The start of the off season
It was all change at the top for the Red Crescents as the contracts of manager James Pickford and my Assistant GM Saeed Gichki weren’t renewed. The franchise were fairly open to negotiating extensions for the pair, but in the club’s opinion their demands were too much for the season’s work they had just produced. So, they were reluctantly let go and now the Front Office have just announced their replacements.
54-yr-old Egyptian Abdul-Wahhab Farooq will be the new manager, he joins on a three year, $2.7m deal. His last job was Pitching Coach at the Des Moines Triple-A affiliate, El Paso Bloodhounds where the team went 98-190 during his tenure; Riyadh hope that his good handling of veterans will help as will his excellent influence on mechanics. My new Assistant GM will be 46-yr-old Venezuelan Norberto Pacheco who signed a three year deal worth 900k. Pacheco had previously had two years as manager of A ball Level Ho chi Minh in the Far East Baseball League where his record had been two winning seasons with a 148-132 overall.
We have also signed 24 minor league free agent in the first week of free agency. We haven’t a single cent, penny or Halalah to rub together so this will be the only kind of business we will be doing before the start of the 2048 season. We still have MiL contracts out to several players and will continue to look for players to solidify our farm system and maybe sneak onto the 40-man roster. It is not expected that all of them will still be in the farm system by the time 2048 Opening Day rolls round, we already have a good dozen or so over the roster limits, but the best will survive. One of the survivors will be 22-yr-old Bill Baxter who will start 2048 in Double-A Santiago. He has been installed as the #8 prospect in the Riyadh minors; he was a 2042 6th round draft pick of Istanbul and has also played in the Athens & Baghdad systems as well. The highest level he has played at so far is A ball where he has made 374 appearances in the Far East Baseball League.