We got drawn into a brutal, brutal group. The #2, #3, #4 and #5 teams in the world all got drawn into the same group (LA, San Antonio, Salt Lake City, and Raleigh). We also had #11 OKC, #13 Iowa #18 Milwaukee, #22 Quebec and #24 San Francisco for good measure. 9 of the top 24...it was going to be tough to make the top 4 for us. Our schedule wasn't so bad but we fell behind about 4 games in and the hope was gone from our players. It wound up being more like Spring Training than any sort of competitive tournament for us. We finished
4-8
.749 OPS (league average was .729)
5.13 ERA (league average was 4.13)
-0.4 ZR
Major props to Manila, they lost out on the tiebreaker, but to hang with those big names is massively impressive. For a team that was so bad for so long, these last two years they have turned it around.
We kept Jared Farr from throwing too much to get a good look at the other rotation candidates as we treated these games like exhibitions nearly after the early 2-4 start
We didn't get a ton of clarity to be honest. Kirkpatrick gave up a lot of homers, but had a great ERA/WHIP. Bresnahan K'ed a ton, but walked a bunch also. Carree was very good. Kuruc and Buchanan had huge ERAs but very good underlying numbers. We might take it up to opening day to decide and might mix and match depending on lefty/right matchups.
Are you ready, BJ Peterson? It certainly looks so. That is what we want fans to focus on, Peterson's great defense and .849 OPS should have Buffalo fans ecstatic about their new CF.
Zavala hit really well also, there is some young talent to be excited about at the plate.
Joe Duncan, who we built a lot of our preseason advertising around, had 0 XBH and a .489 OPS. We hope it's because he was focusing so much on learning how to play left field but this guys tough to read.
Yates mashed the ball while learning a new position (poorly), but Yates is a very smart guy.
New signings Rodriguez and Burton made very positive starts.
Brooklyn wound up winning it all, Chicago made the finals. The Union haven't won anything, one of the few original 16 without any titles (Memphis and Hartford as well). They came the closest they've ever been here but got swept 3-0 by the Atlantics machine in the final. Tel Aviv had a surprising semfinal run...in the other semifinal it was those two again: Brooklyn v LA. They are just everywhere. Europe's rise continued into this season as we had an all-German matchup in the first round with Bayern-Frankfurt and Olympiacos also joined in by making the playoffs.
