Inside the Foxes' Den: A GM's Blog

[Coop]

Hi, fellow GMs!  I'm the GM of the Black Forest Foxes, and I've decided to start this little blog in order to talk about some of the happenings inside the Fox organization.  Mostly I just want to tell some funny and interesting stories that will hopefully give you a few minutes of amusement to relieve the stress of running your organization.  I'm going to start off by discussing a young pitcher that probably none of you have ever heard of.

The story begins in my first rookie draft.  It was January 2104.  I had just taken over the Black Forest organization, which had a depleted farm system and was in desperate financial shape.  I was very inexperienced, but I approached the draft with great seriousness because I knew that it was important to start restocking my minor league teams.  Anyway, things seemed to go well enough in the first few rounds, but by the time the sixth round of the draft came around, the talent pool was starting to get pretty shallow.  Then I noticed that there was a young pitcher from India who was still available, and the scouting reports said that he had 4-star potential.  His name was Akshey Imani.  I drafted him and congratulated myself for getting such a fine prospect that late in the draft.

Little did I know what was to come.

A month later, in spring training, I saw Akshey Imani pitch for the first time.  And it's a good thing I don't chew tobacco, because I would have swallowed my chaw.  He was TERRIBLE.  His pitches had no velocity and no movement.  He also couldn't put the ball over the plate with any consistency, but that was okay because every time he threw a strike, the resulting line drive nearly killed one of my infielders.

My first thought was that this kid had to be an impostor.  He must have stolen the passport of my prized 4-star prospect; the real Akshey Imani must be tied up in a warehouse somewhere in India.  But no, this really was Askhey Imani.  It's just that, when he packed his bags for his trip to the Black Forest, he apparently forgot to pack his talent.

The scouts did their thing, taking radar-gun readings and analyzing film, and their revised reports showed the kid with a new rating.  He was no longer a 4-star prospect; he was now a 1-star prospect.  It was unreal; the kid had changed overnight from future big-league pitcher to future big-league beer vendor.

I refused to cut Imani right away; I reasoned that the kid had been a very good prospect at one point, so maybe he'd get back to that point if given some time.  He was therefore assigned to one of our minor-league teams, and he was allowed to pitch regularly throughout the 2104 season.  But he was lousy, and he showed no sign that he was making any progress.  The following spring I had a fresh batch of newly-drafted pitchers competing for roster spots.  I gave Imani one more chance to show that he still had some talent, but he was as bad as ever, so at the end of spring training I finally released him.  I don't know where he is now.  Probably flipping burgers.  And probably half of them are ending up on the floor.

So Akshey Imani is gone, but he's not forgotten.  In fact, around the Black Forest offices, his name is invoked pretty frequently.  Any time a young player shows signs of lacking the talent we thought he had, we refer to him as having developed a case of Akshey Imani Disease.  (Actually at first my scouts called it Akshey Imani Disease Syndrome, or AIDS for short, but I made them stop using that term because if someone overheard us saying that one of our players had AIDS, it could be badly misinterpreted.)

I'm sure Imani would have preferred a different fate, but at least he's attained a certain measure of fame inside our organization.  Most kids who wash out of professional baseball are quickly and completely forgotten.  But Akshey Imani's name will live on in the Black Forest as long as there are young players who fail to live up to their scouting reports.  And unfortunately there's never any shortage of those.  Like leftfielder Song Kang, for instance.  But that's another story.

[Karachi_GM]

Excellent read

[Coop]

Thanks.  If guys around the league enjoy reading this sort of stuff, I'll keep posting it.  It's just meant to be fun.  But if it's an annoyance to everyone, I'll stop.

[Echo127]

"Probably flipping burgers.  And probably half of them are ending up on the floor."

I lol'd.

[squaredrive]

funny read!  keep it coming!

[Coop]

Will do.  I've got plenty of lousy players on my team I can joke about.

Come to think of it, though, I'm not really sure that's a good thing.

[Huckleberry]

Awesome stuff. If I had the time and ability I would post a long-form story someday on Román López, my hugely-hyped former #1 overall draft pick slash savior of the franchise who has turned into the prototypical AAAA player - routinely dominating AAA and getting shelled in the big leagues.

[Coop]

In Greek mythology there were three goddesses, known as the Fates, who controlled the affairs of mortals.  You probably already know about them from reading about ancient cultures.  Or, more likely, from watching Disney's HERCULES movie.

Anyway, things are slow in Greek mythology nowadays, so the Fates have begun meddling in the careers of baseball players.  (Just go with it.)  Some players are fated to become superstars --- especially if they have a Contact Rating of 9.  Other players are fated to become Akshey Imani.  But there are players who strive to overcome the fate that has been set for them.  Unfortunately, they usually fail.

One such player was Asokadatta Reshma ("Asok" for short).  It was Asok's dream to become a big-league player.  But for some reason the Fates disliked him and decided that his fate was to fail in his dream.  Anyway, he played well enough as an amateur to be selected in the tenth round of the 2101 draft.  The book on him was that he was a fine fielder but a poor hitter.  Guys like that don't usually reach the majors, and for that matter, most tenth-round picks don't make it.  But the Fates were alarmed that he might get his chance, so just to be safe, they arranged for a few injuries.  Well, actually, a whole lot of injuries.  Asok was knocked out of action twice in 2102, three times in 2103, once in 2104 and twice in 2105.  Needless to say, his career went nowhere, and by the middle of the 2104 season he was a backup shortstop on the Black Forest Class A team.  The scouts had written him off as a prospect, and the Fates, satisfied that their work was done, lost interest in him.  They turned their attention to Akshey Imani.  (And, man, did they ever do a number on THAT guy.)

But then something unexpected happened; Asok's Contact Rating went up and he started to hit.  I had an opening at shortstop at Triple-A, so I moved him there.  He was my starting Triple-A shortstop in 2105, and he hit .302.  Considering that he was now hitting well and that he was still a very good fielder, Asok was suddenly a legitimate big-league prospect.  The following spring, I promoted him to my major-league roster as a backup shortstop.

Well, the Fates just about had a cow.

They got to work on him right away.  In the next-to-last spring training game, Asok was struck on the kneecap by an errant fastball.  He was out for a couple of weeks, but somehow he was allowed to return to action, and in mid-April, on the 13th (cue the ominous music), he played in his first big-league game.  He got two hits in four at-bats.  Four days later, he was in the lineup again.  Again he got two hits in four at-bats.  He was en fuego.

Now the Fates got serious.  They decided to put a stop to this nonsense once and for all.

When Asok got his fourth career hit --- a double which may prove to be the final hit of his big-league career --- the Fates arranged for him to break his hand sliding into second base.  Asok went onto the Disabled List, which is essentially his home away from home.  And while he was on the DL, his ratings suddenly went down.  And down.  And down.  By the time he came off the DL in August, he had the worst hitting ratings of any shortstop in the entire Black Forest organization, even including a Rookie League nobody who was drafted in the 17th round.  But when the organization tried to reassign Asok to a minor-league team, there were contractual issues of some sort, so in the end the decision was made to put him on waivers for the purpose of giving him his unconditional release.  The poor guy's dreams have officially been shattered.

They say that Father Time is undefeated.  But the Fates have a pretty good won-loss record too.