The Sunny Side 2018.1: The More Things Stay the Same
Posted: Tue Nov 25, 2014 11:20 am
The Sunny Side
1 March, 2018
Marquette, MI
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Strange things happen in baseball. It's one of the things fans love most about the sport. Things don't get much stranger than a GM resigning at the end of one season and being re-hired by the same franchise halfway through the next. But that's where the Marquette Suns stood in 2017 as they welcomed back the losingest GM in MBWBA history in Ben Teague.
We know how that went over with the city and fans. A long-suffering, small group of folks who couldn't care less realized that, no, they actually could care a bit less. As for Teague, who has made no public appearances since re-accepting the position partly because there's a ton of work to be done behind the scenes and partly from just plain common sense, had this to say via e-mail:
"To be honest, not much had changed. Not even the pictures on my wall and certainly not the furniture. We still had one of the worst minor league systems in baseball, a mid-rotation workhorse in Dan-sing Nancies (6/8/7 Ratings, 82 - 86, 4.46 ERA, 1.44 WHIP, 735 K) masquerading as our staff's ace, a serviceable setup man, Paul Mullins (8/6/8 Ratings, 28 - 34, 4.68 ERA, 1.36 WHIP, 488 K) , closing whatever games could get to him from a Yahtzee bullpen, and potentially one of the best players in the league, CF Leon Sandcastle (10/7/7/7/6 Ratings, .328/.395/.499, 17 HR, 70 RBI) , surrounded by a watertight defense but overpaid and under-performing lineup.
One thing that had changed, and it was huge to me, was that somewhere in the offseason between 2016/2017 the franchise had gone back into the red financially. Not a little disheartening after all my deals before I left that were aimed mainly at securing cash. So, we sat back in the familiar position - familiar to me and the Suns - of both being terrible and not being able to do a thing about it (with no money for extensions or free agents). Oh yeah, and the 2016 amateur draft was bungled beyond measure with only 18yo SP Natsume Tsuchiya (3/5/2 Ratings) even worth an offer. So, yeah, a lot of work to do again and still no light on the horizon."
1 March, 2018
Marquette, MI
**********************************
Strange things happen in baseball. It's one of the things fans love most about the sport. Things don't get much stranger than a GM resigning at the end of one season and being re-hired by the same franchise halfway through the next. But that's where the Marquette Suns stood in 2017 as they welcomed back the losingest GM in MBWBA history in Ben Teague.
We know how that went over with the city and fans. A long-suffering, small group of folks who couldn't care less realized that, no, they actually could care a bit less. As for Teague, who has made no public appearances since re-accepting the position partly because there's a ton of work to be done behind the scenes and partly from just plain common sense, had this to say via e-mail:
"To be honest, not much had changed. Not even the pictures on my wall and certainly not the furniture. We still had one of the worst minor league systems in baseball, a mid-rotation workhorse in Dan-sing Nancies (6/8/7 Ratings, 82 - 86, 4.46 ERA, 1.44 WHIP, 735 K) masquerading as our staff's ace, a serviceable setup man, Paul Mullins (8/6/8 Ratings, 28 - 34, 4.68 ERA, 1.36 WHIP, 488 K) , closing whatever games could get to him from a Yahtzee bullpen, and potentially one of the best players in the league, CF Leon Sandcastle (10/7/7/7/6 Ratings, .328/.395/.499, 17 HR, 70 RBI) , surrounded by a watertight defense but overpaid and under-performing lineup.
One thing that had changed, and it was huge to me, was that somewhere in the offseason between 2016/2017 the franchise had gone back into the red financially. Not a little disheartening after all my deals before I left that were aimed mainly at securing cash. So, we sat back in the familiar position - familiar to me and the Suns - of both being terrible and not being able to do a thing about it (with no money for extensions or free agents). Oh yeah, and the 2016 amateur draft was bungled beyond measure with only 18yo SP Natsume Tsuchiya (3/5/2 Ratings) even worth an offer. So, yeah, a lot of work to do again and still no light on the horizon."