Trail Droppings 2033-2 Season Comes to Disappointing End

GM: Kevin Dickson

Moderator: indiansfan

User avatar
indiansfan
BBA GM
Posts: 3432
Joined: Sat Mar 24, 2012 7:39 pm
Has thanked: 12 times
Been thanked: 239 times

Trail Droppings 2033-2 Season Comes to Disappointing End

Post by indiansfan » Sun Feb 04, 2018 9:08 pm

Disappointing End to a Disappointing Season

The Calgary Pioneers missed out on making the playoffs by one game. Despite winning three out of four from Omaha in their final series, the Pioneers finished one game behind Madison for the final wild card spot. Last season Calgary took the last wild card spot and rode it to the final four. The team finished this year 86-76.

“I thought we had a shot, but we just had too many injuries down the stretch,” said manager Terry Cochran. “And that deal hamstrung us, because I couldn’t bring up anyone from AAA to fill in the holes!”

Cochran was referring to the late season deal with Huntsville that brought in pitcher Felipe Baez. It was expected that Baez would start for injured Pioneer Milburn Pennybags, but he spent the last month in the bullpen. The deal put the team briefly over the salary cap and left them with no room to bring up minor leaguers in September when they had Mario Soriano, Bilbo Baggins, Dan Leonard and Jake Dickson all nursing injuries, along with the loss of Mario Balderas.

After pulling into the playoff hunt with a 17-10 record in August, the team only managed to go 14-13 in September while other teams moved ahead. At one point the team was only 1 game out of the Frick Pacific lead before finishing 5 back. It is doubtful, with all the injuries, that the team would have advanced even if they made the playoffs.

The team did have some interesting accomplishments this year. With Juan Karyabwite stealing 99 bases (new team record) and Mario Soriano grabbing another 71, the team set a team record with 347 stolen bases in a season. This breaks last year’s record of 319. The third best year was 220, further evidence that something weird is going on in the BBA on the base paths. The team had it’s fourth best season with 47 triples, the top four have all come in the last four years. A surprising stat was the team posting the second most saves in club history with 54, only bested by 60 in 2000. The 2000 team won a club record 111 games, 25 more than this year.

While the team missed the playoffs, for only the second time in eight seasons, at least they once again posted a winning mark. Only once in the last nineteen seasons has the team finished below .500. That has to be close to a league record, may be something to look in to. However during that time the team has only managed 2 championships, the last in 2021. In the last twelve years the team has only hit the 90 win mark twice, so a lot of winning years, but not many dominant ones. This off season one of the decisions needs to be whether or not the team tries to make a couple of moves to bring it 5-10 more wins, or jettisons the vets and does a more significant rebuild.
Kevin

Image
Calgary Pioneers 2004-
BBA Landis Champs 2018, 21
FL Champs 2018, 21, 39
FL Pacific Champs: 2016, 19, 21, 34
FL Frontier Champs 2039
FL WC 2018, 26-29, 31-32, 35
JL WC 2040, 41, 44
FL MOY 2019, 34
JL MOY 2044

Return to “Calgary Pioneers”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 7 guests