2036-10: Talons Win Useless Awards in Stupid Tournament

[jiminyhopkins]

Daytona Beach, FL--

As the Talons prepare for Spring Training at their complex in Daytona Beach, the club, for some reason, announced that a few of their players had won awards in some sort of World Baseball Classic Cup.

In the tournament, played before dozens of fans at various backwater fields in certain unknown places, The following Talons either won, or nearly won some awards:

C Andres Martinez was named the Most Valuable Player, hitting .348/.400/.696 with 5 home runs. He was also Platinum Stick at catcher.
SP Jose Trujillo was second in the Cy Young balloting, amassing 5 out of 16 first place votes.
2B Manuel Martinez won a Gold Glove at second base, as usual.
RP Alexandre Renard also got a pittance of votes for Reliever of the Year.

The Talons front office has taken a lukewarm attitude towards such preseason tournaments. In a statement released yesterday, they elaborated:
"While we certainly encourage that our players stay in baseball shape throughout the offseason, we are not endorsing any 'World Cup' or similar baseball tournaments, especially those that take place directly before Spring Training. To put it simply, they are being paid to play for our franchise, full stop."

"The Talons do not recognize any benefits from players taking part in these tournaments, developmentally or otherwise. We will be heavily scrutinizing any players who participated in this tournament to monitor them for any fatigue or injury issues that crop up throughout the season. We will have no further comment at this time."

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