Houston Wranglers
The Wranglers have hovered around .500 the last two seasons and we don't realistically expect much more than that this season. Team goals are to finish above .500 and to properly develop younger talent.
The Wranglers were pretty quiet as far as pre-season moves. We traded away the talented 1B Kenny Tobin much to the ire of the league! Tobin would not be around when the Wranglers are "good again" so he was traded away on the cheap. Live and learn my friends. We did sign a lot of mid level talent to fill in some depth issues.
There are several young position players on the squad that we are looking forward to watching develop. The young power hitting catcher, Lenny Smart, among them. Smart is still a few seasons away from the big leagues. We also have two talented young short stops in Leon Bolick and Nipsey Hill. With these two coming along together it's likely that we'll see a position switch with one of them.
We also have a couple of young pitchers on the team that we are excited about. Both Kevin Aoki and Andres Moreno should continue on their respective paths to big league stardom.
Tampa Bay Sunburnt Tourists
Not to be confused with the copy-cat franchise Florida Tourists, Tampa rebounded last season with an 83-79 record after a 76-86 showing the season before. Tampa took a couple flyers in the FA market by signing former ROY SP Sergio Richards, who is recovering from a decimating injury which cost him nearly his entire seaon 21 campaign. They also signed Rico Pizzaro, who owns a career .396 OBP to play RF. Tampa got good value in these two players, which should help make up for losing Joe O'Leary to FA, and keep them progressing.
In the minors, last year's first round pick slugging COF Cody Eischen (who looks like a steal at #14) can probably make an impact in just a season or two. Season's 20 first rounder, Gordon Halter is their CF of the future.
The ML offense is led by Bunny-squared; Adcock, who provides the speed and OBP, and Justice, who supplies the power in the middle of the line-up.
Little Rock Rockabillies
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Santa Fe Railroads
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