The Offseason Again....

[FuzzyRawley]

Offseason is here again for the Des Moines Kernels which means its time to see all which didn't work again for Des Moines this past season.

Once again, the offense was abysmal and the pitching plus defense was subpar.

The hope was that with Roberto Viramontas and the arrival of Felix 'Matchbox' Parreno that the Kernels would get an injection of OBP that would give their sluggers some baserunners to drive home. Alas, that was not the case, while Viramontas certainly was an improvement in that regard, the sluggers (mainly Norihisa 'Knuckles' Yokoyama and Chua-kah Yang) failed to take their queue and create more runs.

Parreno had to get sent down to AAA to recalibrate when it was apparent he was not ready for big league pitching. Brett White regressed mightily and was rewarded with a declined team option. 1B Juan Mateo stopped regressing but was shipped off to Nashville as part of the Butler/Viramontas/Clayton trade.

Speaking of that trade, Des Moines needed to balance the farm system with a better hitting prospect. Hence the willingness to ship C Dave Butler, Stephen Clayton, Mateo and Viramontas to Nashville in order to secure LF Hashim Makin. Throw in Pedro Mendoza and pitching prospect John Brown and it looks like the Kernels accomplished that. Whether it makes a difference in the next two seasons remains to be determined.

This upcoming season will likely be the same as the 20+ seasons before this. Des Moines will miss the playoffs but young players will arrive and their will be a glimmer of hope. On the hope front, Des Moines is finally free of some bad legacy contracts and was able to increase attendance in 2048 by 30%, which will help them on the free agent front. How they spend that modest amount of money remains to be determined, but the good thing about having a team that is bad at everything, is that the free agent market is easier cause you aren't just looking for one thing!

[Dington]

Gonna be interesting to see how this trade works out. Big flop for me so far. The BBA players I received sucked for me, but I'm hoping Clayton will be an ace.

[recte44]

Now 40 seasons and counting