2044: Charlotte Cougars

[RonCo]

The scouts came out of Hungary this winter with a piece of news that 26-year-old pitcher Keijo Reini had undergone some kind of blood transfusion that left him with a bald streak from the middle of his forehead over the pate and to a strip down between his shoulders. Fans apparently got interested, which, I mean, who wouldn’t, right? When he arrived at spring training being carried on an ornamental litter by an entourage of twelve beefed up flunkies, well, that drew eyes, too. Then he went to the mound and went into a new motion that some have described as hypnotic and others have said reminds them of a shimmy-shake dance move from the roaring 20s.

The velo hadn’t changed a notch, but the ball danced and swooshed with a sound like a wounded fan in a wind tunnel. Batters double-took. Swung and missed. And boggled. One guy ducked away so hard he lost fillings he wasn’t due to get for another three years.

“What the hell is that?” one said.

“I’m not going up there,” another one added. “He can’t find the plate with it, and I ain’t hitting it. You won’t get me up there until the team doubles my life insurance policy.”

Whatever was in the mix of his trip back home this off-season resulted in a gathering of scouts from across the league in which the final assessment was that they had no idea what the hell had happened, but that Reini was now throwing with whatever pitchers are throwing when they point to that pitcher and say “15 Stuff.”

Oh, what’s that, you say? This is supposed to be a team preview? Um. Yeah. All right.


* * *

Here’s the thing: I don’t think the Cougars are going to be very good, but I could be wrong.

Out of the Park’s tracker says that the Cougars lost .8 of a WAR this off season, and a check of the old history books says that they won 57 games last year. It’s been awhile since I’ve done high powered multi-dimensional math, but those two ideas don’t seem to add up to anything that a Cougar fan would get his heart going all pitter patter over.

Yes, the rotation is going to get a full season of young Ashton Brooks, and that should be a good thing. He went 6-3 with a 1.27 ERA in his brief debut. And Adergazoz Ouakili, who I still miss in Yellow Springs, has turned into a real starter it seems. Guilermo Sanchez is 23 now, and at 22 looked like maybe he finally caught onto a little fire. Perhaps you could throw Reini and his new Hungarian spellworked repertoire into the mix, or maybe you hold him out into one of those super-bullpen roles. Dunno. But either way you come up at least one pitcher short.

The bullpen may actually take a step up, though.

Bringing Bob Coleman in seems like a nice enough thing for GM Brett Golden to have done. And Luis Gonzalez at 28 should still be a solid guy in high leverage situations. Joaquin Romano should eat some fair enough innings. After that, though, you get a lot of guys with holes—and while a pen can get away with hiding a couple of those kinds of players, well, there’s hiding and there’s hiding.

Overall Pitching:

The Cougars have a couple interesting arms, but it’s a team that seems to be looking for the last couple pieces. They would almost certainly love first round pick Warren Moore to find the magic in AAA, and will likely be pressed to push him, but I don’t think he’s an answer in 2044.

Charlotte’s 4.31 team ERA ranked 13th in the Johnson League last year. I can’t see this roster as being deep enough to improve very much on that.


Position Players:

Offensively, Cougar fans really have to focus on the idea of slow and steady wins the race. You’re not going to find a lot of superstars in the Charlotte lineup, but there are guys who can play.

You’ve got to like the future of young clubber Andrew Gallagher, but at 22 I’m wondering if he was rushed a bit last year. His .767 OPS played a bit, but one ponders if a full season in Richmond AAA would have served both him and the team better. Not that Gallagher will be a Stinson, but when you look at how San Antonio timed Stinson's promotion, you can see the value of waiting.

At first and second base the team will feature two guys they got from Yellow Springs in the Dave Lee deal, Cesar Torres will get a full season to prove his solid numbers late last year weren’t a fluke, and Roberto Viramotas is likely to bounce back from a bit of a difficult season last year. Both are solid players. Rashardo Menne at third is … well … he’s deeply overpaid to begin with. I’d guess he’ll platoon with Ira Sanchez, who was signed away from Long Beach in another decent little off-season move. At 23, Jeremy Webb is probably going to be handed the starting role at shortstop. He can handle the field, but likely isn’t elite enough to overcome the hole his bat will provide. That said, Webb’s bat is the best of the mix.

Bottom line, throw in catchers Alfonso Jareno and Lorenzo Torres and you get the feeling this is an infield that going to be better than you think—but mostly because you won’t think much of it.

In the outfield Niccolo Machiavelli is still something close to an elite center fielder, though his numbers have fallen off since his halcyon days of winning Zimmer awards. My guess is he’ll platoon with young Vinnie Coalman, who has speed to burn, can play solid enough defense, and actually hits RHP a bit. Fernando Reyes will play left field against RHP, and probably be sent on tour whenever a leftie hits the mound. I’d expect a platoon with Bobby Horne or Mark White, whichever doesn’t start in RF.

I’m torn on the outfield, really. The fact is that I love these kinds of players, but the mix at the corners is hard to get full value out of. So I’m intrigued. The real problem is that platoon pieces need the whole thing to be working well in order to make it happen, and I’m thinking the Cougs are one LHB away from the gear-set they need to make the process run smoothlike.


Overall Offense

There are some good players here, but when I look at the collective I come away thinking the Cougars will be a team that will wind up being less than the sum of their parts—mostly because this team is in dire, dire need of a big bopper or two to fuel the power station. Gallagher reaching his full power would help. Same with Torres. If they both step into their swings (see what I did there!) by June or July, this could be a team that turns up the dial, but betting on two guys to do this at the same time is too rich of a gamble for my blood.

The team scored 588 runs last year, 14th in a Johnson League that averaged 694.

It’s a young team, though, and I think there’s room for a serious step-up. Let’s say 640 or 650, which would be a 50-60 run bump, and if my pretend math is right, that would lead to between 5 and 6 more wins in 2044.


So, the Prediction?

Let’s go with six more wins from the offense, and be perhaps generous and say Brooks makes a 2-run value chain on the mound. So eight more wins, or 64-98, which, to be clear, would be a new record and a step forward in Charlotte.

[HoosierVic]

Well done, sir. Reini will bear watching ... and reverse engineering!

[GoldenOne]

I re-signed Aaron Stoneand his 2.2 WAR. And he's bumped since last season too. He's not much for defense but Jareno is there for defense and isnt horrible with his bat.

And of the WAR that we lost for Pagan (3.4), we're only counting 1.8 of that cause that's what he had for the Cougars after the trade.

Brooks will start the season on the IL and miss a couple of weeks.

And you forgot about Emilio Brazini. He missed a total of 2 months last season so if he stays moderately healthy, he should have more than 1.0 WAR. He had a 3.45 ERA and 1.04 WHIP in 130 innings. He'll get stretched out a little more with that 12 stamina.

Also a little excited about Rule 5 guy Bob Irwin.

I havent been a big fan of platoons since joining the BBA but felt it was cheaper than signing the big names.

We're giving up a little of the traditional Charlotte focus on defense in the hopes of finding more offense. And, a lot of depth down in AAA when that injury bug starts to hit.

[RonCo]

Good points. Irwin is going to struggle defensively, but he's an interesting rule 5.

[GoldenOne]

Good points. Irwin is going to struggle defensively, but he's an interesting rule 5.

Yeah, but as we have seen/heard/smelled, etc., Charlotte needs some offense.

[CTBrewCrew]

Nice review

[GoldenOne]

Ron - feel free to re-write the intro on Reini now that we've moved to real ratings and he's an 18 Stuff.

Less than half the guys mentioned above were on the team at the end of the year, whether they were down in AAA or traded or just outright released. And, we still managed 7 more wins than predicted.

Let's see what kind of moves we can make this offseason to bring us a few more wins and sneak up on maybe going .500!