YS 24.47 - Yellow Springs Sees More Pruning

[RonCo]

The club announced today that relief pitchers Mike Hibbard and Marvin Reed would be returning to the Yellow Springs clubhouse next season. Neither come as a great surprise, as they have been indicating an interest in seeing what they were worth on the open market for some time. Both were given their formal release earlier today.

At 33, Hibbard (7/7/6) has been in the MBBA for considerable time, but struggled in Yellow Springs, posting a 1-5 record and a difficult 4.46 ERA. "He was a star in the clubhouse, man," one player who wanted to remain anonymous said. "This was a tough, tough, year, but he made things fun most of the time. I mean, the day he tied coach K's cleats together just before he went out to turn in the lineups was freakin' classic."

Reed (6/7/7), too, struggled, throwing 60 innings of 4.65 ERA baseball. At 37, some suggest he's lost more than a few inches off his fastball and that this makes his change-up less effective. If so, one wonders if he may be heading to Europe sometime soon.

FLAGSTAFF COACHING RANKS CONTINUE TO GO ROUND AND ROUND

In addition, the club announced that longtime AAA Flagstaff manager Hartmut Farber has deided to retire. "We're sorry to see Hartmut leave," said GM RonCo, "but the guy's gettting to the golden years of his life, and he deserves every chance to enjoy himself." The team recently sent Farber and his wife of 42 years on an all-expenses paid tour of the Painted Desert in celebration of his time with the organization. "We're sentimental like that," RonCo tweeted.

And finally, pitching coach Jim Miller ran out his contract rather than resign with the club. He was making some ridiculous number--like $1.6M or something, so let's get serious, right? No way he could expect the club to fork over that kind of feed.

The Yellow Springs front office has already announced the promotion of manager Gary Adames and pitching coach [url=http://baseballretrospective.com/MBBA/O ... _2032.html]Mario Soto[/url] from AA Santa Cruz to fill those slots, and said they will begin a search for replacements at the AA level.