2051.5

[bschr682]

GM: " Alright I've got a few drinks in me and have settled my nerves a bit. So lets dig in. What the hell happened? "

Sullivan: " Well broadly speaking. The team choked in a colossal fashion. As of Aug 11 the Mounties were 65-51. The team was solidly in a playoff spot. Pitching well and at times crushing teams to death with multi-homer games. We finished the last month and a half of the season by going 14-32. That is ludicrously bad and honestly I'm a little surprised you weren't fired for it. Not that I blame you or anything but usually with these collapse scenarios someone's head has to roll. "

GM: " I'm as surprised as you are Ms. Sullivan. Truth be told I had started packing my office going into that last series with Portland and after the sweep I was already looking to lineup interviews for other jobs. At this point I just assume our owner isn't even paying attention. But at any rate I'll continue to do my job so lets dig a little deeper. "

Charron: " Even with the collapse the offense did still finish 1st in homeruns but the margin shrunk. Dead last in batting average looks awful but can be overcome. Dead last in OBP however is not as easy to overcome. Strikeouts were high but fairly middle of the pack. The real problem was just a pathetically small number of hits. The ball was put in play fine but it didn't generate the number of hits and runs that you'd expect. "

GM: " Yep Guy, I'd have to agree. There were some fairly obvious culprits too. Mike Galloway was brought in to stabilize the 3B spot. That failed in spectacular fashion. He is gone and not a moment too soon. Carlos Arroyo had shown some significant improvement in 2050 but he slumped real hard this season. We did have some good performances that normally would balance that out. Like how about Gilberto Villanueva? Picked up off the scrap heap and he flat out raked for us. Injuries surely didn't help our cause though. Luis Pena was in and out which put a damper on the SS position but Andrew Wright was probably the biggest loss. He was neck and neck with Cesar Feliciana in homeruns for awhile and having them both would have done absolute wonders for the offense. But it definitely wasn't only the offense that failed us. "

Renfork: " Exactly. Pitching has been a strength the last few years and this season started that way too except for Phil Cole. He was pretty atrocious for awhile. Bounced back as the season ended but it was far too late by then. The rest of the staff had collapsed. 5th in pitching ERA looks good on paper especially considering how easy it is to give up homers here but that isn't the full story. The bullpen had its struggles but eventually found its groove and wound up 3rd. Perfectly acceptable. It was the rotation that killed us. The Cole thing really hurt but losing Carlos Silva for the most of the year had knock on effects that we just couldn't overcome. Sam Fisher just plain got beat all year long. It was clearly too soon for him to be up but again injuries forced the issue. If you want to zoom in on a stat that needs fixing, its team strikeouts. We finished 13th. Thats far too low. "

GM: "Couldn't have said it better myself Niles. We fully expect some of the poor performers like Phil Cole to bounce back next year but whether is that enough? We aren't sure yet. We are keeping all options on the table as we do have significant cap space to address these issues."

Jenkins: "Llllleeeeerrrrroooooooyyyyy Jjjjjeeeennnnkkkkiiiinnnnnnssss!"

GM: " Yes Leroy I haven't forgotten. Its bad enough how many injuries we dealt with at the big league level but wow did our minor league system get obliterated. Every player down there that was considered a decent prospect to start the year spent time on the IL. It was insane. A few of them are already lost for all of next year too. What can we even do about that? I guess maybe we need to make some changes on the training staffs? I'm still stunned at how bad it got. Ok I can't talk about this anymore. Its making me sick in the stomach. I'll catch up with you guys in a few days and we can start looking forward to next year. "