Shisa Weblog

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Morris Ragland
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Re: Shisa Weblog

#76 Post by Morris Ragland »

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Shisa Come to Terms with Martinez

Shiba Taguchi, Ryukyu Sports News

Naha, Okinawa
- November 11, 2022: The Shisa and center fielder Mario Martinez have agreed to a contract extension that will keep the player in Okinawa for another season. Martinez, referred to as 'Super Mario' by himself, had an unexpected breakout year in 2022. Signing a one-year, $1M deal in free agency with Okinawa last off-season after being let go by Duluth, the thirty-two year old Martinez went on to a 5.2 WAR campaign and became a valuable asset for the club, fueled by an outstanding defensive performance. Off-season rumors had it that Martinez was asking for a significant pay raise and a multi-year deal to stay with the club, and that he would likely leave for free agency this winter. However, in a surprise turn, the two sides came together on a one-year contract that would pay Martinez $6.5M to patrol center field for Okinawa in 2023 as the club apparently looks to bridge the gap until center field prospect Dave MacIntosh is ready for big league play.
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Re: Shisa Weblog

#77 Post by roncollins »

That could be a nice deal. Those 25 homers make a nice sidecar to his defensive value.
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Re: Shisa Weblog

#78 Post by Denny »

Ah, Mario. He patrolled center field for the Codgers for several seasons after we stole him from Kentucky in the Rule 5 draft (probably our greatest Rule 5 heist ever). I remember thinking his best days were behind him, and so we did not give him an extension after 2020....a decision I have regretted many times since then. Both Okinawa's FA signing of him in 2022 and the extension look like very good deals to me.
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Re: Shisa Weblog

#79 Post by Morris Ragland »

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Rivera out, Pratt in as Shisa Scouting Director

Shiba Taguchi, Ryukyu Sports News

Naha, Okinawa
- November 19, 2022: Today Okinawa announced the hiring of New Hampshire native Matt Pratt as scouting director for the team. He replaces embattled former scouting director Armando Rivera. Anonymous sources within the organization have said that Rivera, who was given an unprecedentedly large scouting budget in 2022, simply failed to deliver on the goals the team set out for him. The team placed a strong emphasis on international scouting to bring in young talent for its international complex, but Rivera's finds were not substantially better either in terms of quantity or quality than previous years. This has apparently led many within the organization to question where all that money went. It is rumored that Rivera and his staff took several unnecessary scouting trips to Caribbean islands last year which yielded no new players for the team's international complex. Whatever their reasons might have been, the team decided to cut ties with their scouting director and buy out the remainder of his contract, which still had two years to go. Rivera, vacationing in Aruba, was unavailable for comment.

Pratt will be the Shisa's third scouting director in three years, but the team hopes that he will be able to bring some stability to the team's scouting department. "We believe that Matt will be the steady hand and cool head that the scouting department needs right now," said GM Morris Ragland when announcing the move. Pratt previously served in the same capacity for the Tempe ball club for seven years, but would not comment on the circumstances surrounding his departure from that organization. Pratt is highly regarded within the league and many PEBA insiders say that the team could not have hired a better person to fill the position. The sixty-four year old Pratt has agreed to a four-year contract.
Last edited by Morris Ragland on Sun Jan 31, 2016 12:34 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Shisa Weblog

#80 Post by roncollins »

A four-season contract should lend some stability to the position, at least. :)
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Re: Shisa Weblog

#81 Post by Denny »

Shisa wrote:Rivera, vacationing in Aruba, was unavailable for comment.
:lol:
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#82 Post by Morris Ragland »

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Once You Label Me You Negate Me

Shiba Taguchi, Ryukyu Sports News

Naha, Okinawa
- February 13, 2023: Sometimes, things that shouldn't matter at all end up mattering a great deal. GM Morris Ragland believes that this is the case regarding his ball club. The GM believes that his team has been placed at a competitive disadvantage because of a label. A label published by a shadowy entity over which his team has no control and which he says has no knowledge of his club's operational goals. "Somebody, somewhere, I don't know who, decided that our 'Team Focus' is 'Rebuild'. On its face, this is meaningless and should have no bearing on anything, but I believe players have used this 'information' to close off negotiations over free agent contracts. Players have categorically decided that they don't want to be a part of a team that is rebuilding and want to play for a team trying to win. Let me say this. Our team strategy, or focus, is complex and multifaceted. It certainly cannot be captured by a single word or phrase, but we are most assuredly trying to win games."

Ragland noted that several high profile free agents this season have refused to talk to club officials about playing in Okinawa, and that while these players wouldn't say why they had no interest in playing for the Shisa, Ragland believes that they were informed by the 'Rebuild' label attached to the team. For his part, the GM said he plans to bring this matter to the attention of league officials and also the players union. "The players union should step in immediately and put a stop to this," said Ragland. "Obviously, the smaller the number of teams bidding on a player, the smaller the eventual contract is likely to be. The union clearly has an interest in maximizing player salaries, and that interest is thwarted if players don't listen to all teams willing to pay them to play baseball."
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Re: Shisa Weblog

#83 Post by Borealis »

That's an interesting take... I know we used to be able to set that ourselves - I wonder why they changed that feature - though I assume it was part of the how 'make the owner meaningful' phase...
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Re: Shisa Weblog

#84 Post by Leones »

hmmm... I want to believe that the label doesn't have that effect. But it would explain a lot of troubles we too have been having. Nuts.
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Re: Shisa Weblog

#85 Post by Morris Ragland »

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Salvador Rodríguez Out Four Months

Shiba Taguchi, Ryukyu Sports News

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- April 4, 2023: The Shisa will be without the services of left fielder Salvador Rodríguez for at least four months after he fractured his ankle on a defensive play in the eighth inning of today's game against the Akira. Rodríguez was tracking a Matt Gayre line drive when he landed awkwardly after making the catch, immediately collapsing to the ground. He was carted off the field and transported by ambulance to a nearby hospital for evaluation. In the post-game press conference manager Kijuro Yoshida still expressed some hope that Rodríguez had merely hyper-extended the ankle.

Later we learned the full extent of the injury, a fracture of the lateral malleolus. Team physician Nam-sup Chong believes that Rodríguez will be out for at least four months while the bone heals and the left fielder rehabs from the injury.

As for replacements, expect Russell Wright to take over in left field for Okinawa, while the team recalls perennial sixth outfielder Avery Sorensen, currently on waivers.

"It's a real shame," commented Yoshida upon hearing the news. "This was shaping up to be Salvador's year. It really felt like he was putting things together."
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Re: Shisa Weblog

#86 Post by Morris Ragland »

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Shisa and Naha in Talks for Sale of Land

Shiba Taguchi, Ryukyu Sports News

Naha, Okinawa
- April 7, 2023: With the 2023 baseball season just getting underway, the Shisa have entered into talks with the Naha city officials, according to an anonymous source within the organization, regarding the possible sale of parcels of land within Onoyama Park, where Shisa Stadium now resides. Team officials have, several times in the past, sought to purchase land from the city near the stadium in order to improve parking for baseball fans attending Shisa home games. The proposed sale of public land to the baseball club to expand parking, which is widely seen as solely benefiting the club, has not been politically popular in Naha in the past and such talks have not gotten very far.

This is, however, the first time since GM Morris Ragland joined Okinawa that the team has met with the city regarding expansion of the club's real estate holdings in Naha. An interesting possible wrinkle this time around is the substantial war chest the Shisa have accumulated in recent months. The team may have the capital to make the city a compelling offer.
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Re: Shisa Weblog

#87 Post by Morris Ragland »

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Mothra Suddenly Thriving

Shiba Taguchi, Ryukyu Sports News

Naha, Okinawa
- May 1, 2023: Since they started playing baseball in Kumamoto in 2020, the Shisa AA franchise has never had a winning season. In the last season of the original LRS, the league added a AA level in its minor league system. In the three years that would follow, Kumamoto would post a 135-282 record, finishing no better than third in its four-team division. And yet, at the start of the 2023 season, the Mothra are a robust 20-5.

Off-season rules changes affecting the age limits at the SS-A and single-A levels weren't expected to have much of an impact at the double-A level, where there have been no changes. It seems unlikely that these new rules had any affect on the level of competition the Mothra face in 2023.

We may have to consider the notion that the Shisa farm system is finally beginning to mature into a PEBA-caliber organization. Okinawa's PEBA draftees and prospects acquired in trade are finally starting to percolate up the system. For example, Kumamoto's starting rotation, which has a healthy 2.25 ERA thus far, is composed of Jorge Valentin (acquired by trade in 2021), Clay Ellis (drafted in 2021), Hirohisa Shimada (drafted in 2020), Myeong-wan Kim (acquired by trade in 2021), and Sosa Ohayashi (acquired in the LRS contraction draft).
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Re: Shisa Weblog

#88 Post by Morris Ragland »

Dear Ootp,

Stop hurting my guys!

Sincerely,

Me
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Re: Shisa Weblog

#89 Post by Morris Ragland »

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The Curious Case of Bobby Watson

Shiba Taguchi, Ryukyu Sports News

Naha, Okinawa
- July 3, 2023: On February 1st of this year, the Shisa signed infielder Bobby Watson to a one year contract that would pay him $2.2M for his services. Not much of a fielder, but capable of filling a number of spots in a pinch, Watson didn't appear to have an everyday role on the team. At the time of his signing, the team envisioned him platooning at DH with Ricardo Longoria. A right handed batter, Watson had always had success against left handed pitching and it looked like he could contribute there. There were no high hopes for the thirty-three year old, however.

Thirty-three. It's a strange time for a career peak, and yet, there he is hitting like he has a personal grudge against the ball as it crosses the plate, like it both owes him money and has said some unflattering things about his mother. Prior to 2023, Watson's highest OPS in a season was .760, which he posted in 2018, his age twenty-eight season. As of today, Watson's OPS sits at 1.058. His current WAR of 2.2 is already a career best. He has continued to hit lefties, only more so with an absurd slash line of .431/.486/.815. More remarkably, he is hitting well against right handed pitching as well, something he had never done in the past, with a slash line of .323/.370/.516.

Don't call it a resurgence. This is a player who had never really surged in the first place. It's almost as if Watson were aging in reverse, and what came before were actually his twilight years of sudden decline from a lofty peak, the peak of this 2023 season.

So dominant has Watson been at the plate that one is tempted to use the phrase 'unstoppable', but of course nothing, and no one, truly is. Watson will be out of the lineup this week as his club faces Fargo, sidelined with a sore hamstring. Maybe he is thirty-three after all.
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Re: Shisa Weblog

#90 Post by Morris Ragland »

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Newcomer Clarke Strengthens Shisa Outfield

Shiba Taguchi, Ryukyu Sports News

Naha, Okinawa
- July 10, 2023: Rookie Mike Clarke contributed to the big club in a big way this past week. The Shisa right fielder started in four games, two in the Fargo series, and two in the series against Reno. Clarke went 7 for 15 with three doubles and one walk, scoring five runs. This is Clarke's first action with the big league club and bodes well for his future with the Shisa.

Drafted with the 29th overall pick in 2021 out of Villanova (after being selected 4th overall by Omaha the previous year, but failing to reach an agreement with that club), Clarke is highly thought of in the Okinawa front office, where he is viewed as a potential future team leader. If he can keep producing at the plate, Clarke looks to be a permanent fixture in the Shisa outfield.
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