[Elendil]

Seacoast Humpbacks

The Humpbacks are a brand-new franchise and play in Dover at, believe it or not, a converted little league park (Maglaras Ball Field). This is one of the two fields with no fence: balls hit into the forest are ground-ruled doubles. With a potential market stretching over Strafford and Rockingham Counties, Seacoast could be well-positioned financially for the future - provided, that is, the league has a future.



The Humpbacks rotation is remarkably weak. The number one starter is one of the strongest in the league, but after him everyone else is decidedly subpar. That ace is Matt Buschmann, 33 years old, strong in all points of the pitching game, and boasting a 4.20 career minor league ERA, most of it in AAA. Last year he pitched four and a third innings for the D-Backs, but he was jobless after spring training this year.

The bullpen, by contrast, is one of the strongest in the GWL, with three potential relief aces. Brandon Gomes, 32, is the stopper. He has a 4.20 MLB ERA in 167 innings, with 61 walks and 144 strikeouts. Dana Eveland, 33, is a lefthanded groundballer who pitched for 10 different major-league clubs, posting 3.7 Fangraphs WAR in 446 IP, yielding just 34 homers. Aaron Thompson, 30, has a quite similar profile to Eveland on the mound, but he couldn't be more different in the clubhouse. Eveland sticks to himself and has a tendency to blunt to the point of rudeness, while Thompson is a real student of the game and unselfish with his knowledge. He has a 4.54 career ERA in 40 major-league innings.

The Humpbacks are a little weak in the outfield and have only one true slugger in the lineup: first baseman Fernando Valenzuela, Jr., who at 34 is moving up from the Mexican League, where he hit .321/.373/.459 in 2014 (he was injured in most of 2015 and all of 2016). Catcher Ryan Ortiz, 29, is a defensive wiz and certainly competent as a hitter as well. He's a career minor leaguer who un-retired to try his hand in the GWL.

Financially, the team is in decent shape but without much padding. It's unclear they've done enough to make themselves a contender.

Projected record: 49-59. That looks about right.