OOTP Developments Forums - View Single Post - The Canadian League: Making it in Montréal

chey · 06-21-2018, 07:02 PM

I got my start in baseball with the Chicago Cubs of the National League, working my way up from a summer intern job to Director of Player Development over the course of a decade. When news came out of a professional league in my home country — a league full of teams that would need staff of their own — I jumped at the chance, and was able to leverage my citizenship and major league experience into a role as GM and Manager of my hometown Edmonton Jackrabbits. My Jacks were immediately successful, reaching the playoffs in each of my first two years, but a series of conflicts within the organization — and disappointing back-to-back playoff defeats — led to my resignation after the 2019 season. I’d been offered a job with the expansion Anchorage Nanooks, and I took that opportunity to remove myself from the complicated politics of Edmonton baseball. The team I built in Edmonton would go on to win the Pearson Cup the very next year (and my replacement as Manager, Wally Backman, would ironically earn himself a job as skipper of the same Chicago Cubs that I came up with), but the run of success that was to come in Alaska more than made up for any bitterness towards my old franchise.

Anchorage made the postseason in its very first season as an expansion club — to date, the only CL expansion team to do so — and never looked back, easily qualifying for the Pearson Cup Playoffs in every year of its existence. My Nanooks achieved a five-year winning percentage of .618, winning the hyper-competitive LL West Division three times, leading the entire CL in run differential four times, and took home the coveted Pearson Cup as CL champions in 2022 and 2023. 2024 was another strong season for the ‘Nooks: we didn’t manage the threepeat, but still finished the regular season with the Laurier League’s best record and the best run differential in all of Canadian baseball.

After five successful years, though, I was ready to explore outside opportunities. Half a decade is a long time to spend with any team, especially one located in a small city in Alaska. My contract was up, and my successful track record would offer me plenty of options: in seven years with two franchises I’d never failed to make the playoffs, I’d accrued a win percentage of .619, and I’d been voted Manager of the Year five times. I’d gotten offers in the past that would have made me the highest paid executive in Canadian baseball, and in 2023 an expansion team had even offered me an equity stake in the franchise. I hadn’t been able to walk away from Anchorage then, but I was ready now. When I got the call from Peladeau offering me nearly a million dollars a year — MLB GM money — to take over his new franchise, well, it was pretty hard to turn down. Peladeau has deeper pockets than any other owner in the league, or at least he’s more willing to dip into them, and the two of us together could do something really special with this club. The budget offered to me removes any challenge in making the playoffs of course… but that’s not the goal anymore.

Peladeau is giving me carte blanche to spend, but he’s going to be expecting results to match. From this point on, any year that Montreal doesn’t win the Pearson Cup is an abject failure. Two of those in a row? I’m out of there.

06-21-2018, 07:02 PM	#3
chey Minors (Triple A) Join Date: Mar 2014 Posts: 282	Meet Me! I got my start in baseball with the Chicago Cubs of the National League, working my way up from a summer intern job to Director of Player Development over the course of a decade. When news came out of a professional league in my home country — a league full of teams that would need staff of their own — I jumped at the chance, and was able to leverage my citizenship and major league experience into a role as GM and Manager of my hometown Edmonton Jackrabbits. My Jacks were immediately successful, reaching the playoffs in each of my first two years, but a series of conflicts within the organization — and disappointing back-to-back playoff defeats — led to my resignation after the 2019 season. I’d been offered a job with the expansion Anchorage Nanooks, and I took that opportunity to remove myself from the complicated politics of Edmonton baseball. The team I built in Edmonton would go on to win the Pearson Cup the very next year (and my replacement as Manager, Wally Backman, would ironically earn himself a job as skipper of the same Chicago Cubs that I came up with), but the run of success that was to come in Alaska more than made up for any bitterness towards my old franchise. Anchorage made the postseason in its very first season as an expansion club — to date, the only CL expansion team to do so — and never looked back, easily qualifying for the Pearson Cup Playoffs in every year of its existence. My Nanooks achieved a five-year winning percentage of .618, winning the hyper-competitive LL West Division three times, leading the entire CL in run differential four times, and took home the coveted Pearson Cup as CL champions in 2022 and 2023. 2024 was another strong season for the ‘Nooks: we didn’t manage the threepeat, but still finished the regular season with the Laurier League’s best record and the best run differential in all of Canadian baseball. After five successful years, though, I was ready to explore outside opportunities. Half a decade is a long time to spend with any team, especially one located in a small city in Alaska. My contract was up, and my successful track record would offer me plenty of options: in seven years with two franchises I’d never failed to make the playoffs, I’d accrued a win percentage of .619, and I’d been voted Manager of the Year five times. I’d gotten offers in the past that would have made me the highest paid executive in Canadian baseball, and in 2023 an expansion team had even offered me an equity stake in the franchise. I hadn’t been able to walk away from Anchorage then, but I was ready now. When I got the call from Peladeau offering me nearly a million dollars a year — MLB GM money — to take over his new franchise, well, it was pretty hard to turn down. Peladeau has deeper pockets than any other owner in the league, or at least he’s more willing to dip into them, and the two of us together could do something really special with this club. The budget offered to me removes any challenge in making the playoffs of course… but that’s not the goal anymore. Peladeau is giving me carte blanche to spend, but he’s going to be expecting results to match. From this point on, any year that Montreal doesn’t win the Pearson Cup is an abject failure. Two of those in a row? I’m out of there.