Pharaoh Moans (2046-13): The Post-mortem

[woods]

From the desk of Woody Donahue, Pharaohs GM

It was a glum day in the Pharaohs clubhouse as the team packed up their personal belongings to head home for the winter.

A lot of the players had already gone — caption Diesel Dave left a day earlier, before the team’s final game, citing “business opportunities”. Of the guys still hanging around, a few of the Cubans were watching a football match while they waited for their rides to the airport, and Marc-André Paré was going around bragging to anyone who’d listen that he was officially the team’s “batting champion” after going 1-for-2 in his first and only start of the season.

As the GM of this sunken ship, I was trying to avoid the players’ noticing I was here. I was certain there would be some criticism in the wake of the product I had put on the field this season. But I had work to do — I was meeting with manager Kevin Strong in his office for our end-of-season post-mortem, and discussing our offseason plans for the club.

“Our final record was abysmal,” I began, “53-109 makes us officially the worst team in UMEBA history. But I look at the progress we’ve made since I was hired as GM a year ago, and I only see positives. At the beginning of free agency, Miguel Ortíz was our only player rated at least a 45 on the BNN rating scale. Now we’ve got thirteen guys rated 45 or higher, among them Freddy Ayala, who is under team control for five more years.”

“Freddy’s the future,” agreed Strong. “He’ll probably win a Great Glove tomorrow too.”

“But that does bring me to the first area of improvement I want to address this winter, namely our defense. Because outside of Freddy, the rest of these guys can’t tell a glove from a Qatayef. As a team, we were last in the UMEBA in defensive efficiency, and second-last in zone rating.”

“That’s true. We need to be getting to more balls. Our infielders have good hands, but it’s their range that’s a problem. Rick Chambers only made one error all year at shortstop, but I guess that’s easy when you don’t touch any ground balls.”

“I’m glad we’re on the same page here,” I said. “We’ve already signed Tyler Shacklady through his first arbitration year, and we expect he’ll be a big contributor for us. But we’re not stopping there. I’ll be making our infield defense a top priority this offseason, either bringing in a guy through free agency, or through a trade. I’d love to have a guy like they’ve got in Beirut with Mario Rodríguez.”

It was at this moment that I heard someone breathing behind me, so I turned and saw Johan Trojka standing in the doorway, listening to our conversation. How long had he been standing there?

“Johan, this is a private meeting,” said Strong.

Trojka ignored his manager and looked at me. “What about closer,” he demanded. “I pitch good, but bullpen always give up lead. We need closer.”

Why not entertain the subject, I figured, since it was the least I could do to appease our longest-contracted player. “Excellent point, Johan, and that brings me to our next order of business.” I turned back to Strong. “Kevin, as you know, Arturo Trinidad filled the closer role for most of August and September, but he’ll be a free agent. We’ll definitely be adding a few more bullpen arms in free agency.”

“Thanks, because if I have to give the ball to Phil Brown one more time with the game on the line—“

“Don’t worry,” I cut him off, because Brown was one of my favorite Rule 5 picks, and I still saw big potential in him for the future. But that would be a conversation for another time. “You will have a bullpen. In fact, we saw this year that bullpen arms become highly in demand around the trade deadline, with Nick Snyder and Curt Phillips bringing us back some top minor league pieces in Pavlushka Yalunin and Jung-Kyoo Kim. I might even sign more relievers than we need, in the hopes of dealing a few.”

I turned back to ask Trojka if that sounded all right to him, but he had vanished as mysteriously as he had appeared. Well, I hoped he got the answers he was looking for, at any rate.

“What about some extensions?” Strong asked. “It would be nice to have a little more security with our current players, knowing they’ll be around for more than just a year.”

“I’m working on it,” I said. “Seinosuke Muto would be the first guy on the list, and we’ve been in touch with his camp to see what he’s looking for in terms of years. And ‘Cha-Cha’ Carrasco is another guy we think we’ll be able to lock down.”

“That would be nice,” said Strong. “Muto especially, he brings some good leadership and a strong work ethic to the team.”

“Of course, our financial flexibility will be a bit limited until we see who opts in and who opts out. Between Diesel, António Baca and Robert Hobbs, that’s $19.6 million in options.”

“I know you’re doing what you can. Anyway, thanks for dropping by. I’ve gotta start packing up some of this shit and get moving myself.”

I looked around Strong's mostly bare office. There were a few game balls on the shelves, including one from his first win as an UMEBA manager, back in April. I remembered that one well: a 1-0 victory in Mumbai. Ortíz pitched his ass off that day, and Muto hit a double to drive in the only run. We had no business winning that game — Mumbai would be, of course, the eventual United Cup champion, and we were the worst team in UMEBA history. But we didn’t know that yet. And our guys gutted out a win against the best in the league, because we’re fighters.

I think our players will have a lot to prove next year, and they’ll be motivated to show the world that they aren’t, in fact, the worst team in UMEBA history. Maybe what this team needs to right the ship isn’t a bunch of new multi-million dollar free agents, but a fire that can be lit from within the existing group. Maybe…

A bullpen would help, though. It's time to get to work.