Breaking Camp in 2038 (2038-6)

[Fat Nige]

March 31st, 2038

In the end it was a pretty much standard Spring Training for Louisville, 15-13 was right around where they normally end up. The most exciting thing was they looked like they were going to get out of the month without any serious injuries but then the baseball Gods bit us halfway through. Our centrefield corps was pretty mediocre at best but when Abay Omoruyi tore the meniscus in his knee it took a big hit. It’s likely to be September at the very earliest before he’s back on the field. That gave Maximo Quezada and Phil Dand automatic roster spots as the only two CF’s we now have available. I might have my heads in my hands at the thought of how low their batting average can be but Phil Dand is overjoyed at breaking camp with his first BBA team.

Position battles really faded out for the hitters, everyone from 2037 got their place back and Jose Vela, picked up as a minor league free agent broke camp with the Sluggers as expected and will collect a league minimum contract. He did enough in March to suggest that he may well be challenging for a few starting AB’s this year as well. The pitching staff was as much a mess as expected. Kevin Morales will start his first season in three not on the DL, he got very few reps to ensure that. Louisville seriously looked at trading the young ace and floated his name around the trade blocks but after receiving several offers felt that none of them really came close to compensating the team for the loss of their ace at a young 26-yrs-old. One offer was reasonably close until we read the fine print and discovered the team wanted up & coming superstar (well, superstar for Louisville) 20-yr-old shortstop Joey O’Brien. That certainly wasn’t happening. There was a few nice CF pieces that we could have done with thanks to Abay’s injury but the general feeling around the front office was that only medium level pieces were being offered and although we could have spent ages knocking all the offers back & fore it would never get to the level where we could replace the loss of the team’s best pitcher. We explained all this to Kevin, and he was happy in the end to sign a very team-friendly five-year deal to secure his future here. Newly arrived Ken Bates locked up the #3 spot in the rotation, but the back of the rotation was a real mess. In the end we slotted Carlos Guzman in at #4 in recognition of his 2037 work as a Rule V draftee and handed Sean Gardner his first BBA full-time rotation spot as the best of the worst. Our one FA signing, Fabiano Perrolas, comfortably made the bullpen and despite Carlos Rosa’s poor showing in his first action since last April’s UCL injury we handed him a bullpen spot. Ignacio Castaneda built on last year’s late September callup and earned his first proper bullpen job while all the regular faces were back.

All in all it didn’t fill you with a lot of confidence that the Sluggers would improve on last year’s 69-93, but the fans were still hopeful as season plan sales were only 134 short of last season’s total. If Morales could stay healthy and remember the ace he was, if Bates & Perrolas really were an upgrade and if Rosa could recapture his form, we could have the pitching to improve a bit. Then it just needed the hitters to pop the 170+ balls over the fences that they did in 2037 and perhaps we could be closer to a .500 season?