Crystal Lake's Plan Comes Together

[Apollos]

(Ed. note: Sandgnats GM Dean Giesey has been keeping a journal of goals and important events for the Crystal Lake 2008 season. He graciously agreed to share excerpts of this journal with readers of The Crystal Reporter.)

After being eliminated in the second round of last year’s playoff, it was time to assess the team and its prospects to fulfill the organizations aspirations for a PEBA championship. With stadium expansion plans approved and construction underway, I turned my attention towards development of an organizational plan to take the Gnats to a higher level. While a good team in 2007, the Sandgnats lacked a middle-order run-producer. This missing component was painfully obvious during our playoff failure. Losing the first two games 1-0 created a hole too deep for us to recover from. While our Inaugural Draft strategy of pitching and defense was fundamentally sound, the team’s run production was second division all year and woefully inadequate. We needed more run production to get better. This was a problem throughout the organization. But other weaknesses also existed in the lower levels. The farm teams did not have the advantage of the leagues’ strongest pitching; hence their failure to place.

Moving into the 2008 season I developed a six-point strategy and began the implementation of those points to great success:

1) Bring on a partner to assist in day-to-day team operations and player assessment and acquisition. This person must share my drive and desire to win a championship. He also must be compatible with the team’s shared values and organizational philosophy.

2) Acquire a middle-order power hitter. The player must be a constant home run threat and a big RBI producer. Also on our shopping list – the acquisition of a left handed bat for the second position in the batting order. O’Donnell moved on to greener pastures so we needed a contact hitter to compliment our lead off man, Powell Clark.


3) Improve the ML pitching. Acquire an affordable starting pitcher and a better-than-average middle reliever. Considering our successes in pitching in 2007, this may seem a strange priority for this list. There was however no certainty that either Jackson or Sparling would pitch to the same level again in 2008. Also, at the time Stewart was proving a difficult sign after winning the PEBA SL Golden Arm pitching award. An injury to the top of the rotation was a major concern especially given the general weakness of AAA and AA starting pitching and their ability to feed a serviceable starter should that need arise.

4) Overhaul the coaching at the lower levels. Our scouts were doing a good job of locating players but the coaches were not teaching our players and preparing them for advancement.

5) Revamp the minor league system. Reassess each player and place him at a level for which he would be capable of succeeding.

6) Acquire lower level organizational pitching to immediately make all farm teams competitive now and improve their chances for winning their divisions.

The Alfaro trade late in 2007 was actually the first action towards the stated goals. He could bat second and hit for average with good on-base skills. We traded lower level prospects for him. This was difficult for us to pull the trigger on (considering our lack of depth) but it has turned out to be an excellent deal for the parent club.

When Bill Hewitson joined the organization, the plan really took off. He went to work on our power hitter problem immediately and was responsible for closing on the López deal (an injured first baseman whose power was off the charts). He also identified Merlin Peters, (arguably one of the best relievers in the game) as a target for the MR position. Peters was hurt and available. While Bill and manager Wayne Kedsch concentrated on improving the major league club, a staff of myself, José Luna (head scout), Dylan Dougherty and Arturo Torres went to work on the minors. We shuffled players to levels with which we felt they could prosper and be most successful. Additionally, we signed Kennedy, Carmona and Jennings and traded surplus players to pick up Rosário and Patterson. Bill had early acquired Rivera as a sweetener in the López deal. Coaches immediately reported a breakthrough for this player and he has proven an excellent swing man between the pen and rotation for AAA. With the emergence of Hall as a dominating starter and the improvement of Koyama, our AAA and AA teams were stacked with starting pitching.


Meanwhile the coaching staff was busy scouting the international leagues for major league-ready starting pitching. The PEBA free agent starters were too expensive for our middle-market budget. We located two possible targets. Pacheco was the younger of the two. He threw harder and had more upside. We flew in our pitching scout to watch him throw. Mi raved about him. He was throwing comfortably at 92 mph and his breaking stuff had tight spin and good life. We knew we had our man. It wasn’t until we found out that Scott Sanderson was representing Pacheco (Sanderson represents Christian athletes) that we knew we had the inside track on him. I had met Scott at a Christian fellowship retreat. I contacted him and we closed quickly. After some negotiation we signed a contract with Pacheco and he has been nothing less than brilliant thus far all season.


After the López trade, Bill’s staff was clamoring for a free agent signing. They wanted to make a big splash to get the fans attention (as if what we had done was not getting noticed). Fortunately, we had been good stewards with our money last year and had some cash available. We looked at several first basemen but settled on an outfielder after first baseman P.J. Thomas fell into our lap in a transaction. Our scouts loved Thomas but we were unable to agree on a deal last year. We had been negotiating on a deal for Peters when Thomas was also offered to us in the same transaction. We moved quickly to trade for him (the second time was the charm, I guess). Kedsch still felt that a power-hitting outfielder would be necessary to ice it. After conferring with Bill on who he thought was the best player available, I gave the approval to release the funds. We decided that we would extend only a single-year deal. We could afford a market player but only for a one-year contract. It would minimize our risk. We would also retain payroll flexibility in 2009, in spite of some back-loaded contracts on our books. Frazier’s agent indicated that he would be interested and would sign a single year deal. We closed on him completing our major league squad.


Only the revamp of the minor league coaching staff remained on our high priority list. This has proven the most difficult task in our strat plan. After many hours of interviewing we were able to sign Ramón Jaimes and Kyu Shimizu for our AAA squad and Eric McNeal for Low-A. They are in large part responsible for our many player improvement reports this season. Even so, this is still a work in progress and we are continuing our efforts to improve the coaching throughout the organization.

After we implemented our strategic plan we had only to wait to see how effective we had been. I do not know how things will ultimately turn out, but, as of this writing the organization’s win loss record stands at 303-208. ML, AAA, AA are leading their respective divisions. High-A and Low-A are in 2nd. All the clubs have winning records. The ML has the best pitching in the league and is 5th in runs scored. Barring any more nagging injuries we are excited about all the improvements and our prospects. Hopefully, all the CL clubs will finish strong. It would be nice if we could grab some first place titles and, most importantly, win the Championship.

[John]

This article isn't just blowing smoke. Look at the success the team has had since the very beginning of the season; then consider that CL is hardly one of the big market teams of PEBA. It makes you appreciate the power of spelling out a plan of attack and tenaciously pursuing its execution.

I also think the dual owner setup has been a huge benefit to the Gnats. Dean is very good at certain managerial aspects, and with Bill on board he can afford to focus on what he does best while Bill handles the things that he's good at. Not to mention that it's great when one owner is busy to have a partner who can pick up the slack for a sim or two. You see Bakersfield having success with a similar arrangement. Bringing on a partner is never a bad idea and you may be surprised by the impact it has on your club.

[Apollos]

Thanks John - so far so good