Epilogue
The first back-to-back winning season since 2023 wasn’t enough to excite the fans in
San Juan and missing the playoffs the final game of the season won’t likely help fan morale next season either. But overall the feeling is the Coqui have turned a corner.
“The team exceeded what I expected and I have a good feeling about future Coqui success,” Owner Myron Beardsall told the media last week.
In a lot of respects the team could have been a lot better had injuries not piled up in the starting rotation and other hurlers had lived up to 2029 success.
Edgardo Díaz was signed in free agency and, coming off a 19-4 year for
Palm Springs, was set to be the ace. But the man they call “Terror” was anything but. He missed six weeks with bone spurs in his elbow and another two months with a herniated disc in his back. His 2.89 e.r.a. on June 13 plummeted to 4.15 by season’s end.
Hou Hao, who gave the team 200-plus innings the last two seasons managed just 3 2/3rd in 2030, tearing his UCL in his first start.
Masaru Kouki didn’t have the injury excuse. After a 14-4, 3.16 breakout season in 2029, he failed to show up until the final two months of the season posting a 2.81 e.r.a. in his final 10 starts. He was 5-10 4.85 before that.
Rookie
Keith Dupree (12-8, 3.37) and
Pete Scammell (5-2, 2.58), a former reliever in the minors, emerged as the team’s best starters but Scammell got just 16 starts in between dealing with elbow issues.
The starting rotation, considering promising when the team broke preseason, finished 11th in the IL in e.r.a.
Thankfully one of the league’s top bullpens bailed the staff out much of the season. The unit collected 36 wins, tied for tops in the IL, and finished second in the league with 62 saves and a 2.63 e.r.a..
The offense was middle of the pack for the second straight season, the only real change was stealing 152 more bases. The runs totals were roughly the same.
While shortstop
Roberto Salazar (.302, 91 SBs) and left fielder
Roberto Martínez (.283, 88 SBs) may have had their most productive seasons, the bottom dropped out on some aging veterans. Thirty-four year old catcher
Jesús Negrete went from an all-star to a .175 hitter. Thirty-three year old
Flint Butler saw his batting average drop 50 points from his career figure. This while third baseman
Bob Vollmer reverted to his normal self (.236, .300, .348) after a fluke 2029 (.292, .331, .441).
It also didn’t help that the team’s lone power hitter,
Luis Bonilla, also saw his batting average drop from .263 to .212
“Putting it together has been a difficult thing for San Juan,” admitted General Manager Mike Best. “We’ve dealt with a lot of inconsistency since the team has been here. But, in the end, it’s clear we just need better players. Baseball is won one game at a time and good players are the ones who consistently show up every day, year after year.”
