Your 2018 Calgary FA Report/Season Preview

[AP] Calgary
After a whirlwind of parties, parades, and media appearances, the Marauders of Calgary had to get back to business.

The team built for a title run last year had to be retooled starting at the top. Losing MVP, POY, Triple Crown winner, and all around machine Pat Smith was going to put a big dent in the Calgary lineup. Also gone are Wally Easley and Ben Huffman as far as big names, and some other key pieces either retired (Zach Sutherland, Chris Weller) or moved on (Mike Baerga).

So, with a limited budget and plenty of holes, Calgary would do what it does best—reload the offense, right? Bzzzz. Signed are four quality pitchers, two bats, and some backups.

Let’s start at the top:

Doug Phillippe (1 year, $2.9 mil) - Phillippe was good here once and we’re hoping can be good here once again. Will likely fall into the 4 slot in the rotation.

George Bilko (1 year, $2.6 mil) - A little more than we normally pay for a reliever (and we did it twice, see Billy Jones), but we think Bilko can be a Louie Butac force in the middle innings.

Emile Yost (1 year, $2.3 mil) - Yost is surprisingly only 23 wins from 200 (a very big feat in the Deuce) and we think he has at least one good year remaining in the bigs. He was good in Indy, and that’s a good enough reason to give him a shot in Calgary.

Billy Jones (1 year, $2.2 mil) - Has had some decent years mixed with poor years, and then last year was nearly unhittable for Phoenix. He’ll be somewhere in the middle there - we overpaid, but we wanted to sure up the pen as much as possible.

Stan Bailey (1 year, $2.0 mil) - Bailey was superb two years ago, and although there has been slippage (and will be more this season) in ratings, we think Bailey will switch hit his way to the middle of the order for the Marauders.

Joe Pierson (4 years, $750k per) - Pierson has nice years in Calgary and will likely catch even though we have superstar-to-be JCruz Aydt at catcher. We expect plenty of strikeouts to go with plenty of home runs and a nice rotation calmer behind the dish.

Backups include overpaid (Christopher) Columbus Maj, (Let’s Be) Frank Allen, Chris Gladu (To Meetcha), (Double) Scoops Quickel, and Bobby “The Hobby” Simms.

Calgary is looking at the season with this lineup/rotation in mind:

Lineup:
1) 2B Russell Eaton
2) CF Bill Baker
3) DH JCruz Aydt
4) 1B Antuwin Toro
5) LF Stan Bailey
6) C Joe Pierson
7) SS Junie Bagby
8) 3B Gene Leinhauser
9) RF Otis Mencer

Rotation:

1) Toots Jackson
2) Ashon Yonke (who is bound to rebound to crap again)
3) Fred Bordick
4) Doug Phillippe
5) Emile Yost

MR: Butac, Bilko, Jones, Newhauser CL: Budd Kuehl

Should be fun either way and, really, all the matters is the ending…

Mike
Calgary
Your 2017 Deuce Champs