We’ve got some tough opponents coming up in May, the first being the Texas Rangers. They are a hitting club right now and have one of the top shortstops in the league with Corey Seager. It will be a battle of wits for our pitching staff, which has me worried.
My concern with our PC Brian Sweeney, back during pre-season, continues to present itself as I look at his relationships with the staff going into May. I’m thinking I should have paid closer attention to the relationships among the players as a coach. It seems he is more interested in relating to the positional players than my chosen pitching staff and relievers. It’s confusing me what the dynamic is between him and most of the pitching staff, which is causing him to provide little coaching to them. It gives me a reason to consider looking for someone else soon to coach our pitching crew this season.
The same dynamic seems to be happening with my HC, Alec Zumwalt. His coaching relationships are so much better with the pitchers than the position players.
What is going on here?
I think I’ll see what happens after a couple of weeks and assess it again prior to the series with the Oakland Athletics on the 17th. Maybe it’s collegiate, and both coaches are building some cohesion. I don’t honestly know. I’ll just have to decide what to do at the point I need to decide without knowing when that will be.
Finally, in my first month’s review of how the ball club has performed, I had to consider our salary position and what we have coming up in the next few years. Having already decided that Salvy, Bobby, and Cole will remain with the club for the next season and beyond, there are a few trade pieces and upcoming free agents on the books that we might be able to leverage come trade deadline.
I think my targets right now for trade are a 4th/5th starter and a power hitter against left-handed pitchers to supplement Bobby, Pastquatch, and Salvy.
So, going into May, I’ve got some thinking to do about early changes while we are still in a buyer's market.