Fishermen Look Forward To 2024
Tuesday October 10th, 2023
Since GM Laverick left us to become the PEBA Commissioner and I assumed the mantle of Owner & GM I have maintained a media blackout as I become accustomed to the dual roles. Now I feel that the time is right to speak out on our 2023 season.
In 2023 we turned in our second straight losing season and our fourth overall. In fact we only have had eight winning seasons in our 17 year history, probably why we only have three post season appearances to our credit. The springs of recovery are showing though. We improved by four wins on our first season in Marseille and by 20 wins on our final season in Gloucester. Our fourth place finish in the division is our highest since 2019 and more importantly we turned a profit for the first time in four seasons. A four win improvement and a swing from a $23.3 million loss to a $6.6 million profit is a success as far as the Ownership board as concerned.
Clearly though you, the fans, aren’t as enthused as I am about that as we had 700,000 less through the gate than last year and our total of 2,267,802 is the lowest since our inaugural Gloucester season in 2007 when the PEBA first started up. This will addressed by the Board and I can announce that to reward your loyalty to the franchise we will be reducing our ticket price next year by $1 to $19.
I am pledging too to do my best to bring through more of our drafted players in future years. Last year two No.1 picks, 22-yr-old Clarence Carpenter (2019, 14th overall) and 24-yr-old Kelvin McDonald (2020, 14th overall), had their rookie seasons for the Fishermen and gave us hope for the coming years. Clarence stole 76 bases, more than anybody else in franchise history for a single season and the fourth highest single season total in PEBA history. He also added 185 hits and 21 homers with the bat while Kelvin’s 15 triples was five more in a single season than anybody has ever done for the franchise. Clarence went to the All Star Game too and picked up the IL Rookie of the Month Award for July. 3B Vern Duncan (2nd rd pick in 2020) and 1B John Story (5th rd pick in 2019) also got their first look at the PEBA and will be invited to Spring camp in 2024 to press their claims. We also have great hopes of our 2022 first & second picks, pitchers Eric Elliot and Tim Raymond, in the near future. Both have already worked their way to Double-A and are expected to start 2024 in Triple-A.
This is the way the franchise will go in future. We have had precious little success throughout the years with veteran pitchers brought in through free agency, none of the main starters this year turned in a winning record and only Justin Bracey did the previous year. You have to go back to 2020 till you find some sort of mediocre success for the rotation. So our 2024 draft will concentrate on trying to improve our pitching stock and hopefully within five years we can see a rotation largely made up of players that have come through our system.
It was a mixed year for our farm teams, Triple-A Beantown and A-ball Jackson Hole both made the post season. Beantown won the Division Series against Worcester 3-2 before falling 3-1 to Newport News in the Championship Series while Jackson Hole went through Nampa and Alexandria on the way to a 3-2 Series loss to Bismarck in the Free Trade Throwdown. Both Narragansett (AA) and Waimalu (A) are currently stuck in ruts were they swing from winning to losing and visa versa each season. More use will be made of our international complex too.
The first changes of the off season have already been made as manager Alberto Álvarez who failed to impress in his first year in Marseille has been sent to run our Triple-A team. Sojuro Kamihara who in six seasons in Beantown has produced four winning seasons and qualified for the post season on three occasions has been promoted to the Fishermen’s managers role. We will soon have details of the released list of players.