[darkcloud4579]

All in All, it was not a bad year. Am I disappointed that we didn't make it to the Series? Yes. But I think its better for a team like this because we'll bring back our core of players. Hartford won't and even if they do, I doubt they'll be that good again.

So, we're going to be good for the long haul and we've been good for a little while now. You obviously know what our first priority this off-season is - pitching. We have some young talent, a lot of it I protected on the 40-man roster, because they were Rule V eligible otherwise. So, we're going to have to do what we can to test out some of it.

If they're not going to pan out, then we can deal them. But the whole idea of this dynasty is to win with homegrown talent. At the end of the day, we've done a moderately good job of that.

Let's look at homegrown regular starters on the Silverhawks.
Homegrown is defined as players who were in our minor league system prior to playing in the majors.
* - indicates rookie in 2009

*3B Jaime D'Antona, 27
*OF Calvin Beamon, 25
1B Casey Kotchman, 26
*SP Victor Guertin, 26
RP Cory Van Allen, 25
OF Harold Clerk, 24 (1st pick of the 2005 draft)
*OF Moises Molina, 22 (2nd pick of the 2006 draft)

These young players were not bred in the Silverhawks organization, but were acquired via trade:

*2B Kai-Soo Pauk, 24
SS German Sachs, 29
SP Hector Garcia, 27
SP Jared Hughes, 26
SP Andre Alustiza, 21
C Omar Falcon, 27

Now consider that five of our active starters were rookies, that over half of our batting order consists of homegrown players. 13 of the players on our 25-man roster were under age 30 (and there might be more, I didn't look.

Despite all the wacky trades and all that, we're getting closer to where we want to be. I think that's commendable.

WHAT DO YOU READERS THINK?