Well, this season was needless to say an extreme disappointment. Despite the 3rd highest payroll in the majors with a whopping 106M budgeted, we failed to even make the playoffs. We did finish above .500 with a 84-78 record, but it was a rollercoaster of a season.
Going into the all-star break, we were approximately 10 games under .500 and sitting in either 3rd or 4th place. Than we made an awesome push, getting a solid record until we collapsed with about 25 games left in the season. We ended up finishing well, but it wasnt enough as both Iowa City and Little Rock had solid seasons of their own.
The main contributor to this season's downfall was the bullpen. It started out with
Closer Turner Witasick completely imploding, going 0-5 with 6 blown saves in only 21 opportunities, and earning himself a demotion. Before this season I was ready to declare Witasick as the lowest rated future hall of famer, but how quickly that has gone in the dumps, as now its a question of whether I even want to keep him around.
Apart from Witasick the rest of the bullpen was equally disappointing, blowing 23 saves altogether on the year (good for 2nd worst in the majors), and posting a pretty fat ERA. The starting rotation put up decent numbers though, with our big money investment
SP Herman Wood putting up Cy Young numbers, and with a little more run support prolly would have won it.
The offense was decent this year as well, although not near what I expected of it.
LF Erubiel Gonzales put together a great year, but sluggers
PT Torres and
Benito Barajas had really poor power numbers. Torres, after posting 35+ homers in 3 of his first 4 seasons, only hit 24 homers, which clearly showed in his RBI total as well (73?!) Barajas has also taken a power hit, posting only 23 homers/81 RBI after a 38 homer output in season 8.
There was some big trade news this season for us, with 2 seperate trades going down midseason, both of which Im still pretty happy with. The first was with the Fargo Woodchippers sending us
2B Gregory Phillips,
RP Billy Buhner, and
2B Prospect Dennis Harper in exchange for
CF Chad Rhodes and
SS Steven Bunch. Rhodes will be missed, but I believe I have a solid replacement for him at CF, with Enrique Contreras winning the CF Gold Glove this year. Steven Bunch I dont think will be a huge loss for the team despite being our 1st round pick in season 9. Now for what we got back... Gregory Phillips has been stronger than I had expected, posting a .310 average since joining the Bravos, but he will be demanding a pretty large contract in arbitration this offseason. Billy Buhner was a good filler and proved to be an integral part of our next trade, but demanding nearly 5 mill a year may prove to be a little too much for me to spend on a reliever. He did convert 24/25 save ops with the team. Dennis Harper is a very young 2B who is still up in the air for me, as he has a long way to go before he hits the majors. All in all, Phillips was a viable replacement for Rhodes, and Harper should be worth the risk.
In our second trade of the season with the Chicago Badasses, we sent
RP William Chen over there in return for
SS Henry Brinkley and
RP Eduardo Belliard. Chen had been a big part of the team in his first 4+ seasons with the team, eating up huge amounts of setup innings. Unfortunately though Chen never really lived up to the dominance I thought he would show (apart from season 9, great year) . So, with a hefty contract coming to him this offseason and our filler Billy Buhner acquired earlier, we sent Chen packing. Brinkley is a very interesting player to me, as his usefulness depends immensely on anywhere from 2-5 points in one rating category. If he can get them, he should be on my major league squad and hopefully be productive. If he doesnt, he may be a career minor leaguer. Only time will tell! Belliard is also a little strange, hes one of those players I dont really like due to his control, but I decided to take a chance on him. Definitely hasnt worked out so far, as Belliard has posted an abysmal 2-7 record with a 6.55 ERA. Ouch!
Still, the pieces are intact for this team to make a run next season, and with the acquisition of a couple prospects via trade (our draft and IFAs didnt go so well) and AA Cy Young winner
Miguel Rosales awaiting his inevitable call-up after posting a... 1.21 ERA in 29 starts. yea, 1.21!
