Mike Zalbensir, Sports Op-Ed Columnist, The Record
Thursday, December 11, 2014

Canton, Ohio (AP) – The Canton Longshoremen are not a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.  They might be, if any one really cared.  But no one really cares.  You see, for their entire existence, the Longshoremen just haven’t been relevant.

Oh sure, that one time (not at band camp, mind you) they finished in third place in the Great Lakes Division.  That was a thrill, wasn’t it – watching them sprint to the 2008 finish line a scant 46 games out of first place and a mere 20 games out of the final playoff spot?

Then there was the record-setting 2010 season.  You know, the one where they recorded the best record in franchise history – 8 games under .500 and only 25 games out of first?

No, the Canton Longshoremen just haven’t been very good, and they haven’t even been interestingly bad.  They’ve just… existed.

Once again, we long-suffering baseball fans here in the ninth-largest city in Ohio – a city that is better known for the Pro Football Hall of Fame, a city that has such exciting attractions as the William McKinley Tomb, a city sixty miles from the nearest navigable body of water yet whose lone major professional sports franchise inexplicably bears the name of a nautical laborer – are facing the dawn of another baseball regime.  Yes, rumors abound that the Longshoremen are on the verge of announcing the continuation of a front-office shake-up.

Manager Harry Toner is already gone.  His contract was allowed to expire without so much as a press conference or even a news release.  It appears now that reclusive owner William Marsten IV is set to make a change in the General Manager office, too.  Sources say that the incumbent, Shawn McGrath, has cleared out his office and that Marsten has made a decision on a successor.

While we wait for the Longshoremen to grace us with news of their choice, one thing is certain: Change is coming.  Undoubtedly, a new GM will bring another five-year plan, another (re?)building phase, another group of bright-eyed sports theorists consulting their slide rules or scouts or Ouija boards about the best way to build a winning baseball team.

We don’t know yet whom Marsten will convince to take over this mess of an organization.  So allow me, in my own long-winded, run-on sentenced way to play armchair GM in 1,000 words or less (and yes, I am aware that I only have a few hundred words left):

Let The Kids Play (But Not Pitch) – The one thing that this franchise has going for it is a ton of position players who appear to be right on the cusp.  Indeed, Baseball America has the Longshoremen ranked as the top minor league system in the PEBA.  1B José Martínez hit .327 with 35 HR last season split between AA Youngstown and AAA Allentown.  SS Carlos Rodríguez hit .360 with a .471 OBP, stole 18 bases, and played quality defense at SS and 3B while riding the same Allentown-to-Youngstown shuttle.  We could go on and on.  The veterans in Canton lost 98 games.  The kids can’t be worse.  That brings us to…

Trade the Veterans – This is the no-brainer part.  There are three Longshoremen with contracts that expire at the end of 2015.  If any of them show up at spring training, the new General Manager should be fired.  Jacques Fillion is a catcher with over 1,000 career hits.  He’s 33.  He’s making $11 million and change in 2015.  Get rid of him.  Thirty-seven-year-old starting pitcher Carlos Pérez is making $9.8 million and is a former 20-game winner.  Deal him for prospects.  Charlie Swan is a capital-C closer and is making nearly $5 million.  Trade him.  Which leads to…

Upgrade the Rotation – This is the hard part.  Canton has historically been a place where pitchers go to die.  With the exception of Pedro Cruz, who escaped Canton for San Antonio, no Longshoremen starter with more than 15 starts in a Canton uniform has an ERA better than incumbent José Contreras‘s 4.36, and he walked 95 batters in 167 innings last season.  There are five starting pitchers on the Longshoremen roster going into 2015 and none of them project to be anything more than back-of-the-rotation innings eaters.  Of course, starting pitching is the most precious commodity in baseball, so a good Plan B might be to…

Upgrade the Defense – Jacques Fillion couldn’t throw my mother out stealing.  That’s okay; Albert Rishworth doesn’t have the range to cover second on a steal, anyway.  Look, the Longshoremen just don’t play defense very well.  They’re not error-prone; they’re just… bad.  They don’t position themselves well, they don’t get good jumps on the ball, and they don’t cover much ground when they bother to stroll in the general direction it was hit.  That might be okay in front of the Bears’ pitching staff, but in front of the contact-happy Longshoremen hurlers, who had the third-lowest strikeouts in the league, that’s a problem.

Easy, right?  Not really.  The fact remains that the Longshoremen have been part of the PEBA’s brackish backwater since the league started.  They are firmly in the league’s lower middle class as far as market size and budget go.  They have no history and no personality, and while they have some assets, this is a team that finished last in its division while losing nearly 100 games.  As rehab projects go, this one is a fixer-upper.  Let’s mix some metaphors with pop culture and hope that Bob Vila, or the American Pickers cast, or Lee Iacocca – or anyone, really – can turn this wreck around.

All of that, and 64 words to spare…