Northeast Baseball League

[progen]

Free Agency is Here

October 27th - Only four days before Halloween! Ghosts and goblins running around, tall figures with plastic pumpkins over their heads, and guys, well grown men dressed like ball players. Oh wait, that's players that have filed for free agency in the Northeast Baseball League.

My owner has given me a heads up, that the salary cap of 1.2 million will remain in place for the second season! And once again, I need to be "frugal", and the get the best player for the best value! So with that in mind, and having met with Ed Bane, our scout John Mizer, and the other coaches, here's our plan A.

We decided to move Brian Freake into the starting rotation. This will give us three lefties again, as we let Tim Butler go, and test free agency!



Truthfully, with the league just completing it's first year, there weren't a lot of great free agents out there, which can be expected. As the league moves forward, this landscape should get better.

With Freake in the rotation, we needed to fill his spot in the pen. I was Ok with either a righty or lefty. Here's who I had my eye on, and were within our budget!

Victor Alvarado - LH Middle Reliever

[progen]

Carlos Alfonzo a right handed closer, who we could move to our "setup" guy, had a nice year, and is high on our list, but he is a bit expensive for the Aces. May pass on him early, and see if his demands come down at all.





As far as hitters, particularly catchers and first baseman, our primary needs, we may have to settle for John Thomas and Roberto Colon at catcher for another year! The top rated catcher, Hubert Marks, didn't even hit over the Mendoza line.



The top first baseman, Ken Kelley is a stud, but his agent is asking for $70,000, and if I mentioned that to our owner, he would faint!

So, we'll have one more meeting, and as our "junior scouts" and interns continued to break down the numbers of each player, I looked over my list of agents I needed to call!

[progen]

Free Agency continued......

As tempted as I wanted to be and "spend the cash", I understoon that a good GM needs to follow his owner's advice, well most of the time. Ed Bane, our Manager, and the scouts feel that we have a lot of potential on the Aces, and just wanted me to make a few "tweaks" here and there, if the opportunity came along. So, I decided that if we could get Alvarado for the vacant pen spot, I would just go after some AAA players, that will help fill out our roster in Emmaus, and possibly help us down the road. Two we did sign to minor league contracts.



Will Macsween - Macsween pitched in Utica's farm system last year, at the AA and AAA level. He was in a total of 14 games, and actually started three at the AA level. We immediately sent him to AAA Emmaus.




Armando Archuleta - Archuleta didn't pitch in our league last year, as he bounced around some California amateur leagues. He had made it as far as AA in that other league(MLB), back when he was only 21, but arm injuries kept him from going any further. At 27, he wants one last shot at pro ball, and my scouts liked him at our team tryouts!



Hubert Marks - Marks is favoring our offer, which is for one year, at $16,500. He will battle for a catching spot with Roberto Colon and John Thomas. If he can't beat out either one of them, we'll move him to AAA, and will be some insurance for us at that position.


November 16th - Winter Meetings Start



Lots of shaking hands, seminars, talking to officials and agents, sending Kirsten, God forbid, to a promotion seminar. And the usual trade talk amongst the various teams. We're sitting pat, and since mostly all the teams know that, I shouldn't have but a few inquiries! Another good thing is, this year, it's being held in King of Prussia, PA, which is only about 20 minutes from home.

[progen]

What I learned at my first ever Winter Meetings!

Should have definitely carried this sign around! Especially when ask by the other GM's/Owners, Who you interested in? Looking at any sleepers? How much do you have to spend?



And then those wonderful "motivational" ones that I get from Bill Huston, our Owner, who was really annoying all five days.



And the second day we get these two!



So on day three, I beat him to it, and write this on the board! Of course, which he very much liked!

[progen]

So we get two pieces of good news when we return to the office. First, Hubert Marks, the catcher we made an offer to, did sign with us, and then, perhaps our prayers at first base may have been answered, Bobby Spivey won the AAA "Hitter of the Year Award." Spivey played 110 games at third, and only 26 at first, but scouts have him rated higher in the field at first base. We didn't call him up, because he really didn't catch fire until the last month of the minor league season! Another youngster at 24, he may be a huge help to us!

Bobby Spivey - Hitter of the Year - AAA




And so I'm sitting at my desk at 4pm looking through some notes, and Kirsten alerts me that there is a delivery guy coming with all her notes that she took during the "promotions seminar" at the Winter Meetings, and with her suggestions for our "Opening Day Promotion." And here's what I see!



Really, this is what I have to spend my night on! I can hardly wait to see this!

[progen]

So today is the Rule V draft, and the Aces won't be doing anything as we are at our maximum of 40 players. Not really anything out there that me or the coaches were interested in, and I don't see us losing any "unprotected" players either.



Well, as I predicted, not much happen with the Rule V draft. A few teams took some "Ok" middle relievers, and one third baseman, who is nothing but a bench player in our minds.

One thing I wanted to add here, is a "snapshot" of how both our hitters and pitchers did over the first season in the NBL.
Tim Butler, of course, is no longer with us!

[progen]

And now on to perhaps the most important decision for the upcoming season! I need you, the fan, to vote on what should be our "Opening Day Promotion" for the 1990 season! As you know, my Personal Assistant, Kirsten, continues to think she is the "Promotion Queen", so here are the choices!!



1. The Aces will host a Salute to Indoor Plumbing, by closing the restrooms so that fans have to use porta-potties.



2. Tribute to a local "Hot Dog Joint", the Aces will be having "Vendor Races" around the diamond!



3. Monkeys racing on dogs around the diamond!



4. Can a fan break this guys world record for most T-shirts worn at once by a single individual by putting on more than 228 T-shirts? This was actually done at a minor league game.


And finally, and keeping in mind that our games are meant for mainly families:



5. Playboy model Lisa makes an appearance, signing autographs, posing for pictures with fans, and of course throwing out the first ball. Also, for the first two innings, standing on the Aces Dugout roof and leading cheers!

[Dalwhat]

What about Nobody Night?

While most promotions are run to get asses in the seats, in 2002 the minor league club Charleston RiverDogs decided to go the other way. Instead of trying to pack the house for their game one night, they padlocked the doors in an effort to keep the fans out. These were fans that paid for tickets, or were trying to pay for tickets, by the way. So why would anyone possibly want to lock fans out of rooting on their home town team?
Because for whatever reason, team officials decided it would be fun to have an official attendance of “0.” So the fans were kept out until the bottom of the fifth, when the game became official and the attendance would officially show that no one was there. See, by having an official attendance of zero, the RiverDogs assured themselves a place in history, both as having the lowest single game attendance of all-time, and having some of the craziest executives in minor league baseball history.

See? Kirsten doesn't hold a candle to these crazies.

[gehrig38]

#5 7 days a week, twice on Sundays...

[Painmantle]

I vote for Monkey racing on Dogs with Lisa waiving the Green and checkerd flags!

[NYY #23]

I've got to go with 5 too.

[CatKnight]

Let's go with 1

[progen]

So it appears that choice number 5, Lisa the Playboy model has been voted by the fans to appear at our opening day game! And we went with what one fan suggested, and that is to have the dog racing monkeys there as well, and Lisa will waive the checkered flag at the finish. Should be an easy sell out!

In the offseason, we did have some excitement, as our scout, John Mizer, as a way to get a "free vacation", went to Mexico for ten days to relax, and scout some of the Winter League games down there.

AND, he appears to have come up with a gem. A 17 year old youngster, Francisco Mercado, who plays second base, and was tearing up the Winter League!





I immediately signed Mercado to a minor league contract, and we will assign him to our new single A club, the Lancaster Red Roses.



Off Season Freak Injuries:
Never seems to be a dull moment for these players, and their GM, even in the offseason. This player isn't on our team, but the other two are.





Gene Brown - Our second baseman, hurt his right shoulder when he was throwing luggage into his car to go on vacation. X-rays were negative, nothing serious.

Michael Lacy - Our centerfielder was at an all night bachelor party, and strained a stomach muscle throwing up. I should fine him for stupidity, not because he was at an all night "bash", but because he was dumb enough to tell us!

[Big T]

Sorry to be late for the vote, but I vote for anything with Lisa in it. Maybe a dunk tank in her white T shirt...... just thinking out loud...

[Eugene Church]

Watching Lisa "bounce around" on the top of the dugout leading cheers would really be a sight to see.

[Hendu Style]

I vote for #5 riding on #3. Or hell, #3 riding on #5. As long as #5 is involved, I'm a happy camper.

[progen]

Finally, the new year is upon us, and we can once again start thinking about some players arriving in town for early workouts, volunteer practices, and how to keep that stadium filled with fans!

My hitting coach also sent most of our hitters this video to watch during the offseason. He swears by it, we'll see if it improves our team offense this year!



Not really a whole lot has been happening as we head toward Spring Training. I did sign a right handed closer, Marcus Anderson, who pitched in AA last year for the Troy Trojans farm team. He had 24 saves, with a 2.42 ERA. Anderson has been assigned to our AA Hatboro Dukes team.

But three teams did change their names.

Corning Bobcats (formerly the Independents)




Shamokin Miners (formerly the Shammies)




Elmira Colonels (formerly the Pioneers)

[progen]

There were some decent signings, including the Greensburg Green Sox getting
Fabrizio Donatello, one of the prize free agent starting pitcher. His age(31), and price tag of 86k plus/year, kept us away!




The rich get richer:
The top free agent of the offseason was Tom Wilkerson, and the defending champs, Carbondale, scooped him up with a five year, $426,000 deal. They will be tough to deal with again this season!




The only other exciting event that happen was, our former starting pitcher, Tim Butler got married, and although we released him after the season, he was nice enough to invite many of us to the wedding. Here's a pic of Tim and his bride. The picture says it all!!!

[progen]

Finally, after one of the coldest winters in Chester County history, spring training is here, and although it's not 80 degrees, just the sound of balls "smacking mitts", and the sound of ball players chattering in the field, lifts everyone's spirits.

And in our very first game, our ace last season, Denny White looked as if he never took any time off. He was fabulous, and fun to watch, as he dazzled the Shamokin hitters. Our offseason acquisition, Victor Alvarado also looked good in his Aces debut. Ah, yes, Spring has sprung, and the Aces are looking like there in mid-season form already!



Five days later, we got another nice outing from our first overall pick Eisuke Heida, who told me he's going to do everything he can to stick with the "top level" club this season.
Well, he's sure a heck off to a nice start!




Our sping training went really well, and by the end of March, this is how we ended up!

[progen]

1990 - Season Two in the National Baseball League

So the 1990 season is here. And I can't help staring at a sign I have hanging on the wall in my office!

Baseball is like church. Many attend. Few understand. - Leo Durocher


And so it goes, as I look at the pre-season predictions by the so called "experts", and which has my owner all in a "tizzy", as you can see why!!



How the experts can look at a team that finished two games under .500 last season, and out of the playoffs, can suddenly turn it around to win our division is beyone me, but hey, I hope they're right!

And as I'm reading through my mail, I get this message from my owner!



We had some difficult decisions to make, especially with Eisuke Heida pitching so well in spring training, but in the end, we decided to stick with our original decision to move Brian Freake into the starting rotation, and let Heida get some work at the AAA level. Can't imagine at some point during the season though, he'll be pitching for us at the top level.

Nothing like starting the season off at home against the defending champs. Should be a fun and exciting four game series for the players and fans!!