2047 Metro Stars Insider - Spring Edition

[DaveB]

Greetings fans of the 2046 UMEBA champion Mumbai Metro Stars. As we get closer to opening day and try for a 3 peat we're going to look into some of the development's in Spring Training this year:

Juan Hernandez, the Swiss Army Knife
Outfielder Juan Hernandez is getting a crash course this spring on the ins and outs of the infield. An outfielder during his entire professional career manager Gula Afiba reportedly asked Hernandez to come to spring training prepared to learn some infield. Management wants positional flexibility all around the field to prepare for possible injuries during the season. Hernandez is being asked to learn second and first base while William Drew, Matthew Hewet, Weaver Ripley and Frank Mahaffey are learning additional positions as well. Afiba was asked in the first press conference this year about players learning new positions and said he's "Hoping they don't have to play the new spots, but it's always good to be ready in a pinch."

Who's the lefty in the pen?
With Vincente Ventura being allowed to walk into free agency a big part of the puzzle for the pitching staff is going to be who is going to handle the role of left handed pitcher or pitches in the bullpen this year. Along with Ventura, Jaime Torres handled that role last year. Torres is expected to continue in that role after the solid 107 ERA+ he posted last year. Afiba said he's not sure if they'll fill the other role. "Well we're going to probably start the season with 5 right handed pitchers in the rotation so it would be nice to have 2 guys who throw left handed coming out of the pen to help neutralize the enemies pieces, but I think we have a strong stable to relievers batting it out where we might not need that second lefty. Outside of Sked and Grenfell we have Nicto, Dickerson, Torres, Ramierez, Gallacher D'Antonio, and Phillips as very solid UMEBA options. We're also excited about the possibilities of Alexis Bonnin. One this is certain we're in a lot better place than opening day 2046 in terms of depth."

[RonCo]

Happy to follow Ventura. Sorry to see him out of a job--though at 39, it looks like he could still get a tough lefty out.