The Daily Sun: 2037 Season

[Apollos]

Apollos Rise, Somewhat...

Tempe has begun the 2037 campaign playing competitive baseball for the first time in more than a decade following their 2023 departure from the PEBA, but still seem to be struggling to find their footing a month and a half into the new season. While the pitching has stabilized following a rough opening month, the bats have continued to produce at a respectable clip and the team finds itself 3rd in the SL in runs scored. As expected, 2B Juan Rincon continues to lead the way for the Apollos and has been off to a torrid start to begin the '37 season, posting a .349 batting average to this point along with a .929 OPS. His numbers put him on pace for a 9 WAR campaign which would blow away his previous career highs. While that level of production is likely not sustainable, Rincon has clearly emerged as the team's pace-setter and top of the order dynamo in his third full season with the big club.

Joining Rincon in his fast start is rookie Li Caporn, last year's second overall pick in the PEBA draft who was hurried to the big leagues at the end of the 2036 season in order to give him a taste of big league life in anticipation of a full year at the major league level in 2037. Caporn has rewarded the team by slugging his way through the Sovereign League in his first go-round, posting a .283/.329/.535 line to date and a very healthy 1.8 WAR on the young season. The team has protected Caporn somewhat by leaving him lower in the order but if CF Roberto Guttierez continues to struggle (a .234 BA to this point), a move to the top third of the lineup may be in order for Caporn. Second year SS Guoncallo Carvalhas has generally met expectations since moving into the full-time lineup this season and after a fast start to the year, has cooled off to post a .725 OPS thus far. Carvalhas's speed has paid dividends however, and the trifecta of he, Capor, and Rincon have thus far produced 48 SB's with only 7 CS, and been a significant reason why the club has maintained it's offensive production despite the lower-than-expected batting average across the lineup.

On the pitching side, third year man Juan Jaramillo appears to be finally realizing his potential and is in the midst of a breakout season ranking among the league leaders in ERA, IP, and K's. Through 8 starts and 52.2 IP, Jaramillo has pitched to a 2.04 ERA to go along with 52 K's and a 1.14 WHIP. Lefty Will Taylor, expected to take up the mantle as the team's best pitcher this season has struggled somewhat and while he has limited damage in his outings, the 25 year-old has produced a 3.77 ERA and 1.61 WHIP in his 8 outings. Expect improvement from Taylor the rest of the season as his BABIP of .385 is well above his career norms and likely indicative of a correction. Perhaps the most pleasant surprise among the starting staff thus far has been rookie Tetsui Suzuki who most insiders expected to make a jump early in the season to the ML level, and was called up in early May to take the spot of Shane Perales who has been a valuable swing man out of the Tempe bullpen. Suzuki's first 3 starts have been excellent as the left hander has produced a 0.92 WHIP and 3.20 ERA.

The team's biggest offseason acquisition, Owen Barse, has been up and down but appears to be righting the ship after posting an ERA near 7 through the season's first month. Barse's strikeout numbers remain high as he has fanned 51 batters in 44 innings, but like Taylor, his BABIP appeared high during the first 5-6 starts and has since settled into a more consistent - and in-line with previous career numbers- .291.

The Tempe bullpen has seen a fair amount of reshuffling since opening day as the team waived long-time righty Gunner Carney who was quickly snapped up by fellow Desert Hills rival Yuma. Following the return of Carlos Muniz from the IL after his spring injury, the 'pen has turned a corner and now sports an aggregate 3.56 ERA. While that only ranks 9th in the SL, the number is trending quickly in the right direction as the team began April with one blowtorch performance after another and hovered around the bottom of the league in all measurements of effectiveness through the season's first 5 weeks.

39 games in the and the team has played to a 22-17 record, which puts them 5 games back of the surging Borealis who continue to win at better than a 70% clip on the year, but firmly in the wildcard picture for now. Key for the Apollos was avoiding the slow start which had doomed the club to being non-competitive in each of the previous two seasons. A 13-10 April to open 2037 has positioned Tempe to remain relevant and was absolutely crucial if the club is to realize their dreams of playing into October this year.

[Apollos]

2037 Draft Recap

The 2037 PEBA Amateur Draft was conducted on 08 June and the Tempe Apollos figure to be drafting higher than they will for the next several seasons (fingers crossed). Let's check out who they selected:

1.14 SP Andres Quintana - A 6'4" lanky flamethrower from Puerto Rico, the Apollos rolled the dice on the high-upside Quintana with their first round pick. In the lead up to the draft there have been questions about Quintana's makeup which scouts indicate may have caused him to drop slightly in this year's amateur draft. The big lefty projects to throw four elite level pitches once fully developed including strikeout cutter and split-finger versions of his fastball, along with a towering curveball and his best offering, a wipeout slider. Quintana is still about 6 months short of his 18th birthday and is likely to begin the season in Rookie league Sejong, though his reported demands exceed slot and are rumored to be in the neighborhood of $3 million so it's not a given he'll sign, particularly with a firm commitment to play college ball at his hometown San Juan College.

2.51 SP Tim Dunn - Doubling down on hard throwing, projectable starters, the Apollos selected the 6'7" Dunn out of Sarasota HS with their second round selection. Dunn maintains elite-level stuff with fringe-level command and will take some work from the Tempe development team to mold into the type of pitcher scouts dream on. Featuring a triple-digit heater with late movement, Dunn averaged more than 11.5 K's per 9 innings his senior year in high school and is working on his breaking and offspeed pitches to complement the overwhelming fastball which he's used to retire most batters. Dunn just recently turned 18 and like his class-mate Quintana, figures to spend 2-3 years developing in Sejong prior to beginning a potential climb up the organizational ladder.

3. 84 RP Shumei Sakei - An interesting selection in the 3rd round as sources indicate there was widespread disagreement over Sakei's projections. Another hard-throwing righty, Sakei uses a 100+ mph heater to overwhelm batters and features a potentially wipeout curveball which scouts indicate features a sharp 2-to-7 break. That said, there were reports that several college-level bats were also in the running with this selection which would be Tempe's last for 60+ picks as they dealt their 4th round selection to Kalamazoo for catching depth at the beginning of the season.

5.149 RP Ramon Sanchez - Likely the safest pick among Tempe's early round selections, Sanchez was a college junior out of Cincinnatti who saw his stock sore towards the end of the season as his strikeout numbers ticked up, coinciding with a subtle velocity increase. Sanchez features a fastball-slider mix which generated lots of swing and miss in the recently concluded season which saw him post 12.5 K's per 9. Sanchez looks to have plenty of development remaining prior to a potential ML debut, and thus figures to begin his professional career at Short A Whitehorse.

[Apollos]

June Swoon ...Followed by a Summer Surge

The subject line sums up much of the Apollos 2037 campaign which appears ultimately destined for another postseason-less end. After posting a 29-22 record over the season's first two months, the team's utter collapse in June, to the tune of a 7-18 record, proved insurmountable. The mid-season swoon cost Manager Jason Campbell his job and brough questions about the overall direction of the organization as the Apollos tumbled to third place in the Desert Hills and a distant 15 games behind Aurora.

Perhaps sparked by Campbell's firing, or simply due to the nature of baseball, the Apollos rebounded in a major way through July and August posting a combined 38-17 record, drawing even with the Borealis. That streak, combined with their epic 34 games in 34 days stretch through late August and into early September appeared to take a toll however as the Apollos faltered down the stretch. Tempe posted a 13-18 combined record in September and October to conclude the season at 87-75. Surely an improvement and another step forward in team's quest to return to competitive baseball, but short of the club's larger expectations this season which were believed to have been closer to 90+ wins and their first PEBA postseason trip since 2022.

Over the next few days we'll break down what went right and wrong for the 2037 Apollos, and start the series with a look at their team stats. The Apollos offense, which began the year on fire, struggled as the wheels came off in June and never seemed to recover. The club finished the season scoring the 9th most runs in the Sovereign League with 686, despite finishing with a team batting average of .252 which was good for 10th in the SL. As in past seasons, the club continued to hit for power above the league average and slugged at a .412 clip, good for 6th in the league, while smacking 166 HR's, also good for 6th. The team's SB's climbed considerably this year as both Campbell and Lozano ran at a significantly higher rate than in previous seasons, though their success rate was problematic as the team was thrown out on the basepaths a combined 82 times. Li Caporn at 36/49 in steals and Guoncallo Carvalhas who was 68/95 both contributed heavily to the baserunning blunders for the club, despite their outsized contributions to the team's SB totals.

We'll continue the 2037 postmortem with a look at the club's individual and team pitching performances in the next installment.

[Apollos]

Apollos Pitching Appears Finally Set

After multiple seasons building, following their return to the PEBA in 2031, and a couple of significant offseason trades to bolster their depth, Tempe appears to have established a top-flight rotation capable of competing with the best in the league. The 2037 Apollos pitching staff was the largest contributor to the team's success this season and helped propel the club to its best record since the halcyon days of 2013. Despite missing the postseason, Tempe's deep and youthful rotation appears well placed to keep the Apollos competitive in the years to come.

The 2037 Apollos pitchers were among the Sovereign League's best in nearly all significant measures of success. Their starters ranked 1st in ERA while the staff as a whole ranked 2nd. Tempe finished the campaign 3rd in runs allowed, 2nd in hits allowed, 2nd in opponents average, and 1st in strikeouts. The bullpen, who mostly improved during the season, finished the season 9th in ERA but had a pair of standout performances. Let's review some of the individual contributions:

Owen Barse: Acquired in a blockbuster trade at last offseason's winter meetings, Barse was immediately plugged in as the Apollos opening day starter. Barse got off to a slow start in 2037, carrying an ERA of almost 7 through the season's first couple months, but settled in nicely as the season went along. Barse posted an ERA near 3.00 over his final 17 starts and helped lead their drive to the top of the Desert Hills. On the whole, Barse's season was a success, though Tempe's on-field staff limited his workload thereby reducing his overall contribution to the club.

Will Taylor: The young, left-handed flamethrower had monster expectations heading into 2037 following his debut the year prior and largely lived up to his immense billing. Across 190 innings and 33 starts Taylor posted a 3.26 ERA to go along with 175 K's and a 1.30 WHIP. Taylor is expected to continue to grow into his role as the team's ace over the coming seasons and nothing in his performance to date indicates otherwise.

Juan Jaramillo: Following a surprisingly poor showing in 2036, the team appeared to openly question whether Jaramillo represented anything more than a league average starter heading into 2037 with some of its offseason moves. Jaramillo responded in a big way leading the club in ERA and providing a steady hand as the team's most consistent started throughout the campaign. Jaramillo finished with just over 180 innings in 33 starts and a 3.23 ERA in 2037, and appears to have righted the ship following his disappointing 2036. He appears firmly entrenched as a number 2-3 starter for the club moving forward.

Shojiro Goto: The predictable, steady young hand of Goto shone through in 2037 as he lead the club in wins and innings pitched while posting a very solid 3.61 ERA and 1.20 WHIP in 32 starts. Goto appears poised to hold down a mid-rotation spot for the Apollos long term.

Tetsui Suzuki: The young fireballer and former 2033 first round pick arrived in the majors with much fanfare in 2037. Suzuki was astonishingly productive prior to being shutdown with shoulder inflammation in early August. Leading the starters in ERA at the time of his injury, Suzuki provided over 97 innings in 17 starts with a 2.86 ERA, 1.08 WHIP, and 9.1 K/9. Had Suzuki stayed healthy he would have been a leading candidate for the SL's rookie of the year award. Assuming Suzuki recovers from his injury during the offseason, the future is exceedingly bright for Suzuki.

Ju-ao Zou: The most unlikely contributor to Tempe's 2037 rotation, Zou - another top prospect prior to his call up - performed admirably for a youngster who started 2037 in single A ball. After showing significant growth over the season's fir couple months, Zou was promoted to AA Quebec City where he dominated hitters across 5 starts. One of the youngest players in the PEBA at the time of his call up, and a still precocious 21 years at the time of this writing, Zou was excellent posting a 3.88 ERA in 10 starts and 62 innings. The Apollos will likely have a difficult decision to make in regards to who starts the 2038 campaign in the team's rotation following Zou's ascendance this year.

Shane Perales: Squinch started the year in the Apollos rotation where he struggled a bit while holding down a spot for more of the organization's top pitching prospects to emerge. Following the arrival of Tetsui Suzuki, Squinch reclaimed his previous Amsterdam role of do-everything high leverage innings eater and did not disappoint. Despite his heavy workload (which did start to show down the stretch), Perales finished the campaign having appeared in 86 games with 5 starts and throwing 125 innings while posting a healthy 3.46 ERA. Perales' numbers out of the bullpen were significantly better than his starting stats which weighed down his overall line for the year. With Perales locked in for two more seasons on relatively affordable contracts, it appears he will continue in his role as the Apollos go-to man out of the pen.

Carlos Muniz: Muniz was nothing short of spectacular in 2037, earning his first All-Star appearance after posting one of the more dominant seasons out of the Tempe bullpen in quite some time. Muniz was near unhittable in 2037, providing 71 innings across 59 appearances and posting a 1.52 ERA to go along with a stellar 0.80 WHIP. Muniz posted a K/9 rate of 12.7, an ERA+ of 258, and a remarkable 1.96 FIP. A scrap heap signing two seasons ago following his outright release, Muniz has been nothing short of a revelation for the Apollos and is trending towards making himself highly sought after approaching his final year of team control in 2038.

The rest of the Apollos bullpen was generally serviceable in 2037. Rookies Carlos Villareal and Jack Ring provided solid if unspectacular performances serving as both middle relievers and long men out of the pen for the Apollos. Former first round pick Lewis Bedser really picked up his performance in year 3, provided a steady presence as the long reliever for Tempe this year throwing 72 innings in 45 appearances. These young, foundational pieces will likely continue to serve as the pillars of the Tempe staff moving into 2038.