[JetsIn06]

The 1950 Portland Rosebuds

April: 10-16
May: 10-19

Sounds familiar, doesn't it? Another rough start as we head into July with a record of 20-35. The bright side, if there is one, is that SP Seth White has been great to start the season, with a 3.80 ERA, a 3.53 SIERA, and a 28 K%.

Our farm system bumps up a bit to #13 overall, with five players in the Top 100. Most of them are still 19/20. We'll take a deeper look at them before next season.

Since there's not much good to speak of, let's get right into the draft, which could be the deepest draft I've seen. Plenty of offensive talent, but of course some guys really seperate themselves with great defense.

CF Sid Clark is probably the best all-around player, with elite defense that should stick in center and great contact and power with speed to boot.

SP Joey Parrish looks like the pitcher that should go first; he's a college RHP with elite stuff.

As I expected, CF Sid Clark goes at 1.1 to the San Francisco Peanuts. This is the third straight year that they have picked at this spot. Maybe some of their luck could go our way for once?

At 1.2, SP Travis Lewis, a RHP college arm goes to Vancouver. He's got an elite ability to generate weak contact with lots of groundballs. The stuff is good too, with three great pitches.

Someone I was looking at, C Scott Gagliardi, goes at 1.4 to Detroit. He's an elite defensive catcher. The bat could be solid too, but his defense really stands out. He's followed by C Nick Banks, who maybe ends up as a 1B as he really doesn't have the defensive skill to stick behind the plate, but the offense is MASSIVE. He's a high-schooler out of NYC, and it will be fun to look back and see these two catchers who went in the Top 10 and how they did.

When our pick comes up, SP Joey Parrish is still available. He's 21, and coming out of Oregon State. Our scout has him as a 70, with 7 stuff, 6 movement, and 5 control, with four solid pitches. We make him the pick at 1.7.

With our 2nd pick, we go back to an arm, taking SP Blake Milner, a high-school RHP out of Florida. He's got elite stuff, rated an 8 by our scout, with a devestating fastball and changeup. The stuff is too good to pass up on.

In the 3rd, a guy we had our eye on is still around, 3B Dave Magby. He's a lower contact, higher power/eye guy who has a cannon for an arm. He's ideally a 3B, but can play anywhere on the infield and has also played in RF as well.

June: 8-20
July (through 29th): 11-11

So July has been okay, but here's the exciting thing; SP Joey Parrish is already in AAA. While I do think long-term the focus on high-school players has made sense, it's SO nice to have drafted a college arm that shoots up the minors and is ready quickly. I think we are going to give him a shot in September, and if he does well, could break camp with us in 1951.

The bullpen has also been strong, with the 4th best ERA in the Federal League, and our defense has improved a ton, with the best zone rating as a team. There's still a lot of work to do offensively. 1B/DH Adam Brand, who we signed prior to 1949 to play 3B, has just completely crumbled defensively and truly cannot play the field at all, and his offense has cratered as well. After finishing with a 100 or better wRC+ every season, he's now at 70 as he plays through his age-34 season. Luckily we have a team option for next season that we will 100% not be picking up.

We do have a trade allowance burning a hole in our pocket (we have 2, but can only carry over 1 into next season). With a few guys set to hit FA or with options that I don't plan on picking up, I take a look around and find a deal for SP Joe Casten. Casten was strong for us last year, but has struggled to a 5.44 ERA. We cover the rest of the year's contract and bring back RP Pete Barraclough, a 30-year-old RHP reliever from Chicago. He's bounced around, but still has three years of control left and the stuff and control is great. He's a flyball pitcher, which should work out decently well in our park.

September comes, and we bring up SP Joey Parrish. We have him on a light pitch count to start, and he struggles in his first outing, going three innings with 2 K's and 3 BB's. His second outing is worse, as he goes 3.2 innings with 5 BB's and no K's. The third start isn't much better, but in his fourth against a weak Vancouver team, he goes 6 innings with no walks, 3 H's, and 3 K's over 74 pitches.

With three games left to play, we're in a group of four teams that have the worst record, behind by one win. Avoiding being the worst team will prevent us from losing some transaction allowances, so I'm using all the ammo I can to win this final series.

But we lose the first game in extra innings, and then lose 16-2, sealing our fate as the worst team. God damn it.

August: 13-15
September: 10-16

We finish with a 64-98 record.

Philadelphia is finally not the pennant winner in the Federal League; my own stomping ground in New Orleans has taken the crown. Georgia heads to the World Series from the Columbia League, but the 103-win New Orleans Kingfish win the series in six games.

Some top performers:

SP Seth White (7-12, 3.96 ERA, 2.1 WAR)

White finally put together a strong full season. The walks were much more under control, dropping 16% to 11.9% this year. The K% is down though, and this contract is looking worse as he gets older, which I guess I expected.

He has an opt-out after next season and I'm kind of hoping he takes it.

SP James LaSpina (2-11, 4.26 ERA, 0.8 WAR)

Not the greatest season, but this rookie came out of nowhere to be a part of our rotation this year. He was a minor-league FA signing back before the 1949 season, which means he was rated 40 or less. Now he's a 65, with great stuff and a nasty slider. He's not there yet; but he's currently the #21 prospect in baseball, and along with Parrish could form a solid tandem behind White for the foreseeable future.

LF Steve Gonzalez (.238/.362/.490, 118 wRC+, 4 WAR)

Gonzalez is not the best player by any means, and the BABIP dipped down to .263 this year; we'll see how much of that is luck, but a guy who walks more than he strikes out that can hit 12 homers and play pretty much every single day (696 PA this year, 693 PA last year) is valuable. He's still on the minimum salary too so I can't complain at all about our leadoff man.

C John Hollett (.326/.372/.438, 132 wRC+, 1.7 WAR)

Hollett was a FA add before the 1949 season. His .362 BABIP surely helped him this year, but the production was great at the end of the day. He'll be a FA, and I don't think we'll pay what he wants. He's spent the end of both of his years here on the IL, and this year he had just 328 PA.