Santa Clarita Valley Journal | Vogelsang Agrees to Terms (55.30)

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Santa Clarita Valley Journal
Vicente Lamb, Stars Reporter
November 15, 2055

VALENCIA – Stars second baseman Prabhu Vogelsang accepted a team offer of $3.8M to play baseball for another year in Valencia. The thirty year-old middle infielder is coming off a disappointing year both for him as an individual and for the team as a whole. Vogelsang still has one more year of arbitration eligibility remaining. Relief pitcher Ernesto Sánchez was not offered arbitration by the team and became a free agent.

Parbhu will return to the club for the 2056 campaign despite reports of mutual antipathy between team and player, with Vogelsang complaining about lack of playing time and 'respect', and the team apparently unwilling to give significant playing time to a player carrying a 58 wRC+. The message from the club was that a spot in the starting lineup has to be earned with good production, and the message from the player was that without consistent time in the field and at-bats, he would never get up to speed.

It's a story often repeated throughout professional sports, and one that Stars fans have heard often over the years. The Valencia front office is one known for its 'but what have you done for me lately?' attitude when it comes to Stars players. Two years ago, Vogelsang was a valuable member of a successful team and playing time was not an issue. Last season, he could not put it together, and even saw some time in AAA to work out whatever was the matter with his approach at the plate. What we learned was that while he was quite capable of victimizing AAA pitching, he was helpless as a kitten in the bigs. Team officials were reportedly unhappy with his effort, believing that he didn't put in any meaningful work, and simply fell back on what worked against lesser competition.