary.

And you guys should KNOW by now that I love draft picks. I dealt Edwards, UT Diaz, MR Davis, and SP Alonso to Denver for 4.5 star SP prospect Juan Villatoro as well as Denver's 1st and 2nd round picks. I went into the off season reasoning that, talented as Diaz, Alonso, and Davis were it was unlikely they'd break through in the upcoming season and therefore moving them made sense if the right offer came along. And here one was.

That same sim I dealt Starting pitchers Hai Ebert and Charles Olaughlin, again two players who have talent but will not be breaking through to the Majors with River Cities to Walla Walla, who was in need of SP help for a first and second round picks as well as some throw in because the game won't allow a trade without players on both sides.

At this point I've dealt six players, most of the major league or major league ready and acquired two firsts, two seconds, one not-quite-ready prospect and one guy I think I sent to clean the toilets in the visitors locker room.

As you can tell I determined that the draft class coming up wasn't particularly deep with talent so I attempted to front load my draft acquisition as much as possible. With those extra picks I acquired:

5 Star 1B Marzano
4 Star C Ward
3 Star SP Dones
2 Star SP Durand

My own first round pick went to

2.5 Star SP Higa

Also with 4.5 Star SP Villatoro I'm pretty happy with rebuilding my prospect base on the fly. After the Series my minors was rated (I seem to recall) seventh in the league. After all of my motions it ends up at #2. A gain of five places.

I knew going into the FA market I wouldn't be active. With players ready to call up from AAA I didn't see the need to pay anyone the big dollars they'd be demanding. I made some lowball offers to some possibly useful players on the off chance they'd make a snap decision but no luck. I spent the entire FA period polishing my trophy and cluck-clucking to myself about the prices going for mid-range players. Tsk-tsk, indeed.

So ready for the season I find I'm pretty happy with where I am. I find myself with a solid rotation of:

Wheeler
Okane
Orozco
Vaz
Starner

Should injury occur either Marez or Villatoro can come in and work it. So I've got two quality back ups. Should either of them develop unexpectedly I'll deal one of the existing starters for whatever it is I might want at the moment.

I need to call up one MR to complete the staff but I have several options there as well.

My offense is still in pretty good shape.

Baker stays at C this season or until Ward is ready.

Caufield stays at 1B. He's a little power-light but brings a .300+ AVG and high OBP to the table.
Palacio solidifies his hold on 2B with his high AVG and OBP routine. Useful and helpful.

Fout stays at 3B and will hopefully keep up his 40HR+ level of performance.

Hukill takes over full time at SS. He should be considered the leading ROY candidate if he can consolidate his gains of last year.

Shaun Guinn stays in LF with his workmanlike play. Not spectacular but good enough around the edges. I can think of MANY teams who wouldn't mind having him around.

CF shows some change as I'm calling up Anton Suarez to share time with Gary Giles. Anton brings a lot of potential to the position and can't gain anything more in AAA after a .309/.340/.474 season there last year.

RF brings Patrick Valdes to the table full time with his high AVG/explosive power routine.

It's a solid front eight each day.

And with Verdugo backing up both C and 1B, Spalding (my only offensive sink) backing up all three IF positions, and Welch doing RF and LF back up my big problem will be finding out whether I need to bring more than 22 players to the park on most days. Ho hum.

In addition, I managed to bring down the average age of my Major League players from 4th to 8th over this off season. I think I'm well-primed for a repeat performance as Cecil Cup champs.

Y'all might as well give up now. There's no competing with the paddlewheelers on the Ohio.