Shoot from the Hartford, A Hartford Harpoon Blog
Posted: Tue Jan 15, 2019 2:43 pm
#1. April 2nd, 2028
It’s hard rocking up at a new club the day before a new season starts, but that’s the life of a journeyman GM. It’s 2028 and a sixth PEBA franchise in the form of the Hartford Harpoon, funnily enough, from Hartford. The first thing my assistant motioned to as he showed me to my new office was a stack of files containing the details and reports of the franchise’s players currently on the 40-man roster. “The league Commissioner’s been on the phone twice today” he said without the hint of an apology “They need the final 25-man roster for 2028 submitted by tonight”.
Well, there goes my day I thought, I’ve had a few years out of the league I first managed in back in 2016, fresh out of the now-defunct LRS. I’m a bit out of touch with who’s leading the way, what the salaries are now and well, everything. Sitting at my desk I studied the form, we still had 39 players up with the PEBA team so 13 would have to be returned to the minors. Looking at the franchise depth charts we did have 13 places available in Triple-A Lincoln but I decided you gotta do things properly and might as well sort them and our Double-A roster at Lavel at the same time today. Both of them currently fell within the roster limits but as their seasons also started tomorrow as well it was prudent to start there as you meant to go on.
Hartford had entered the PEBA in 2021 when the underperforming Omaha Cyclones had relocated there. The Cyclones had only had seven winning seasons in their franchise history and just one post-season trip although to be fair they did go all the way then to the Planetary Extreme Championship where they lost four games to one against the Gloucester Fishermen. They started off with a losing season in Hartford and since then have yo-yoed between wining seasons and losing seasons. It is to their credit though that every winning season has resulted in a post-season appearance. Over in the IL now there was to be no repeat of the PEC finals, 2023 & 2027 saw defeats in the Divisional series while in 2025 they got as far as the League series before bowing out to Florida. Last year they topped the Seaboard Division with their first ever 100 win season (101-61). So given that history Hartford are likely to fall from that lofty total to a losing record this year.
With all that background I had to make my choices in a hurry and see if I could break the Harpoon’s record of boom & bust. Looking at Hartford’s 2027 record the biggest holes were obviously the losses of 35-yr-old pitcher Ray Graham whose 35 starts brought a record of 18-11, 36-yr-old closer Marcos Gonzalez who had a record of 6-0 with 41 saves, 38-yr-old Juan Garcia who went 6-1 and 31-yr-old Truman Bruke who is still the best part of a month away from returning from Radial nerve decompression surgery undergone last September. In their place the franchise signed 38-yr-old Eduardo Romano on a three-year $50.1 million deal, he posted a 14-12, 2.43 ERA record last season with Amsterdam where he also went to the All-Star game, as well as 31-yr-old Maxime Labrie who went 9-6 with a 4.53 ERA with Neo-Tokyo in 2027. Whether that is enough it remains to be seen, but money is tight and replacements of PEBA level quality are few and far between within the farm system.
Within my limited time for decisions I assigned 25-yr-old All-Star Matt Brown the Closers role, he went 5-3 with 12 saves and a 1.87 ERA last year but I think he would be best suited to a stopper role and could perhaps rack up some two-innings saves. I was quite amazed that the team managed to win 101 games with the defensive alignment employed in 2027. Luis Cedeno somehow spent all year at shortstop despite posting a -15.6 ZR, the third base platoon between Scott Wilson and Mike Smock didn’t exactly cover themselves with glory either at the hot corner. For Starters in 2028 Cedeno will slide round to the hot corner, ‘All Leather’ second baseman Mark Edwards will start at shortstop while young Jack Allen who played six different positions in 2027 will start 2028 as the full-time second baseman. Walter Daniel, Carlos Ryan and Walter Winston will patrol the outfield in the opening games.
I quickly scrawl all that down for my assistant to deal with and hand that to him on the way out as well as the instructions for the travel orders for those heading for the farm as well as instructions on promotions/demotions to be faxed to the Lincoln & Laval managers. Strolling out the door I breathed a sigh of relief – back in the PEBA once more.
It’s hard rocking up at a new club the day before a new season starts, but that’s the life of a journeyman GM. It’s 2028 and a sixth PEBA franchise in the form of the Hartford Harpoon, funnily enough, from Hartford. The first thing my assistant motioned to as he showed me to my new office was a stack of files containing the details and reports of the franchise’s players currently on the 40-man roster. “The league Commissioner’s been on the phone twice today” he said without the hint of an apology “They need the final 25-man roster for 2028 submitted by tonight”.
Well, there goes my day I thought, I’ve had a few years out of the league I first managed in back in 2016, fresh out of the now-defunct LRS. I’m a bit out of touch with who’s leading the way, what the salaries are now and well, everything. Sitting at my desk I studied the form, we still had 39 players up with the PEBA team so 13 would have to be returned to the minors. Looking at the franchise depth charts we did have 13 places available in Triple-A Lincoln but I decided you gotta do things properly and might as well sort them and our Double-A roster at Lavel at the same time today. Both of them currently fell within the roster limits but as their seasons also started tomorrow as well it was prudent to start there as you meant to go on.
Hartford had entered the PEBA in 2021 when the underperforming Omaha Cyclones had relocated there. The Cyclones had only had seven winning seasons in their franchise history and just one post-season trip although to be fair they did go all the way then to the Planetary Extreme Championship where they lost four games to one against the Gloucester Fishermen. They started off with a losing season in Hartford and since then have yo-yoed between wining seasons and losing seasons. It is to their credit though that every winning season has resulted in a post-season appearance. Over in the IL now there was to be no repeat of the PEC finals, 2023 & 2027 saw defeats in the Divisional series while in 2025 they got as far as the League series before bowing out to Florida. Last year they topped the Seaboard Division with their first ever 100 win season (101-61). So given that history Hartford are likely to fall from that lofty total to a losing record this year.
With all that background I had to make my choices in a hurry and see if I could break the Harpoon’s record of boom & bust. Looking at Hartford’s 2027 record the biggest holes were obviously the losses of 35-yr-old pitcher Ray Graham whose 35 starts brought a record of 18-11, 36-yr-old closer Marcos Gonzalez who had a record of 6-0 with 41 saves, 38-yr-old Juan Garcia who went 6-1 and 31-yr-old Truman Bruke who is still the best part of a month away from returning from Radial nerve decompression surgery undergone last September. In their place the franchise signed 38-yr-old Eduardo Romano on a three-year $50.1 million deal, he posted a 14-12, 2.43 ERA record last season with Amsterdam where he also went to the All-Star game, as well as 31-yr-old Maxime Labrie who went 9-6 with a 4.53 ERA with Neo-Tokyo in 2027. Whether that is enough it remains to be seen, but money is tight and replacements of PEBA level quality are few and far between within the farm system.
Within my limited time for decisions I assigned 25-yr-old All-Star Matt Brown the Closers role, he went 5-3 with 12 saves and a 1.87 ERA last year but I think he would be best suited to a stopper role and could perhaps rack up some two-innings saves. I was quite amazed that the team managed to win 101 games with the defensive alignment employed in 2027. Luis Cedeno somehow spent all year at shortstop despite posting a -15.6 ZR, the third base platoon between Scott Wilson and Mike Smock didn’t exactly cover themselves with glory either at the hot corner. For Starters in 2028 Cedeno will slide round to the hot corner, ‘All Leather’ second baseman Mark Edwards will start at shortstop while young Jack Allen who played six different positions in 2027 will start 2028 as the full-time second baseman. Walter Daniel, Carlos Ryan and Walter Winston will patrol the outfield in the opening games.
I quickly scrawl all that down for my assistant to deal with and hand that to him on the way out as well as the instructions for the travel orders for those heading for the farm as well as instructions on promotions/demotions to be faxed to the Lincoln & Laval managers. Strolling out the door I breathed a sigh of relief – back in the PEBA once more.