Niles was obviously only at the helm in Rocky Mountain during the last month of the season, taking over a team that had struggled to find its footing. After taking the team over with a record of 59-70 (45% winning percentage), Niles hyped up the troops, going 19-14 (57% winning percentage) to wrap up the season. Despite that, at 59-70, the season was already lost. It's a small sample size, but had Niles been with the club all season and averaged a 57% winning percentage, the Oysters would have won 92 games, and likely still have been playing baseball."Look, we finished the season 6 games under .500. All that means is that had we won 3 more games, we would have been right at .500. Great. We'd be in the same spot we are right now, which is cleaning out our locker rooms as our season is over," said Niles.
"I am a huge believer that when the eventual Brewster champion this season records their final out, that 90% of the championship can be credited to the off-season before. Championships are not won during the final out recorded, or the final game, or the series, or even the final 3 months of the season. That Championship will have been won from what the front office did during the months of November through March. Now it's November and we're not playing ball for good reasons. We must reset, dig in to determine what we have, and what we'd like to have. After that point, make it happen."
Maybe more importantly in everything, Niles made a few moves to strengthen the team for future years, adding 8 prospects who are in the BBA Top 350. At the same time, those cost a potential franchise cornerstone at shortstop in Lucio Guevara.
On Payroll and Budget
Who Plays Shortstop?"We have some guys that we know are not going to be with the team next year for various reasons. I believe last I checked our current estimated payroll is around 68 million, 15 of which is arbitration players. Depending on how those go, we could be significantly lower if we were to exercise our rights to not offer arbitration to any of those guys. Our budget next year is expected to be a bit lower than the budget this year based on the way the team performed, but we are expecting to still be able to make a big splash if we need to in free agency."
Looking Forward"You mentioned yourself that we have quite a few prospects in our system that are capable individuals. I would be shocked if 4 or 5 of those guys were not impact players for us next season. To answer your original question, we think we have a few guys we can look towards. We obviously do our due diligence outside of our organization as well. However, one of the guys in our organization who probably would have been called up had he not been injured at the time is Derek Hopkins. We are large fans of his internally, and it is very possible that with his range in the infield, he is our starting shortstop next season. The same can be said for Louganis. What's to say he isn't taking grounders at short next year? What I am trying to say is that we have some individuals who we can trust to do the job if we don't love our options outside the organization."
"Let me wrap it up by saying it's really easy, next season we need to score more runs and give up less of them. If we do that, then I think we'll be in a good spot come September."
