Early this morning, I went back and browsed some offseason threads and noticed that there was a general mash-bash-smashfest of Jeff Kunion and Spirit baseball ops. I came to their defense to an extent then (although in the past I've been critical of some of Kunion's moves), and I think it's appropriate to do so again now.
Although on paper John Kelly for Chris Rowan still looks kind of crappy now, look how anemic the offense looks without him in the lineup. It changes the whole dynamic when Rowan's in there. I shudder to think of what the SS situation would have been without him.. Howdeshell? I love the guy, but as a starter?
On the flip side, as yours truly predicted but was lambasted by our Esteemed Anonymous Friends who Have Forgotten More about Baseball than I Will Ever Know, (see threads here here here and here) , the Spirit pitching staff is BETTER this year than it was last year... MUCH better.
And they have managed to take a lineup that lost Brian Macchi, Rob Fischer, Travis Oglesby, and Marcos Agramonte, and turn it into the #3 offense in the league, without being a poor defensive team.
At this thread, one of the Anonymous posters asked me to name one guy Kunion added who contributed to the '04 near-championship other than Vic Davilla. I wish I'd noticed this question at the time, because I can and will: Joe Hastings, Brian Macchi, Nilson Teilon, Travis Oglesby, Onix Mercado, Ryan Bicondoa, Justin Gordon.
I can't find archived NEL standings, but I feel confident in assuming that since the start of 2003, the Spirit have the 2nd-most wins of all teams in the league after Quebec. It's not easy to assemble and reassemble teams that can continuously perform at a high level year in and year out as the Spirit have done so far-- I say give some credit for that.
Now that I've learned how the John Kelly deal went down and the low-class way with which it was dealt, I'm disappointed in that aspect of the deal. From a pure baseball ops standpoint though, you can't really rip what the Spirit did this offseason. When the trade was announced, Kunion said they did it under the assumption that pitching would be their strength and they'd need to add the solid hitter and fielder. Right now, that looks like a pretty good call. Yes, John Kelly would be better than Jarrad Lavergne/Jared Trout/take your pick. But we'd have a gaping hole in the infield, while just adding someone on to something that's already a position of strength.
So, now that the season is underway and we know how the team performs on the field, let's give some credit to Kunion shall we? After all, many of us- myself included- have been overly critical. But this is 4 straight years of good teams... so again, let's give them some credit.
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I was wondering (and kind of hoping) there was another side to this one.
Over the offseason, I got comment after comment from people saying Kelly was mistreated by the organization by being dealt against his will and without so much as a phone call. I'm not sure how true or false these assertions are, although according to people who talked to his wife when he pitched against us, there's some hard feelings between him and Nick.
I guess it does make sense that there's another side to the story. If you're at liberty to talk more about what these 'demands' were, feel free.
Yes....throughout all the "bad" and/or "horrible" moves Kunion has made he's made some great and awesome moves. It's time to give him a cheer for helping us be one of the best teams in our league over the past 4 years. To do this is unbelievable....we should definitly be more thankful than we are for this great person we have behind-the-scenes.
CONGRATS ON 4 GREAT YEARS MR KUNION! THANKS FOR THE GOOD TIMES AND I HOPE IT KEEPS GOING!!!! ^_^
As for that Kelly thing.....I wonder if we'll EVER figure out exactly what was up with that. I would ask his wife but I don't think that would be greatly accpeted by her. :-p
And reading back on those threads I'm STILL confused as to how many anonymous ' we had back then!!!! :-p :-p
I'd' always suspected that things like that go on under the table in this league... especially since some of the really good players in this league could probably hold their own in the higher-salary Atlantic League.
Speaking of under the table stuff, I have heard rumors that in the past Nick has given certain star players under the table money to play because it would be impossible to play in the CanAm League with a family and 3 kids and support them with the salary they get payed. Just rumors though, I don't know how much truth there is to that.
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