Today in the CBO
News and Notes - Reports from around the Commonwealth
by Nat Wright-Kowalski
10 November 2297 - Punchers-Abernathy Trade: Westing for Hirshfield
BNN is reporting a rumored trade between the Shaw HS (soon Roxbury) Knuckle Punchers and Abernathy Adamantium has been finalized. The deal, which is expected to be announced sometime during the next few hours, will reportedly send 30-year-old LHP Brad Westing and 25-year-old minor league LF Maxx Kills to Abernathy in return for 19-year-old LF Chris Hirshfield, 18-year-old minor league RHP Dan Lowbridge, 19-year-old RHP Jimmy "Peanut" Carty and 19-year-old minor league 1B John Huerta. The clubs were noncommittal on the trade, but did not deny it.
In his career with the Knuckle Punchers, Inaugural Draft 1st-round pick (15th overall) Westing has compiled an ERA of 7.02 with 9 victories and 20 defeats and has held opponents to a .322 batting average. He also has struck out 172 batters in 237.1 innings and given up 329 hits.
Kills started 40 games in left field for the Forest Grove Marsh Molerats. He was 36 for 156 (.231) with two doubles, three home runs, 16 runs, and 14 RBI on the season.
Hirshfield, drafted in the 3rd round of the Inaugural Draft, was a two-year starter in left field for the Adamantium. Last season, he batted .326 (72 for 221) with 19 doubles, two triples, and 12 home runs. He scored 45 times and drove in 29. In 2296, he led the Institute League in RBI with 66.
Lowbridge has been everywhere and almost nowhere in his career. Originally signed by the Finch Farm Four Leafs as a free agent, Lowbridge was released and claimed by multiple teams before settling with Abernathy. In 20 games started for the Bunker Hill Gun Fu in 2297, Lowbridge was 4-7 with a 7.19 ERA in 107.2 innings. He allowed 86 earned runs, gave up 147 hits, walked 53, and struck out 69.
Carty did not play much in 2297, bouncing back and forth between the Adamantium and Gun Fu. A 24th-round pick in the Inaugural Draft, "Peanut" went 0-0 with a 6.00 ERA in relief in six games with the Adamantium in 2297.
Huerta was an 18th-round pick in the 2297 Inaugural Draft. In 2297 with Bunker Hill, he batted .245 (45 for 184) i n50 games started at first base. He had 10 doubles, 10 home runs, 34 runs, and 39 RBI.
12 November 2297 - Shroud Minor-Leaguer Changes Name, Learns Pitch
Fort Hagen Silver Shroud minor leaguer Joey Dimitroff showed off his new pitch and his new flare for the eccentric on Friday.
Asking the small group of scouts and reporters to check out a pitch he calls the "screwball," Joey also dropped some change on his name change.
"You can call me Joey Dimes," he said. "I'm dropping them, like my screwball. They call it a screwball because it will 'screw you up.'"
Joey Dimes, nee Dimitroff, has not been much of a factor in the Shroud pitching rotation. Originally signed as an undrafted free agent, Dimes never broke onto the main team. In 2297, he pitched for the BMU team, the CIT Ruins Refractors. He had a total of 12 appearances with two starts, going 2-1 with a 2.80 ERA in 35.1 innings pitched.
"He's my kind of pitcher," Refractors pitching coach Bookett Quick said. "I like those pitchers that have nice touch to their pitches, and Joey's got that. I think he's starting in 2298."
While Dimes had been working to improve the movement on his pitches, hoping to up his strikeout count--he struck out 38, averaging more than one per inning pitched--Quick was working on control.
"It came down to him looking to do something different," Quick said. "Then he started throwing an ugly-looking pitch in batting practice that no one could hit. We wouldn't let him throw it in the game, but I think he has mastered it now. Those strikeouts are going to shoot up."
Dimes still has hopes of breaking in on the Fort Hagen roster in 2298. If not, he has plans. "They keep me down here at the Ruins, and I'm going to start doing some of those Institute experiments. I may create the moonball and the poofball. One's going to drop down from the moon and the other is just going to go poof and disappear."