Santo Domingo - One More Shot at Glory?

[Huckleberry]

Monday, September 30, 2109
Santo Domingo
by Odin Locks

Even as the Palmchats finalize preparations for their opening round playoff series against the Northwest Emeralds, rumors are swirling back home in the Dominican Republic and threaten to add an unwanted layer of drama over the proceedings. According to sources, some in the Santo Domingo front office are genuinely considering moving into a rebuilding phase if the club is not able to reclaim the ABL pennant and advance to the WBA Championship Series for the third time in four years.

While most observers are understandably dubious of these claims based on the club's long-term success, others have noted that team executives appear far less attached to their younger stars such as Cheslav Zamorov and Zuleide Rainha than they have been to those who were brought up as Palmchats such as the declining John Pottle and Juan Barajas. The sources indicate that there is currently an internal battle over the future plan for the organization; one side wishes to utilize Zamorov's and Rainha's club-friendly contracts to build around them as centerpieces while the other side notes that it is exactly those deals that could fetch a king's ransom if the team were willing to deal them for prospects and picks.

The latter group has pointed out the below graphic multiple times inside the front office. The trend on the left is Santo Domingo and the right is, of course, the rival Buenos Aires Dolphins.



The fear is that attempting to hang on when the Dolphins have built a stronger organization will end up leaving Santo Domingo in that middle ground for an extended period of time, a situation where they are too good to get high draft picks and therefore build a farm system but not good enough to challenge for the pennant.

This will be an interesting subplot to follow during the ABL and WBA postseason as the club will need to pick a direction within the next few weeks.

[Echo127]

A bit late on the commenting here, but that graphical comparison you've got in there is pretty neat. How much of that is SD performing worse, and how much of that is the other ABL teams improving?

[Huckleberry]

It's both, of course, but mostly my team getting worse in my opinion. Lot of aging, including Pottle going downhill way sooner than I had expected. Lack of development by basically any pitching prospect I've had as well.

Some ABL teams got better but that's offset by declines by others like São Paulo and Washington.