That's What Cheesehead - 01.09 - Spring News and Notes 2

[7teen]

Let's recap how the the entire spring broke down for the Wolves...

- The Wolves completed the spring at 18-6. Tying them with the Calgary Marauders for the best record in the MBBA and 2 games clear of Omaha for the best record in the Johnson League.

- The Wolves beat Phoenix 5-4 in their 2nd spring matchup. The Wolves went 2-0 versus Phoenix in the spring. Just sayin'.

- Bolt Vanderhugen hit 5 homeruns and drove in 16 RBI to lead the team for the entire spring. The organization is hopeful that Bolt can stay healthy for the entire season and continue his march towards 400 career homeruns.

- Bopper Kengos was injured during the final spring training week. He is expected to miss up to 3 weeks. This loss of Kengos will definetly hurt the Wolves early on the season. Hopefully the club has enough offensive fire power to make up for Bopper's loss early on.

- Charles Puckett, straight off of his Sawyer Silk Award last season, hit .333/.431/.524 for the spring. That should put him on pace to contend for the award yet again.

- We had plenty of youngsters who won't make the 25-man roster out of spring step up and show they can perform at this level. Ovidio Elizalde hit .316/.409/.711 with 4 homeruns and 7 RBI in 38 at-bats. David Johnston hit .500/.552/.654 in 26 at-bats. Cedric Ayers pitched 2.1 scoreless innings of relief. Moises Rentas pitched 3 scoreless innings of relief. Celes Aranda pitched 5.1 scoreless innings of relief. That's a combined 10.2 scoreless relief innings from 3 pitchers likely destined for Triple-A to start the season.

- Jessie Wright had an ugly spring, going 2-2 with a 9.75 ERA.

- Rule V pickup Harold Crothers had the best spring for our starting pitchers, going 3-0 with a 2.25 ERA.

- Justin Marco recorded 7 spring saves in 10 appearances.

- Frank Bateman, our first attempt at a reliever conversion, logged 18.3 relief innings this spring and posted a 2.95 ERA and struck out 26 with a 0.93 WHIP. It will be hard to ignore those numbers when trimming the roster down to 25.

Overall, it was an extremely positive spring for the Wolves who now head north to defend their JL Midwest title. Aside from the minor injuries to Kengos this sim, and Bostic last sim, the Wolves will move North with a full, healthy squad. Fans are optimistic yet again that this is the year the Wolves win the title!

[KCCardinalFan]

Crothers had a great spring, but the lack of a strong third pitch has to be of some concern. Should at least be a very effective bullpen arm. Nice pick!