[DataKing]

Two Screamin’ Defensemen Take A Step Forward

(AP – Chicago, IL) The Screamin’ Seamen Football Club held their weekly player evaluation meetings earlier today, and appear to have a great deal to be thankful for in the new year. Team owner and general manager Data King met briefly with the press once the meetings had concluded.

“We feel that two of our defensemen have really taken a step up in the past week,” said King. “We were extremely pleased to learn that young Keith Stubbs appears even better than we thought when he was promoted from our youth program last week. He performed well in Wednesday’s match against the Bombers, and has been picking up our defensive system at an impressive pace.”

“But even more impressive is Chuck Scales,” King continued. “Chuck has been with us since the beginning, and has without a doubt become our best defender. He has really come into his own this season, especially in the last week or two. We’ve even received a couple of informal calls regarding him, asking if we had any intention of placing him on the market anytime soon.”

King paused here for a moment, then said with a smile. “Not a chance in hell.”

The Seamen return home for the first time in a week and a half this weekend, when they host a struggling 6th place Cariocas team.

Weekly Training Update

We had two players “pop” in skill level this week. Our starting central defender, Chuck Scales, moved up to an “excellent” rating in defense, our first player to reach a rating of excellent (8) in any attribute besides stamina and form. Although his assessed value is only $92,000 at the moment, this is the area where assessed value become really unreliable. Once you get into players rated at excellent, the price on the transfer market can really skyrocket, due in large part to the rarity of such players. At the moment, there are only two excellent defenders listed on the American market, and none in Chuck’s age range (he’s 23). I suspect that, if sold, he could garner somewhere in the $300,000 to $500,000 range. Not that I intend to sell him anytime soon.

The other skill “pop” that we had was a complete surprise. Last week’s youth pull, Keith Stubbs, has increased from inadequate (5) to passable (6) defending in only one week. I had toyed with the idea of keeping Rubin instead of Stubbs, but I’m sure glad that I didn’t. Although his assessed value is only $19,000 right now, the fact that he is only 18 makes him much more valuable than that. I suspect that we could net somewhere in the neighborhood of $50,000 were we to sell Keith right now. But again, I have no intentions of selling either of these guys anytime soon.

The other good news is that it appears Ruben Stewart may finally be coming out of his slump, as his form has increased for the first time since back in November when he lost his starting job to Forrest Tobias. He still has a way to go, but hopefully it will be enough for us to get past the Hamas Mad Bombers on Wednesday.

Also, Cornelius Jernigan continues to improve in form, having gained three levels since we acquired him from Middlesex Athletic. But starting keeper Darryl Read has no intention of letting his starting spot slip away, and is now in solid form for the second consecutive week (he has only been in solid form once before during his career, and that was for one week). So it looks like we have an intense battle for the starting keeper spot in the making.

Team Average Form: 5.3 (same as last week)
Team Average Value: $85,409 (up $2,454 from last week’s $82,955)

Up Next: Although weekly updates occur on Saturday evening, I’m not likely to get to those or our weekly youth pull until Sunday. Stay tuned!