Owners Remain Resolved, Will Contract to Eight “Strong Franchises”

November 15, 2019: Tokyo — In what is being described as an intense series of around-the-clock sessions, key members of the League of the Rising Sun have been working to develop plans that will save baseball in Japan and boost the spirits of LRS fans who have clearly had their world rocked over the past couple days. Of course, all this comes after nefarious revelations of collusion between three teams, rumored to be tied to a central figure in the organized crime syndicate. These revelations include such broad accusations as trade collusion, price fixing, contact with underworld gambling fixtures, and even carry suggestions of the dark shadows drug peddling and human trafficking.

“The people who did this are scum,” one unidentified league insider said. “There’s no other way to describe it.”

Shin Seiki General Manager Kevin Vail, who by rights should be off celebrating his team’s marvelous sweep of the Neo-Tokyo Cup, has apparently been leading the emergency sessions. As such, he addressed the media this morning.

“While our total response to this is still in works, I’m happy to report that we know the remaining franchises in the LRS are very strong, and while there is no good time to have something like this happen, we seem to have caught it at a moment that actually helps us make some of the very tough decisions we probably needed to make anyway. With that said, here are some things we know we are going to do.”

Vail went on to confirm that the league will definitely contract to eight teams, seven of which will be Shin Seiki, Niihama-shi, Neo-Tokyo, Lupin, Naha, Fushigi Yugi, and Edo. The eighth team is still in some discussion, though Vail said he expected to have that information within the next 24 hours. “All we know for certain is that Mark Kierstead, the GM of our Kuwanna franchise, has been contacted by the PEBA’s Charleston franchise, and has agreed to take on the management of that franchise. He’s obviously a great GM, and we’re going to miss him a lot. But we wish him well and thank him for his work during his time in our little brotherhood here in Japan.”

Once the last team is identified, the league will move into a comprehensive process to contract the four others.

“The contraction process is already in draft form and will be finalized very soon,” Vail said. “We’ll communicate again about it specifically in the next day or two, and to be honest we’re going to be open about changes that our 8 strong GMs might have along the way. The goal is to be quick, fair, and smart about it. But I can say without reservation that it’s obvious this process will result in LRS baseball that will be at a level of competition our outstanding fans have never before seen. I fully expect all eight of the franchises to come out of the contraction process fielding great talent, and the result should be exciting for fans everywhere.”

When asked if this process was a death knell for the league, Vail was quite animated.

“Not at all. In fact, while this is painful, it is probably the best thing that could have happened for us. It gives us a chance to work from a stronger core, and it helps us as we look at how to move into the future. The LRS has been growing in quality for several years. We think we can compete as a true global force, we think we can be a true major league on par with the PEBA over across the pond. As such, I think it’s safe to say that we’re planning to take a couple of obvious actions. First, we’ll expand our 35-man rosters to a more standard 40-man configuration, and second, we’ll relax our limitations on gaijin from four as it stands today to eight for the coming year.”

When asked about rumors that the LRS would merge with the PEBA, Vail was a bit more evasive.

“We’ve had contact with the PEBA, and they seem willing to work with us. It’s definitely an option that we’re working with, and I think it speaks well for the quality of play in our league that such a merger is even on the table. To be honest, though, our real goal is to keep the LRS as a stand-alone entity and maybe expand that into a bigger PEBA-like entity. Perhaps we could even meet PEBA champions for a true World Championship Series. But those are things we probably need to focus on after we get through the contraction process and have our feet underneath us. I want to thank the entire PEBA board for being here to help us, though. It’s a great comfort to know we have options that fill both our needs.”

So, yes fans and other followers of the LRS, it appears that baseball will be bigger and better than ever in 2020, and it appears (as one member of the PEBA board put it) that “there may just happen to be a phoenix that rises from these ashes.”

Only time will tell.