Living in a Tent in Texas (A San Antonio blog)

[Nigel]

WELCOME TO
2035

The thoughts of GM Laverick over the course of the 2035 season, his first with the San Antonio Calzones of Laredo

[Nigel]

Spring Training 2035

So, just days after I've pitched my tent up in San Antonio, we're into spring camp. No time to examine our roster, no time to play the free agent market. I won't be doing that anyway, we've lost $56.5 million over the last four years, now is the time for fiscal responsibility, while we're not winning we might as well claw back some of the missing money. And let me make it clear, we're not winning, we have an aging team on their last legs, we have 14 out of the 39 players on the 40-man who are aged 30 or more. Our farm is ranked 14th overall and that's entirely on the back of young 21-yr-old pitcher Bartolo Mojica, he is the PEBA's 10th ranked prospect and the only prospect we have in the Top-100 list. That is my first task then, to build the farm, hopefully add a player of two in the Top-100 by the time they publish the 2036 list. I'd like to remain competitive too while we are slowly, or not so slowly, phasing out our veteran players.

The front Office staff did well last December, grabbing EIGHT players in the Rule 5 draft. I like Rule 5 players, for lowly teams like the Calzones they can be lifesavers, when you can't afford the star name FA's you have to gamble on the Rule 5. Other teams forgotten players might just well develop into your foot soldiers or even your stars if you really find that diamond hidden in the rough. So I must say welcome to our eight 2035 hopefuls

The majority of them have the potential to develop into solid squad players, and with reasonable defensive skills (I love defense), they have every chance of sticking in San Antonio as the main bench players. In fact, looking at that our entire bench could be Rule 5 players. Over the course of Spring Training Camp they will have plenty of AB's to show they warrant a roster spot. Maybe one will leap to the fore and even grab a starting role, that's not that unimaginable with an aging bunch like the Calzones. More likely though they will be aided by injuries, you try to wrap these mid-thirtysomethings up in cotton wool in Spring, but someone always finds a way to get injured.

We also have eight non-roster invitees attending this year's camp, including the heralded Mojica. He will get a good look but in all honesty I think his destination will be a season in the Joplin (Triple-A) rotation. I'm not a fan of rushing your prospects up and you'll often find that players in my organisations have two, or part, years at a level before advancing unless they are really crushing it. Mojica has spent half his three year pro career at Rookie & A ball with 56 games lately in Double-A. He seems ready to take the step forward to Triple-A and it's up to him now to show me my snap judgement of him is right. Virtually all of the remaining non-roster invitees are from Joplin and they are realistically competing with the Rule 5 guys for a seat on the bench. I don't think they have much of a chance though.

[Nigel]

Spring Training - Week 1


Amsterdam 0 Calzones 2

Rule 5 pitcher Mito Okuda took the mound to open Spring Training and allowed just two walks and two hits in his four IP. The Calzones won the game in the 3rd innings, two singles and a triple by Derrick Dwyer was all the offence they needed to seal the win.

Calzones 4 Charleston 5 (F/10)

The Calzones burst out with two hits & two walks in the top of the first innings, putting four runs on the boards earl doors. Somehow though they failed to put any more runs across the plate, Bartolo Mojica, the PEBA's #11 prospect allowed just a walk in his four innings of work while striking out two batters. Unfortunately the bullpen couldn't hold it for him. Carlos Morales allowed three hits and two walks in the eighth innings while only getting one out; that turned the scored from 4-1 to 4-4 and the Statesmen walked it off in the bottom of the tenth.

West Virginia 4 Calzones 0

I do not want to travel country roads to West Virginia. With just three hits all game it was always going to be tough for San Antonio but it was sealed in the top of the 6th when Zhu-ian Fong surrendered back-to-back homers that contributed three of the game's four runs.

Calzones 5 San Juan 6

An exciting back & forth game, the lead changed hands four times before San Antonio entered the final innings 5-4 ahead. They couldn't hold it though as Pedro Torres uncorked two wild pitches to help the Coqui score twice in the bottom of the ninth, his ST record drops to 0-2 already.

London 1 Calzones 6

San Antonio return to winning ways in a game that saw both sides register 10 hits each. Calzones had their running shoes on, stealing six bases during the game while Andy Edwards contributed with his first dinger of spring; his tally for the game was 2-3 with two runs scored and an RBI

Calzones 4 New Jersey 6

Not a very good second outing for Mito Okuda, he lasted just 1.2 innings as he gave up seven hits & five runs before getting the hook. All but one of the game's runs were across the plate in the first three innings. The teams combined for 22 hits, best of the Calzones was 36-yr-old catcher Yoriie Oka, fresh from winning a Double-A Platinum Stick, who went 3-4, unfortunately with just an RBI to show for his efforts.

Scottish 1 Calzones 9

San Antonio completed their bashing of the UK contingent with a convincing win. The game was well and truly broken open in the sixth when three hits, three walks and a successful squeeze bunt at home put five San Antonio runs on the board. In an error strewn game the Claymores contributed three to the tally of five mistakes while third baseman Jeff van der Eijk, whose defense has been a bit shaky himself, contributed a 3-3 day, scored twice and stole an amazing four bases, taking his tally to six steals in the opening week of camp. A second start for Mojica who surrendered a first innings homer, his only allowance in four innings while striking out five batters. Carlos Morales pitched the last five innings allowing just a hit & a walk to take the win.


A better than expected week, Mojica impressed the hell out of everyone, continue like that and maybe he might have a chance of a roster spot, but I still think he's favourite to lead the rotation in Joplin. Free agent signing Toju Samurakami impressed too out in centrefield, going 5-12 with three stolen bases. New minor league free agent signings during the week, 31-yr-old pitcher Jarred Joseph and 29-yr-old catcher Sung-hwan Chon will be added to the camp roster for next week.

[Nigel]

Spring Training Week 2


Four losses and two wins wasn't exactly ideal but it was the manner of the losses that hurt. Outhit 67-30 we weren't in a lot of the games and were shutout in two. At least we got our act together in our final two games of the week when we held Havana & New Orleans to a single run between them despite being outhit in both games. Six errors in the last three games needs to be stamped out too.

We certainly need to wake the bats up, five doubles & four homers were the only extra base hits we managed this week. Our homer against current PEC champions Florida was perhaps the moment of the week as Andrew Sterling slapped the ball all the way to the right field fence and as the Farstriders' right fielder groped blindly, Sterling turned on the afterburners and beat the throw to the plate for an incredible inside the park home run. The pitchers didn't exactly cover themselves with glory, several of them owning double figure ERA's for the week. The response to all this has been to send the first players back to the minors, not too many, but enough to send a message. From now on it will get serious, the big guns will get more time on the field and perhaps after week three we might see a clearer picture of where we are. OK, OK, it's just Spring Training, it doesn't mean a thing, but this is your one chance to impress the new GM. Fail to take it and you're shot at the bigs could be gone forever. Not that we have many youngsters competing from our dismal farm, a lot of ours are thirtysomethings competing for one last season in PEBA.

Mojica Watch His third start of Spring was his shortest, only 3.1 innings, but he did pick up his first win (1-0). He's been on a strict pitch count so far and has only thrown 146 pitches in total during his three starts. This time out against New Orleans he gave up three hits and a pair of walks but no-one came around to score; he also struck out his eighth & ninth batters of 2035. He will get an outing next week against San Juan and then we may well make a call on his 2035 future. He's looking at the moment as though as if he probably is capable of holding down a rotation slot, but at 21-yrs-old and with only 60-ish games above A ball level, we are certainly leaning towards starting him in Triple-A Joplin for seasoning. I'm not a great fan of jumping players too many levels and Bartolo looks as though with an extra year, or perhaps even two, in the minors he might fill out his potential.

[Nigel]

Spring Training Week 3


Just the two wins for Calzones, but they don't matter do they? What matters more is Andrew Sterling who had played his way into my shortstop thoughts going 0-13 and nine others who I would like to use all hitting .200 or below. Meanwhile Andy Edwards has impressed me with a 10-17 week including five doubles and a homer, Andy has been steadily improving since breaking into Calzones in 2032 and I hope this can be his year to breakout. All the lack of hitting has cost several players their chance to remain lounging in the sun and they have been dispatched on their way back to the distant back fields of their minor league affiliates. Only time will tell if I was right or not, this will be a real year of learning for me, both with the team(s) and the league.

Juan Alfaro had a try in the closer's role and while he only got into two games, he allowed just two hits in two innings and collected saves in both our wins this week. I'm not convinced his future is a closer, but maybe he might get some set up work? The rotation is still pretty much up for grabs, although at the moment no-one has stood up and shouted "I want that spot". The final decision will probably to go with the historic rotation in the end. Aging? Yes, but so are a lot of the roster, it'll be a while before that changes as we slowly shed the players that just aren't producing any more. At the moment we haven't got the players to step up in their place. Bartolo Mojica is doing his best to attract my attention although he blew up in his final innings of work this week giving up three hits and three runs. If he was the final piece in the jigsaw I would probably so go for it, but as a 21-yr-old never had a regular gig above A ball, likely to come into a struggling team , , , I think he's ticketed for a year in Triple-A still where if he can really take that by the scruff of the neck, he can still see PEBA action in 2035.

Gilberto Fernandez has now been traded, to be honest he played all spring as if he knew it was coming. Yes we could have certainly done with his power, we're lacking there, but I'm very worried about finances. Being a cautious GM I don't like to see four consecutive years of losses tallying up to over $56 million. Fernandez's expected arbitration rise from $4m to $10m was scaring me to death. Probably not the last possible mistake I'll make in my first year in San Antonio, you just have to live with them. And a reason I hate trading . . . it only took minutes for the news of the trade to break before my inbox was stuffed with your normal "I'd have paid more" & "you only got how much?" notes. Live & die by your decisions. One week to make those decisions, 36 still in camp (after the trade movements). Most of the trimming has to be done on the pitching staff, the batters are playing mainly for backup roles and in a couple of cases whether they'll be backup or starter. Going to the wire boys . . .

[Nigel]

Spring Training Week 4

So we finished Spring with an 8-16 record, not really important, but we took plenty of opportunity to look at different combinations. The hard work really starts now, we have to cut the active roster down to 26 and get our top three levels of the minors in order as well. That's normally a hard task at the best of times, but this year as my first in both San Antonio and the modern PEBA, it's doubly difficult as we're really firing a bit blind, we're evaluating batters on 40-50 AB's and pitchers on a maximum of 10-15 innings pitched. That's too small a sample size at the best of times, but when some, if not a lot, of the action is against other team's hopefuls rather than regulars it makes the stats very unreliable. As it that didn't make the choice hard, it's complicated by the number of veterans in camp who will be in their last year or two with Calzones and are out of options, balanced by the seven Rule 5 selections still with us who obviously have to remain on the 26-man roster if we want to keep them. Do we go with the veterans who may well perform better or the promising Rule 5ers who will form the basis of the start of San Antonio's rebuild?

Seven Rule 5 players on the roster is a big chunk of it, it's hard to keep that many and still hold on to the younger veterans given that exposing too many of them to waivers might well result several of our true PEBA level players being claimed. Keep to many Rule 5 selections and you risk plunging to the bottom if they prove in regular PEBA action that they're just not up to it. Bartolo Mojica, our only Top-100 prospect (12th), has as predicted been sent to Triple-A Joplin for his first real action above Double-A. If he performs as well there as he did during Spring Camp, he could be seeing the PEBA before 2035 is out. Apart from him though, the farm system is pretty bereft of promising players that could make an impact in San Antonio anytime soon. We added a few minor league prospects in the Fernandez trade, not great ones but a bit more promising than those we already have and now we executed another trade to build on that. We have sent 24-yr-old John Bradley, a promising borderline starter we had sent to Joplin, to the Evas in exchange for two prospects, 24-yr-old pitcher Seishiro Murakami and 22-yr-old CF Sun-taek Sok. Bradley is probably just the best player in the trade, but Murakami has the potential to develop into a sound leftie starter while Sok is a great defensive CF who has a bit of time to work out what exactly his bat is for.

Back to the job in hand though as we ponder the final cuts to our roster. Javier Mendoza becomes the second of our eight Rule 5 players to be returned to his former club. We tried every which way to keep him but he just wouldn't fit in, we had too many other relievers with more experience that we really to keep more. The rotation isn't looking that good, all five of them started games for Calzones last season, but all are mid to late-20's, giving them still the possibility of a breakout seasons. The bullpen will be backstopped by 35-yr-old Juan Alfaro, but after that we have again got a collection of mid-20's arms that have a few years still to come on the clock. Andy Edwards, who played his first full season in the Calzones outfield last year, was determined to remain there in 2035, he hit .462/.488/.795 while only striking out twice in 41 AB's. Liu-liang Yang, who came over in the Fernandez trade, continued the good spring he was having in Niihama-Shi and was rewarded with the fourth outfielder's role. We're gambling on Rule 5 picks Masaharu Noguchi & Marcus Dalby as starters; Masaharu revealed a cannon of an outfield arm and quick feet on the basepaths while Dalby in the end didn't have a lot of competition for the ShortStop role. 34-yr-old Andrew Sterling, who has spent the last two years in Joplin, started as favourite for the job but proved as inconsistent as Dalby with the bat. Look for them to probably share the role during the season.We still have five hitters over 30-yrs-old on the roster but I feel we've achieved our first aim of bringing down the average age of our 26-man roster. Now we just have to see how that works out during 2035. Can we get anywhere near our last year's total of 72 wins? It was our lowest win tally since 2030 but this year marks a new era for the San Antonio Calzones of Laredo.

[Nigel]

The Regular Season
2035

Series at Arlington : L 1-3 (L 2-3, W 8-1, L 0-3, L 0-4)
Series vs Kentucky : L 0-3 (L 1-4, L 3-6, L 1-2 (F/16))



Harry Dondale, a seventh round pick in the Rule 5 draft from the Alleghenies, was pretty pleased to have stuck with the Calzones having only ever pitched three innings above Double-A and indeed only pitched 44 innings in his entire pro career. Yet for some reason San Antonio manager Kijuro Yoshida handed him the ball in West Virginia on Opening Day 2035 instead of the scheduled starter Vicente Diaz. There was uproar among the fanbase when the news leaked out especially when he allowed a first innings run on two hits. He recovered though and pitched the next four innings without giving up a hit. Unfortunately the bullpen made sure of the loss. Dondale would also get into the final game of the week as a reliever in the 16th innings, he collected his second loss of the season as he gave up two hits allowing Kentucky to plate the winning run, their first since they tied the game at one in the sixth innings.

Losing two series in the first week isn’t good and doesn’t bode well for week 2 as we have another four games against Arlington, this time in Laredo, while the other series is in New Orleans, winners of only two games themselves

Players of the week:


RF Andy Edwards – Now on a 12-game hitting streak (from the last five games of 2034) and three homers (out of Calzones’ tally of five) already in 2035

Dan Stockstill – two starts, 1-0, 0.71 ERA. Twelve innings pitched with just the one run given up. Eight strikeouts as opponents hit just .136 against him.

Minor League notes

Triple-A Joplin started the season by being swept 0-4 at Leeds but bounced back by sweeping Raleigh in Joplin by a combined score of 14-1 in three games. Lack of power here too, but third baseman Reed Carver is hitting .522 in six games played. Damien Neighbour No-Hit Raleigh on Friday 6th allowing just one walk while striking out 11.
At the same time as Neighbour’s No-Hitter, Will Godron was No-Hitting Rockville allowing just one walk too while managing nine strikeouts. Hot corner fielder Burt Fontenot was as hot with his bat as he hit three over the fences in his opening six games of 2035.

[Nigel]

The Regular Season
Week 2

Series vs Arlington : W 4-0 ( W 3-1, W 1-0, W 6-2, W 2-0 )
Series @ New Orleans : L 1-2 ( L 1-5, L 0-9, W 4-1 )

IL Dixie Table (as at April 15th)

After opening 2035 with a disappointing series loss in Arlington, it was good to come home to Elysian Fields and sweep the Bureaucrats in a 4-game series. More impressive was that Arlington only managed to score three runs in the whole series, in fact the two runs they scored in their 2-6 loss was the only time that a team this season has scored more than a run in the six wins we have in 2035. Unfortunately, though, this is not the case in our eight losses. Miguel Torres pitched a fine six innings in the 1-0 win, helping the first innings San Antonio run to stand up as the game’s only run.

In the series in New Orleans the tactics was score early and often. In all three games the winning runs were scored in the first two innings of each game and in all, ten runs were scored in those opening innings during the series. Miguel Torres also was behind our only win against the Trendsetters as he kept the home side off the board until the start of the sixth innings.

It was an expensive end of week as we ended up paying out almost $6,000,000 as 33-yr-old Carlos Morales & 37-yr-old Gabriel McIntyre finished their stint on waivers and refused to be demoted to Triple-A Joplin. We were left with no alternative but to pay up their contracts and release them. Sure we could have cleared room on the 26-man roster by sending a couple of Rule 5ers back,but we had made the decision by placing Morales & McIntyre on waivers that our Rule 5 picks would, in our opinion, contribute more to the franchise over the coming years. We still have nine players aged 30 or more on the PEBA roster and we hope to take steps over the next few years to reduce that.


Players of the week:
1B Juan Bonilla – hit 8-25 (.320) during the week including his second triple of 2035. He scored his first four runs of the season and was successful in two of three SB attempts.

CL Juan Alfaro – pitched an innings in each of three games this week and didn’t give up either a hit, run or walk. Struckout one batter while earning three saves.

Minor League notes

Joplin won five of there seven games in the week to turn their season’s positions around and their 8-6 record is good enough to sit joint-second in their division. Reed Carver had another good week, he’s now hitting .457 in his 12 outings in 2035. Bartolo Mojica bounced back from collecting a loss in his first ever AAA game to pitch nearly 15 innings over two games this week, allowing just one run with a K/BB ratio of 10/2. His season record now stands at 2-1 with an ERA of 1.66.
Monterey opened the week with a 12-0 defeat at Den Bosch and it didn’t get much better as their overall record dropped to 6-8. In a poor division though that left them second, three games out of first place. Five more homers has doubled their season’s tally to 10, impressive in a generally power-challenged franchise. 21-yr-old outfielder Jesus Lopez had a good week hitting his first 2035 homer and adding four more hits in the week. Despite allowing four walks, Roberto Rodriguez pitched seven innings without conceding a run and moved his 2035 record to 3-0 with a 1.57 ERA.

[Borealis]

I always liked Miguel Torres. He reminds me of Armando Batista, with fewer pitches. I have to confess though, that Miguel has done better than I though he would.

[Nigel]

The Regular Season
Week 3

Series @ New Jersey : W 2-1 (L3-4 (F/15), W 3-2 (F/12), W 4-2, )
Series vs Manchester : W 3-1 ( W 3-2, 9-3 , L 2-8, W 3-2 )

IL Dixie Table (as at April 22nd)

The week opened with New Jersey and the Calzones splitting back-to-back extra-innings games, we lost in fifteen innings first, but then came back to win in 12 innings the next day. We took the rubber game in the series with an early 4-0 lead over the hitmen before they added a modicum of respectability with two late runs. Back home in Laredo the Maulers lived up to their moniker by getting mauled 3-9 in their second loss of the 4-game series, they came back with an 8-2 win of their own in game three, before three runs by San Antonio in the second innings turned around a 0-2 first innings deficit and that was that as the final seven innings were scoreless.
Rule 5 pick Conrad Lissenburg hasn’t seen a great deal of action, but he went 6-15 this week to show that maybe he might have a future in the PEBA. Another of our many Rule 5ers, Harry Dondale, got three outings from the ‘pen and pitched nearly five innings. In allowing six hits (including a homer) and three walks he did well to keep the scoring down to just two runs. His 2035 record now stands at 1-2 with a save and a 4.50 ERA, not too bad for someone who has only pitched in 11 games before this season above Double-A level.



Players of the week:
C Randy Howell
–.Howell only got into four games this week, but he got at least a hit in each of them and sent two over the fences at the same time, hitting .312/.353/.812 for his week.

P
Vicente Diaz –.Diaz went 1-0 in his two starts this week with a 2.25 ERA; he pitched 12 strong innings and allowed just three runs on seven hits although four walks can’t have helped him.

Minor League notes

Not the best of weeks for Joplin, they lost a home series to Mansfield 2-1 and went off to Newport and lost the series there by the same score. Their overall record drops to .500 (10-10), two games behind the leading two in the division. The Red Racers hit seven homers this week, all by different players, but were only successful in two out of their four stolen base attempts.
In Double-A, the Monterey Sea Lions split the week with three wins matched by three losses, all the losses were by a single run though. That leaves them on 9-11 for 2035, level with Hampton but two games back of Bowling Green. The batters didn’t exactly put their heart into it, hitting .220 as a team for the week (44-200). They still managed to outscore the week’s opponents 23-16 mainly thanks to the efforts of the pitching staff who had a team WHIP of 0.87 and kept opponents to hitting just .166 against them.

[Nigel]

The Regular Season
Week 4

Series vs San Juan : W 3-0 ( W 2-0, W 5-2, W 11-3, )
Series @ London : L 0-3 ( L 0-3, 1-5, 0-3)

IL Dixie Table (as at April 29th)

A sweet and Sour week for the Calzones, they swept the Trans Atlantic leaders, San Juan, at home but wasted that good series by crossing the Atlantic to London and promptly getting swept by the Trans Atlantic’s bottom club including failing to score twice in three games and indeed only one run in the series.


Players of the week:
2B Tadasuke Suzuki –.Not really a good week for the Calzones hitters but Suzuki led them all this week with six hits and his first home run of 2035. Her also scored three times and knocked in three runs.

P Dan Stockstill –.Stockstill pitched more than 12 innings in two starts in the week and came out with a 0.81 WHIP for the week despite only having a 1-1 record. He pitched seven innings of 2-hit baseball against San Juan striking out three Coqui’s but couldn’t get any support in London as he allowed six hits, three runs and two walks in his five innings of work.

Minor League notes


A 3-3 week for Joplin including 5-0 & 7-1 wins, moving their season tally on to 13-13, but three games back of the leading two in the division. Peter Monnington with nearly 400 PEBA appearances over the last three seasons might have only hit .176 for the week but he did get two homers.

Monterey moved to 14-12 in 2035 with a 5-1 week, two games behind Bowling Green in their division. It was a good week for outfielder Tim Reynolds who hit .300 with two long balls. Roberto Rodriguez went 2-0 from his two starts including a complete game, 4-hit, shutout. His 2035 record is now 6-0 in six starts with an ERA of 0.76, he surrendered four runs on opening day and hasn’t allowed an earned run since then.

Not a great start for Drumright Tornadoes as A ball opened it’s doors to 2035. The Tornadoes went 2-5, although the highlight was probably a 1-0 shutout win. Luis Santana had probably the best start with the bat, going 6-26, leading the team in hits. Orlando Garcia pitched in three games out of the bullpen, only pitched 2.2 innings, but collected a win, a loss and a save.

[Nigel]

The Regular Season
Week 5

Series @ Florida : L 0-3 ( L 0-2, 1-4, 5-6 (F/11)),
Series vs Kentucky: L 1-2 ( L 0-4, 4-10), [ W 6-5 (F/11) )

IL Dixie Table (as at May 6th)

When you’ve just lost three games at Trans-Atlantic side London, the last thing you need is a trip to Florida who are dealing out hidings to everyone on the known planet. We actually acquitted ourselves reasonably well, scoring in two games, taking them to extras in one and only being outscored 6-12. Back home against the Thoroughbreds we were obviously knocked silly by our Farstriders experience, we were atrocious in the first game of the series. Two of Kentucky’s four runs came off of the back of our three errors and our batters struck out 14 times while only managing five hits of their own. The second game we actually outhit Kentucky 15-13 but when you ship seven runs in the top of the first innings, there isn’t often a way back for you. Dan Stockstill, a normally reliable arm, allowed seven runs on six hits & a walk before he was unceremoniously given the hook with only two batters out in the game. The final game of the week we managed to snap a eight-game losing streak after tossing away an early 4-0 lead we finally managed two hits in the bottom of the 11th to finish off our first win of the week.


Players of the week:
RF Masaharu Noguchi – Our Rule 5 rightfielder is on fire at the moment. He hit 8-21 during this week (.381), clearly the best of our batters including his second homer of 2035.

P Vicente Diaz –. His only start ion the week was in the 0-4 loss against Kentucky, but he managed to go seven innings, giving up six hits and only one earned run He also struck out four batters.

Minor League notes

5-2 was the order of the week in the minors, Joplin & Drumright posted 5-2 winning record in Week 5 whilst poor Monterey turned in a losing 2-5 week.

[Nigel]

I must apologise here for kinda falling off the cliff here, life took a non-motivating turn, but I hope to get an end of season review out and not to slack so much in 2036. Meanwhile here's the minor league awards for you.

AWARD NIGHT IN SAN ANTONIO

Tonight, Ladies & Gentlemen we are gathered here to announce and honour the 2035 Minor League Players of the Year for the San Antonia Calzones of Laredo organisation. It was in many ways an easy task, in GM Laverick’s first career year with us, but that doesn’t detract from the season these two players have had this year. Both funnily enough arrived in San Antonio in the same year, 2030, as unsigned players discovered by our scouting department. I’ve teased you enough though, so here they are . . .



The Minor League Hitter of the Year goes to Jesus Lopez of the Double-A Monterey Sea Lions.

22-yr-old Jesus arrived as a scouting discovery in 2030 out of Venezuela. He has been making slow progress up the levels since his pro debut for Busan (R) in 2031. He is a right fielder in name although a pretty poor one as he almost always spends the game fairly immobile out in right, preferring others to run the fly, and ground, balls down. In the last couple of years though he has started to figure out what his bat is for, and he has been nominated to the 2034 & 35 All-Star Futures game. This season in Monterey he made 122 appearances for the Sea Lions, hitting 38 home runs, driving in 93 runs and scoring 70 times himself. A 160 OPS+ and a 154 wRC+ led to a 3.4 WAR, his highest career figure by far.



The Minor League Pitcher of the Year goes to Bartolo Mojica of the Triple-A Joplin Red Racers.

21-yr-old Bartolo was also a 2030 scouting discovery, this time out of Panama. He made his pro debut in 2032 in Drumright (A) and by August of that year was already ranked the #37 PEBA prospect. He spent his teenage years pitching out of the bullpen, but as he turned 20-yrs-old he entered the Drumright rotation for the first time and hasn’t looked back since. He has attended the 2033, 2034 & 2035 PEBA All-Star Futures Game. This season, his first above Double-A, he was promoted to Joplin where he made 28 starts, posting a 15-7 record with an ERA of 1.74. In 191 IP he only gave up 128 hits including just 10 homers and walked just 34 batters. Meanwhile 208 batters sat down, unable to figure out his pitches. He finished the year with his lowest ever WHIP, just 0.85, and posted 6.8 WAR. He has proved that he has nothing more to fear in the minors, he has finished the year as the PEBA’s #5 prospect and in 2036 . . . will be a member of the Calzones rotation.

[Nigel]

2035 hitters musing

We finished the 2035 season with 18 batters on the major league rosters, nine of them were 30 years old or more. That is not sustainable, having 50% of your hitting crew coming to the twilight of their career. Maybe if they were all superstars, but seven of them hit below .210; Randy Howell hit 12 homers and only two more sent the balls into the stands more than 7 times.

Thankfully backup catcher Yasunari Fujihara (35) has done the decent thing and retired, Howell will likely remain as at least the backup catcher. That leaves us seven to contemplate their future, third baseman, Jeff van der Eijk (31) and outfielder Jorge Flores (34) will be non-tendered in arbitration, leaving us with five. Kenzaburo Mori (34) was a late September callup following a mediocre Triple-A season and he too will head for the job centre. Second baseman Derrick Dwyer (36) will play his final season in San Antonio as he collects his final year’s salary ($14 m). And then there was three, who may well get reasonable game time in 2036.

Manuel Santos, expected to be Calzones SS in 2036

Juan Bonilla (31) is a good defensive first baseman, but not such a good hitter these days; he might remain as a backup but is unlikely to see out the three arbitration years he has left. Tadasuke Suzuki (31) posted 3.8 WAR in 2035 as a sound defensive 2B/3B although not so hot with the bat; he will be appearing 60-70 times in 2036 as a defensive replacement. Our one starter from this whole bunch will be Manuel Santos, a 30-year-old shortstop who originally turned us down at the start of Spring Training, but reopened negotiations at the end of April and was quick to sign a 1-year deal. Arbitration will probably almost double his $2.2 m deal. He turned out to be a Calzones’ star with a +5.7 ZR, 7 homers and 3.8 WAR; the big contracts coming off the books in 2037 will probably make us look again at our starting SS but until then, I doubt we can afford better.

Sun-Taek Sok, the #24 prospect of Calzones, is aiming for a 2036 roster spot

Only two of our OSA ranked Top 10 prospects are hitters and the weakness of the farm system is underlined by the fact that our #2 overall prospect is a 22-yr-old who may well be forced to be the DH as he’s a mediocre right fielder at best. Jesus Lopez may well head for winter ball this off season and after a season in Triple-A Joplin which saw him hit 38 homers, drive in 93 runs while posting 3.4 WAR, he will head for Spring Camp ‘36 with a good chance of snagging a roster spot such is our lot at the moment. One of the most likely other hitting prospects to have a decent chance of catching on with Calzones is #15 prospect, outfielder Sun-taek Sok; he’s a decent CF/LF, acquired in a trade from the Shin Seiki Evas last April. Hasn’t played above Double-A yet and lost five weeks mid-season to bone chips in his elbow, but still had a reasonable season in Monterey, posting 1.6 WAR and a +10.0 ZR in CF. A place as a 4th/5th outfielder may well be his in 2036, maybe more if he really grasps the metal in the spring.

[Nigel]

2035 pitchers musing

Our pitching staff weren’t exactly good, but a bit more rounded than the hitters. Only four of them have reached the age of thirty and while we have no superstars amongst them, we at least have a staff capable of holding their own and providing the Calzones with a shot at mid-table mediocrity.

29 million dollar man Dean McNeil will be back in 2036 for his final year in SA

We had four pitchers, only one who has reached 30, that made over thirty starts and all pitched a steady 170-190 innings; meaning that they were able to get us to the fifth or sixth innings on a regular basis. All four posted over 100 K’s, in most cases though only just into three figure strikeouts while they only walked 40-50 batters. The fifth starters slot was a real miss mash until the “29-million-dollar man” Dean McNeil returned in early June from his torn UCL. He posted an unspectacular 5-8 record from his 19 starts, but at least (in common with the rest of the rotation) kept his ERA under 4.00. The starters ERA was a not unreasonable 3.43, but in all pitching stat categories San Antonio were firmly in the bottom third of the IL

The bullpen followed the theme, bottom third in stats but solid & unspectacular. We had four arms that pitched 60-70 games, three of them posted a winning record and all had an ERA below three (one. Tsurayuki Harada, got as low as 1.55). Regular stopper 36-yr-old Juan Alfaro had a 2-8 record, but only blew two of 35 save opportunities although with the highest ERA (3.29) in the ’pen.

Bartolo Mojica, #1 SA prospect, expected to begin his tour of duty as the face of the franchise in 2036

Sure the staff could do with improvement in 2036, in common with probably 95% of all PEBA staffs, but we’re honest enough to admit that we haven’t the money next year to compete with the sharks circling round in the free agent pool. A big boost will be the expected PEBA arrival of San Antonio’s #1 prospect, 21-yr-old Bartolo Mojica. Undoubtedly the hottest thing that the Calzones have seen for many a year, he will head for winter ball to attempt to knock off his final little rough edges before his biggest ever spring.

Bartolo, no matter how good he is, is just one man. He can’t carry the team by himself. He needs the rest of the staff to be at least what they were in 2035, we have to have that to just mark time in the standings. If we get 10-20% improvement in the hitters, we should manage to stay where we are as a middle of the road IL Dixie team. Kentucky & Florida are 20+ games ahead. It’s going to be a long crawl to claw that back.