2058.1 - The Rundown, Castroville (RL)

[Rubaboo]

2058 Record: 30-38, 3rd Place, SNL Waves of Grain Division
Playoffs: Missed, 8th consecutive season

Offensive Recap:
The Artichokes offense played out like an offense in the Mexico City system typically does - the team's strongest categories on offense were centered around batting average, OBP, hits and avoiding strikeouts. The entire offensive picture, however, was less rosy overall. The team ranked in the bottom half of the league overall and struggled to score runs. Years of a front office preference for drafting pitchers makes it tough sledding for a lineup that needs to be carried by just a couple of high-performing players.

Pitching Recap:
The staff was loaded with low-ceiling draftees, mostly fresh out of high school. Only 6 players over 20 made an appearance on the mound for Castroville and their inexperience really showed as the staff as a whole struggled to adjust to playing against professional hitters. Despite a good defensive effort behind them (3rd in BABIP), the Artichokes staff ranked better than 9th in only one category, opponent average, where they ranked 6th.

Hitter of the Season:
1B Caius Dragan
Look, all due respect to the season that Martin Bautista put together but you would expect a player in his 3rd year of rookie ball to be productive and Dragan growing into his potential a bit is very exciting for the Aztec front office. Dragan slashed /323/.376/.459 for the season, his second in Castroville. He started slow but dominated in July, earning two player of the week awards and taking the player of the month award as well. The average and OBP are promising signs for the young Romanian, the Mexico City brass will be hoping he can handle the jump up to SA and show a bit of his power potential next season.

Pitcher of the Season:
SP Su-chang Ch'on
The soft tossing lefty had a successful season, his second in Castroville, despite his numbers being slightly worse than his previous season. He managed to avoid the shoulder and elbow injuries that plagued him on and off during his first professional season and put together a solid season. In 13 starts, he posted a 2-2 record with a 3.15 ERA, almost matching his 3.21 FIP. He struck out 41 against 11 walks in 65.2 innings. All of this earned him a ERA+ of 126. Perhaps more exciting that his numbers though is the fact that he seemed to find another gear on his pitches, bumping his stuff from 4 to 5. The Aztec front office will be working to stretch him out so he can pitch longer into games and continue to work on his arm strength over the winter and will hope he can hit SA ready to hold down a rotation slot.

GM's Take:
All in all, a solid enough year from a team that was stocked with players who probably shouldn't be playing professional ball yet. Dragan's development is the main thing here. He played well after struggling last year which is reassuring. The defensive effort was also nice to see. We've got a definite lack of capable middle players throughout our system so seeing guys like Reddick and Takeda hold their own a bit is encouraging. Pitching side is a bit disappointing but it was likely always going to be a bit ugly with a staff this raw. A good chunk of these guys should still be high school juniors somewhere so the fact that they didn't completely embarrass themselves probably needs to just be good enough. Someone needs to call out Yasin Numair, I was hoping for better out of him than I got. Probably unfairly, as he is still a 4/2/2 rated 18 year old. I didn't know Castroville has been on such a long streak of missing the playoffs until I checked for this. For a GM that spends a fair amount of BBA brain space on the minor leagues and development, this is a startling revelation. Probably coincides with my first round pick being in the late 20s for a handful of years here, which is a trade I'll take I suppose.