2042 Des Moines: Fear and Loathing in the Frick Heartland

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2042 Des Moines: Fear and Loathing in the Frick Heartland

Post by HoosierVic » Fri Mar 27, 2020 1:36 pm

By Bill McGuffin
Asst. General Manager
Chicago Black Sox


We were somewhere around Pella when the drugs began to take hold. I remember saying something like, “I feel a bit lightheaded, maybe you should drive …” And suddenly, there was a terrible thwacking all around us and the sky was full of what looked like huge bats … baseball bats sprouting from leafy, green husks with mutant, smirking faces leering at us from beneath insipid red caps.

I swerved our Cadillac Escalade rental onto the shoulder of I-80, slammed on the brakes, and turned my red-rimmed eyes to gaze at my companion, private investigator Max Nash.

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“The bats … those damned bats … it means just one thing, Max. We’re close. I can smell the stench from here: Des Moines. The reek of imposters pretending to be hapless second-division hacks who rise up each season to feast on the festering carcass of Black Sox dreams.”

Max just nodded, his jaw slack at the sight of the hideous bats swooping against the Escalade windows. Had Sox GM Benny Vitale known what she was sending us into when she dispatched us to gather intel on the fetid cesspool of BBA “talent” known collectively as the Des Moines Kernels?

Perhaps. Perhaps, not. But Max and I have journeyed to the heart of darkness, we have feasted our eyes on the squalid killing fields of Patrick D. Tillman Memorial Park and learned what we could of our sworn enemies … I’ve been typing this since just after midnight, and now with the first rays of sunlight trying to claw their way through the bilious mists that shroud the Iowa hellscape, I pray that my mojo machine can summon a last spark of energy to throw this dispatch onto the interwebs before it wheezes to a final silence.

Starting Rotation

Isn’t this the alpha and omega of every discussion of the Kernels? Their cadre of young pitching talent poised to make a mockery of the Frick? There is Don Smith, the staff ace whose scout ratings – written in electric blue - burn through my soul: 75/80 overall; 9/9 stuff; 8/8 movement; 7/10 control; a scouting report that concludes “His explosive stuff has scouts dreaming. Smith is one of the premier pitchers in the league.” Dreams? Yes, fever dreams of dread … Press on, then, to Juan Garcia – one of two Juan Garcias on the roster, mocking my amphetamine-addled brain’s ability to keep them straight. This Juan Garcia grades to a 60/60 overall, with skill ratings of 6/7; 6/6; 7/7 and an arsenal of three plus pitches. He’s coming off a splendid season, where he went 13-7 with a 4.27 ERA and 3.1 WAR. Damn him … Absent, though, is Greg Palmer, a 6-4 flamethrower who would have been a fearsome #3 starter had he not torn the flexor tendon in his elbow. He’s on the injured list for at least 13 months, to the perverse satisfaction of Sox nation … Picking up the slack, though, will be Tsunesaburo Hashimoto, a 45/60 talent, who struggled in the majors last season, but will no doubt rise up to smite the Black Sox this year. In our drug-fueled, alcoholic haze, we can see him mowing down the boys in black pinstripes with his 101-mph, plus-plus fastball. It’s enough to make strong men weep … The balance of the rotation, alas for the demonic hordes who call themselves Kernels fans, does little to strike fear into the hearts of any opponent outside of the Chicago Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area. But the core is enough to give even the most hardened of division opponents pause – and an excuse to take up recreational hallucinogens as a diversion.

Bullpen

There is talent here, too, alas. Even a case of Wild Turkey can’t erase that from the alcohol-soaked folds of my cerebellum. Closer José Castro tried to fool us, with last season’s 6.67 ERA and 5.1 FIP, into forgetting that the collectivist scum known as the BBA Scouting Consortium rate his stuff as 9/9; his pitch movement as 7/7; and control as 8/8. His struggles of 2041 were a cruel hoax that no doubt will be unmasked as an unholy sham when the Sox visit the fire swamps of Iowa in mid-May only to be shut down by the ICBM that masquerades as his 8/8 sinker … then there is the other Juan García, who likewise threw up sham numbers last season, expecting us to believe he’ll repeat a 7.82 ERA, 5-11 record, and 6.06 FIP. The scouts plead patience as he develops his pitch profile, but we counsel reckless impatience in vain hopes that he will squander his 70 potential … Finally, we warn of Pedro Tañón, whose 10/10 fastball clocks in at 98-100 mph, and who threw more than 100 innings in 36 relief appearances and 7 starts a year ago … it’s a solid core of a pen that also features capable relievers Ron Gabriel and Francisco Rodriguez … my blood runs cold at the mere speculation …

Infield

Damn … just one more bottle of the Turkey left. How will I get through the horror show of the Des Moines infield with just one bottle? Start, if you must, with 22-year-old 1B Hector Cruz (60/70; 7/7; 6;7; 8/8; 5/6; 5/5), who had a down year in 2041 but is just one season removed from a .301/.371/.548 campaign in 2040. A solid spring performance (.286/.356/.519) gives us night sweats that he’s about to cast aside last year’s malaise in favor of stomping all over the cadaver of Black Sox playoff hopes … Our mescaline-fueled despair deepens as we consider 2B Angel De Castillo, a 70/70 talent who slashed .301/.380/.523 a year ago as he posted 4.0 WAR and justified the prodigious pile of free agent bucks the degenerates in the Des Moines front office shoveled at him to become a {{{shudder}}} Kernel … solid Alan Williamson returns as shortstop … where he’ll be joined by offseason acquisition Kiichi Suzuki, a 65/65 third baseman who slashed .290/.348/.556 as he pounded out 25 homers for Valencia last season … This group is the core of the Des Moines offense. Nash and I rooted around in the Iowa muck for days trying to find a weak link, and we failed miserably … the Wild Turkey is gone, damn it. Time to crack open the quart of Jose Cuervo tequila on the nightstand …

Outfield

Am I deluding myself? Lulling myself into a false sense of well-being as I look at the outfield corps and find myself unawed? CF Jorge Aranda is talented enough, to be sure: 55/60; 7/7; 7/8; 6/6; 3/3; 7/7 with speed to burn and reasonable defense … And RF Juan Santana put up respectable numbers last year, slashing .303/.330/.458, but his 0.4 WAR failed to impress … Just as I decide to smugly dismiss the Des Moines outfield as subpar, however, I glance at Lucio De La Cruz and my folly is laid bare: here is the team’s power source: a 65/65 talent with 10/10 HR power who crushed 46 homers last season while putting up 3.4 WAR … I find myself now with tequila dribbling down my chin, my teeth chattering in a pre-dawn chill. No, I tell myself. You shall find no solace here. Perhaps in the catching corps?

Catching

Ahh, yes. Sweet relief. The Kernels backstop duo of Marcus Forryan and Michael Dunn is serviceable but little more. Forryan is coming off a .243/.370/.333 season, while Dunn will be making his BBA debut unless Des Moines pulls a last-minute deal. Failing that disgraceful eventuality, I’ll summon visions of the catching unit for comfort if thoughts of the infield and pitching staff prove too much to bear.

Conclusion

Truth be told, I take little succor from the knowledge that the syphilitic gang of meth heads that pass for the BNN Analytics Department ate a sheet of blotter acid and then vomited up preseason predictions that have Des Moines going 65-97 … these are the same Boo-Hoos who also predicted that Black Sox middle reliever Frits Brinson would be one of the top pitchers in the Frick, going 17-5 with 187.2 innings pitched. Clearly, they’re in the grip of a psychotic episode that would qualify them as card-carrying members of the Manson Family.

So it falls to me – should this polemic ever make it back to the Black Sox front office and into the hands of our General Manager – to make sense of this hash.

No, I don’t believe Des Moines will be a playoff contender, or even especially good. But I don’t see them winning just 65 games, either. The demonic joy they’ll take from batting the Sox around like cheap cat toys says they’ll at least top 70 games.

Let’s go with 74-88 and a depressingly lopsided season series against the boys in black pinstripes.

Now pardon me as I watch Nash drool himself into catatonia and I curl into a fetal position here in this Days Inn on the outskirts of Iowa City. I don’t know whether we’ll make it back to the safety of Calumet City, but I do know this:

I’ll be forever haunted by the images of those hellish bats with the cornstalk handles, the human faces, and those damnable red ballcaps.

The horror. The horror.
Last edited by HoosierVic on Sat Mar 28, 2020 2:58 pm, edited 4 times in total.

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Re: 2042 Des Moines: Fear and Loathing in the Frick Heartland

Post by RonCo » Fri Mar 27, 2020 3:28 pm

Oh Hunter, my Hunter. You left us too soon.
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Re: 2042 Des Moines: Fear and Loathing in the Frick Heartland

Post by shoeless.db » Fri Mar 27, 2020 3:40 pm

Vic, this was just fantastic. Please write more in this style. I could read it all day.
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Re: 2042 Des Moines: Fear and Loathing in the Frick Heartland

Post by niles08 » Fri Mar 27, 2020 3:45 pm

This is really really good. Great writeup.
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Re: 2042 Des Moines: Fear and Loathing in the Frick Heartland

Post by CTBrewCrew » Sun Mar 29, 2020 8:36 am

Do me next!! Do me next!! After reading this its like “Damn...what the heck is wrong in Des Moines”. They've got some talent there
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