Not the best Expansion side ever
Well, it’s official, Riyadh can not now be the best UMEBA expansion side ever. We can only win 84 games now this season, one short of Athens’s best ever tally of 85 as an expansion side. The Fighting Centaurs played their part in that too, they won all of their six meetings with us. Now with just 26 games left of our inaugural season, it’s up to us to be the best we can. We have a month left to create OUR expansion mark, we need three more wins to ensure we’re not the worst by beating Kuwait’s all-time low of 60 wins, thanks to our recent form we’re pretty confident of doing that, after snapping a 1-9 streak late July, Riyadh have won 21 games in the six intervening weeks. In the last week the Red Crescents won four out of their seven games, leaving us just three wins shy of ditching the unwanted tag of “Worst Ever UMEBA Expansion Team”. In doing so we moved to 15-14 for the month of July, our first ever month above .500 and our highest ever tally of wins in a single month.
Riyadh also made their first ever two trades right on the trade deadline, Juan Dominguez who while having an impressive bat, too often let us down with the glove at the hot corner was shipped off to Tripoli and in exchange Riyadh will receive 21-yr-old SS Burt Davies and 27-yr-old OF Altificio Roseta. We were impressed by Davies’ +13 ZR in Triple-A and will give him a change to showcase that in the majors and Roseta, another good defensive glove, will get promoted from Double-A to finish the Triple-A season in Port Elizabeth. Meanwhile 34-yr-old P Juan Nicto who struggled at UMEBA level with us, but had picked up recently in Triple-A, will head for Mumbai. Our haul for him includes 31-yr-old 1B Manual Marino, 20-yr-old CF Ivan Gulledge and 20-yr-old OF Sean Oby. Both Gulledge & Oby will finish their seasons demonstrating their outfield glove in A ball South Guam while Marino, a just off the IL throw-in to clear money for Mumbai, will be sent for a rehab assignment to Port Elizabeth in their last five games before joining the expanded Riyadh roster. The two deals clear out a couple of players unlikely to feature in Riyadh next season and adds three that will improve the defence in the franchise, Davies gets a month long cup of coffee in Riyadh to prove that he can swing some kind of bat to go with his undoubted MI glove. Marino’s status is not clear, Masaki Sato is obviously the established 1B and Guillaume Martin the DH. Marino, if anywhere, would be pushing Martin for the DH role, but he could be a backup plan if Sato does decide to use his opt-out. Not a very palatable option, given his poor defence, but certainly an emergency option. Riyadh though will probably favour just non-tendering him in arbitration unless he crushes the last month of 2046 with the franchise.
As we reach the roster expansion, Riyadh have added just the four players currently to the major league roster, two hitters & two pitchers. OF Donnie Peacock returns after making 21 UMEBA outings earlier in the season while fellow outfielder Wally Poole also heads to Riyadh as well. Poole has had limited BBA stints with Chicago & Wichita as well as 40 UMEBA games with Mumbai last year. You might feel that this could be his possible final curtain call in the bigs. On the pitching front Chris Kelly returns for a second bite at the UMEBA after rediscovering a bit of mojo in Triple-A, 2-0 with a 1.38 ERA in four starts. He too might be looking at not getting his team option picked up in the off-season. The final addition for the time being is reliever Gustavo Munoz who had just a short seven outing stint in Triple-A after he was demoted to make way for recent free agent signing Weston Etheridge.
Finally, a bit of extension news, after tying up virtually all the minor league extensions they wanted, the Red Crescents extended possibly their best rotation guy, Bert Hackworth. Bert signed a minor league free agent deal in the off season, went 6-1 in eight Triple-A starts before being promoted to Riyadh. Since then, in 19 starts, he has posted a 7-3 record with a 4.20 ERA. We’ve given him a two-year deal worth $2.15 million, the second year comes with a $400k team buyout option.
2046 Riyadh Results (up to Aug 31)
Vs BURT
| Team | HW | HL | AW | AL | RF | RA | Series |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Baghdad | 5 | 7 | 7 | 11 | 103 | 143 | 12-18 |
| Beirut | 7 | 7 | 9 | 5 | 117 | 128 | 16-12 |
| Jerusalem | 7 | 5 | 5 | 10 | 87 | 139 | 12-15 |
| Manama | 6 | 10 | 5 | 7 | 131 | 144 | 11-17 |
| Team | HW | HL | AW | AL | RF | RA | Series |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Athens | 0 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 21 | 50 | 0-6 |
| Bucharest | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 14 | 9 | 2-1 |
| Cairo | 2 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 18 | 31 | 3-3 |
| Mumbai | 0 | 2 | 0 | 3 | 15 | 26 | 0-5 |
| Tripoli | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 12 | 8 | 2-1 |