Blowing in the Wind 2058.3: Jacksonville's Direction in 2058

[aaronweiner]

The Bernie Stuart deal creates a pin in the Jacksonville 2058 season. The Hurricanes still have starters Bob Anderson, Juan Marroquin, and Gavrilovich Mastinsky, which would be enough pitching for anyone, but their spending this offseason was basically two players: Klaas Renders and 1B Mun-wah Hsu, who wasn't even invited to spring training. Mark Thomas is almost surely not marching out of free agency to save them this year. So what's the direction of the franchise?

"That's an interesting question," said GM Aaron Weiner. "We still have a ton of talent and a lot of experience, and we're a very dangerous team to meet on the field, but we're also definitely building something for the long-term."

Observers say there are really two ways to think about the Stuart deal. The first is a straight bailout deal after making a significant financial investment in their farm, but some people think that it might be the only move that Jacksonville makes.

"The Hurricanes needed to restore solvency after that deal and Stuart was the best way to do that. But they're still a competitive team after that deal - how many teams in the BBA had TWO aces? The Hurricanes did. They can still play ball, and now they have prospects and cap space - they could make some moves," said Roland Bear on his vlog, "Hurricane Watch."

The second is that the Stuart deal represents a clear sign that the team is rebuilding around Bob Anderson, catcher Luis Gonzales, and a rapidly improving farm, and according to a local editorial, there's more to the deal that we've noticed.

"You're not seeing the big picture on the Stuart deal," wrote Florida Times-Union writer Sheddis Cord. "It helps to think of the Stuart deal as a continuum: if you counted Renders as PART of the Stuart deal, and we really can't separate the two, then it's Renders and three more prospects for a legit #1 starter, which is a straight-up Godfather offer and the sort of thing rebuilding teams do."

Cord went on to discuss why he believes the Hurricanes are rebuilding:

"If you really look at this team you might notice it's put together with a lot of Scotch tape. Marroquin's opting out, Daniel Pepper's getting old, Donald Miller's probably this season away from retirement, they've figured out they can't count on Pedro Hozven, Luis Gonzales is a legitimate star but isn't an offensive anchor. I think they can shed about $30 million in salary and have almost $40 million in cap space without breaking a sweat much in 2059."

So what will Jacksonville do next? Considering their GM's history, the only thing we can probably count on at this point is that whatever Jacksonville does next, it won't be nothing. This might be a team in flux all year long.

"I'm not going to make any predictions, just do my job," said Weiner. "Whatever makes the most sense for the franchise, that's what we'll do."

https://statspl.us/brewster/reports/new ... eam_3.html

[trmmilwwi]

It should be a very interesting year in Jax!

[aaronweiner]

May I live in interesting times.