The Vancouver Mounties.“Vancouver sucks loud;
baseball softens every blow—
hot dogs never judge.”
A haiku. That’s all I’ve got. I’m out…..
..Okay, I’ve been told I need to include more to get any credit, so here goes.
The Vancouver Mounties. It’s hard to call them a playoff mainstay as they tend to make the playoffs more on an every-other-year basis. But they have been doing it for about a decade and that is a good record compared to some teams that haven’t made it once in the last decade. Last year was a little different though. In the last ten years the Mounties had made the playoffs as a wild card team each time. Last year, they won the Pacific Division outright, going 96-66 and finishing with a solid ten game lead.
Vancouver won with the tried-and-true pitching and defense method. But mostly the pitching The Mounties had the best ERA in the whole of the BBA at 3.47, kept the ball in the park, the defense was better than average if not elite like the other division leaders, and they hit just well enough to keep opposing pitchers honest.
What will they look like this year. Well, Canadian. So they will look appropriately sheepish and apologetic when not waving to people they never met in the streets. That is, of course, when they are not tossing looneys (Canadian dollar coins) at strippers. Vancouver has a lot of great strip clubs. Not that I would know anything about that.
Catcher: When you are building a team by the numbers one of the first spots you want to fill is behind the plate. You want a catcher who can throw out baserunners, block the plate and handle pitchers. Hitting is often considered a bonus. Rhys Atticus is the textbook catcher in this plan. While Atticus is pretty hopeless with the bat, hitting just .219 with six homers, his defense is super solid behind the plate with just two passed balls, a 27% rate of gunning down base stealers and a 14+ Frame rate which is one small contributor to that BBA leading staff ERA. I expect Atticus will do the same this year. Call a great game, blo0ck everything in the dirt and not hit. Mitchell Goater, who must really have a fan in GM Aaron Wharram, as Whitman not only drafted Goater in the first round back in 2059, but traded him away in the deal that brought Atticus to Vancouver and then traded to get him back six months later!
Infield: Vancouver made a couple of fairly big moves in the offseason, trading away Dirk Bessi to Las Vegas and dealing for Denes Terovolas. Terovolas brings a powerful bat to the Vancouver lineup. Something they do not have many of. But there is an injury risk as Terovolas missed time with four different injuries last year and spent at least a month on the IL last year. If Terovolas stays healthy, he is a threat to hit 20+ homers, if he does not stay healthy, expect some guy named Fadeuka Hadonov to play 3B or a Bond villain. I’m not sure which at this point. Hadonov is a good dub to have off the bench who can play all four infield positions well and won’t embarrass you at the plate. Richard Vernon, acquired late in the 2064 season from Cape Fear, will hold the heart of the order together and play 2B. Vernon is a solid veteran at 29 with a lifetime average of .303 over the last nine years. Nobody ducks when he hits a line drive as he has averaged just two homers a season, but he has a habit of finding the holes and with a .390 lifetime on base percentage, he will do a good job getting on base in front of your cleanup hitter. At 1B Carlos Colón will get the nod. He is another player in the Vernon mold with little pop, but an ability to get on base. Let’s face it. Nobody in the lineup scares anybody, it’s just that at the end of the game when you look at the box score you realize a bunch of them got on base at least twice. Shortstop will be manned once again by Oskar Lojdahl. Lojdahl is 30, and his skills are deteriorating. Oskar did not hit particularly well, batting just .243 and posting a ZR of just 1.5. He also committed 16 errors. 10 million is a lot of money for a guy who is now below average in almost every aspect of the game.
Outfield: I find it hard not to like Héctor Ruíz. He has some pop. Hitting 25 homers last year. Plays a solid center field and shows up every day. In fact, and this where the gypsy curse comes in, since debuting in the BBA in 2058 he has not suffered an injury. Ruiz can be depended on to run down most fly balls in center and hit enough to give opposing pitchers a second thought. In Left Field Greg Clover will get most of the starts. He is dependable and that is about the most you can say for him. He can run a bit and may even get the occasional start in the leadoff spot as RF, Zhi Li is out for the season with a broken kneecap. With Zhi Li out of the lineup it is hard to say who will get the at bats. Federico Linares is on this roster to cover all three outfield spots, but too much time in the starting lineup and he likely gets exposed as a backup. Royce Hinkle could ably fill Zhi’s spot in the lineup, but not in the field so he will likely remain as DH. It could be Manuel Márquez, Manny Fernández (my guess) or Jesús Reyes.
Rotation: Sometimes, they say, it’s better to be lucky than good. The Mounties had the best staff in all the BBA last year and dealt a key piece of that rotation in the off season. Dirk Bessi was packaged off to Las Vegas for a pair of young arms and Bessi proceeded to blow out his UCL in Spring Training and drop a crushing blow to the Las Vegas Hustlers hopes. Vancouver has plenty left to cover the departure of Bessi however. Former Steve Nebraska Award winner Brian Whitford will get the Opening Day nod. He will be followed by Chris Parker who won a team high 15 games last season, then Bob Anderson and Juan García. Parker, Whitford and Garcia all had ERAs below 4.00 with Garcia notching a paltry 2.82 ERA over 32 starts and 204.1 innings. The sample field is plenty big enough. Most of these guys are still in their prime and will compete every start. That only leaves the five-spot in the rotation open. Who will get it? Turns out the odds-on favorite will be veteran swing-man Qing-lai Ou-yang. That’s pronounced “Jenkins”, I think. If Yang does not pan out, there are other options such as Hyotaru Saito, acquired in the Bessi trade. He has put up good numbers in AAA and is only 22. Don’t be surprised if he takes the hill at some point to start a game this season.
Bullpen: This may very well be the best pen in the BBA. And it all boils down to two guys. Two seasons ago Aaron drafted Serge Elovsky as the 7th overall pick in the 2062 draft. He advanced quickly and last year posted a 1.91 ERA with a 0.96 WHIP and saved 39 games, good for second in the Frick League. So, what does Aaron do? He goes out and deals for Jorge Trinidad, who also saved 39 games last year and finished second in the Johnson League for saves. So now the Mounties have a potent 1-2 punch out of the pen that saved 78 games last year. To make opposing teams even more jealous, Elovsky is only 23 and Trinidad is only 22! And that is not the only move Vancouver made to bolster an already efficient bullpen. They also added Sidelsky in that same deal for Trinidad and they still have Jesús García who led the league in saves in 2062 and 2063! Opposing teams just may as well head for the team bus if they are losing after the sixth.
So how do all these pieces add up for the defending division champs? They add up to what is a pretty solid Jenga Tower, but still a Jenga Tower. If anything, I think the moves in the bullpen have made this club better. They have pretty much eliminated any chance they will lose if leading after the sixth. The offense appears just slightly weaker with the injury to Li and the drop-off of Royce Hinkle’s bat, but they still can produce runs and do an excellent job getting on base. The defense was pretty ‘meh’ last year and it’s pretty ‘meh’ this year. Nobody outside of Rhys Atticus stands out defensively, but none of them need a welder if they break their glove so they will suffice. I think they have enough to win again. The other teams, like Sacramento and Bikini have not been sitting on their hands so it will really be up to those teams to take the title because it doesn’t look like Vancouver is doing anything to lose it.
