The Planetary Extreme Baseball Alliance

Tracy Evans, who has become sort of an impromptu fixture in the front office, walked up to Cobb and handed him a report. "Hey man, I did some informal tabulations, and I think I have figured out why you guys lost so many games in April."

Cobb, who was always looking a little distracted these days (well even more so than usual), "Ok...well what's the big secret?"

"Your pitching staff is giving up too many runs," Tracy proclaimed triumphantly.

From his chair in the corner, Tanner looked up from his ipad, "woah, am I like experiencing the next money ball here...please, Mr. Evans tell me more about how we don't win when we let the team score more runs than us."

Evans scowled at Tanner and then continued, " No look, in our loses this year we are giving up an average of 6.3 runs while only scoring 3.42. When we win we are only giving up 2.2 runs and scoring 4.8 runs. It's a small sample size, but the answer is not more offense, unless of course you have a player that is going to produce 3.3 runs per game. Arnold is not going to get you that...the pitching staff has to get stronger if we want to continue to get better as a team."

Tanner sighed, his chin resting in his hand. "Monk is a month away, Pena continues to look lost out there, what are u suggesting?"

"I don't know, what about the kid Haines, what if you gave him a shot?"

"Evans, you realize that we aren't paying you to hang around here right? I know you and Coop were friends and all, but I don't need an assistant general manager. And I sure don't have it in the budget."

"Look, I am retired, and I uh, I want to do something to commemorate Cooper you know? I don't want to just go sit at home and stare into the distance and let life pass me by, I wanna be part of a team again. Even if its just volunteer work. I really ain't got anything better going on right now."

Cobb focused in on Evans, "Guess it's settled then."

Nice, you can have Evans! I think the popcorn and alcohol he stashed in his desk drawer finally got to him when he was still with New Jersey, hopefully you don't have to deal with his incompetence Judging by his diagnosis I think you are out of luck though!

I think his analysis be quite astute....

I guffawed at the "next Moneyball" crack. And tell Tanner I want his iPad!

Maybe by 2017 I will have one

This week's sign the the apocalypse is upon us...players actually complaining about not having a long enough contract to play in New Orleans. Er Hang is not happy that his future in New Orleans is not guaranteed...been a long time since any player was upset about that

In a strange twist of fate, due to injuries to Damon Lambert and Errol Grey, Naoaki Kichida will be paired up with Mark Richardson on the left side of the diamond. Kichida was the player who was on the other side of the trade that sent Richardson to Colorado. He then played a full year at Florida before becoming a journeyman infielder spending his latest pro time in Japan. It has a a good eye at the plate and good speed on the paths, as well as decent glove skills.

Halfway through July the Trendsetters find themselves just two games under .500 and just 5.5 games out of the wild card chase. By this time last year, the team was so far out of competition, that it is no surprise that the team is facing some major pressure to either improve the pitching or continue to retool for next year. Right now seven teams are within seven games of the wildcard spot. However, attitude around the IL is that most of those teams feel like they will slide rather than continue to be competitive, others feeling like they will ride what they have and see where they end up. The PEBA has never really had a trade deadline blockbuster, but with so many teams in contention and just two weeks away from the deadline, will this be the year one of these sever teams makes a splash in an aggressive move to grab a playoff spot?

The Trendsetters are pleased with the progress both financially and on the field that the team has made this year. At this point, if no major moves are made, the Trendsetters would still finish in the black if they didn't take in another dollar of revenue. The only team that has payed less money in player salaries this year is Kentucky in the IL. The is due to the fact that several key players and pitchers are making league minimum and their highest paid player is Morimoto at 11.8 million. This will soon change for a key number of contributors as more than likely the young trio of Lambert, Cabrera, and Wilson will be headed for arbitration this year. While all three players are considered to be important future contributors, only Wilson has managed to play injury free for the majority of their two and half seasons so far. On the other hand, there is a trio of vets that are also hoping to convince team officials that they need to be extended. Richardson, Arnold and Serrano are all working on what they may consider sub value contracts and each are trying to improve their haul for the following year, and are doing so to mixed results. Richardson is being watched from around the league to see just what the veteran has left in the tank...so far he has not been overly impressive. However for the month of July he is hitting right at .300 so could a second half break out be in the cards for Ice Cold? Arnold got a late start, but both he and Serrano have heated up over the past month and been major contributors to the offense. Arnold, however, is looking for a end of career deal that matches what he was making in his prime. He will need to show his prime like numbers once again to even get a sniff at that amount. Serrano has suffered through August injuries several times in his career and has never played more than 125 games in a season. The Trendsetters are expecting him to surpass that number this year if he hopes to find an extension at the end of the season.

The Trendsetters' first pick(15th overall) of the inaugural PEBA draft hung up his cleats after not being picked up by a team over the past year. Chandler Davis, a lefty out of San Marcos, Texas, was a major part of the Trendsetter team that established itself out of the gates, going to two Championship series out of the first three. The year the Trendsetters hoisted the cup he was 3-1 in the playoffs for the team. He won 60% of his games for the team and sits third in most pitching categories in career stats behind Conan and Edward Coleman. Davis' most likely will enter the ring of honor the Trendsetters in the upcoming season.

I would be very interested to read a "Where Are They Now?"-style article on the 24 players selected in the 1st round of the PEBA inaugural draft. I know Aurora's Salvador Bernal is out of baseball, as are many of the picks, but there are still a number that are playing. Who excelled and who flopped? That would be a fun read.

John wrote:I would be very interested to read a "Where Are They Now?"-style article on the 24 players selected in the 1st round of the PEBA inaugural draft. I know Aurora's Salvador Bernal is out of baseball, as are many of the picks, but there are still a number that are playing. Who excelled and who flopped? That would be a fun read.

If memory serves me right, I think San Antonio chose Weaver in that first round, and traded him to Aurora. I think he's still kicking around somewhere. I remember wanting 'Ice Cold' really badly and missing out on him, and Weaver was sort of an 'oh well, he looks better than anything else' type of pick.

Weaver just retired as well

John wrote:I would be very interested to read a "Where Are They Now?"-style article on the 24 players selected in the 1st round of the PEBA inaugural draft. I know Aurora's Salvador Bernal is out of baseball, as are many of the picks, but there are still a number that are playing. Who excelled and who flopped? That would be a fun read.

I've added the Inaugural Draft to StatsLab's draft history.

Nutmeggers wrote:

John wrote:I would be very interested to read a "Where Are They Now?"-style article on the 24 players selected in the 1st round of the PEBA inaugural draft. I know Aurora's Salvador Bernal is out of baseball, as are many of the picks, but there are still a number that are playing. Who excelled and who flopped? That would be a fun read.

I've added the Inaugural Draft to StatsLab's draft history.

Unbelievable!

With spring training in full swing, it time once again for the Trendsetters to find warm bodies to send out there to face opposing hitters. Last years staff was bad, awful, terrible, and disappointing. It was still the best team era since 2011. With no stud arms coming in from the outside, besides annual let's throw them to the dogs and see what happens rule-v pitcher Austin Williams, the answers are going to come from within. Unfortunately, there are not pitching prospects above the very lowest levels of the minors, so get ready for the same old story.

There are some rumors that bullpen arms Joe Wolfe, Tomas Solis, and Carlos Pena will get their chance to audition and fill in behind the decent but not great 1-2 punch of Pizza and Monk.