BNN Weekly Report
This Week in the CBO, BMU, GBRL, and Youth Leagues
by Nat Wright-Kawolski
12 February 2306
The Aging Pitcher Problem?
When the 2306 season begins, there will be 96 starting pitchers and up to
300 total pitchers in the league on Opening Day. For many teams, they have high hopes that their pitching staffs will make the difference between them being a contender and a team looking to reload for the future.
Unfortunately, what we are seeing is that the group of good pitchers is aging rapidly, and the young guys are not replacing them at a high enough rate.
Diamond City Swatters Scouting Director Tom Lakes thinks so, too.
"We're always looking for talent," Lakes said, "but we're also having problems finding guys ready or close to ready that are under 30. There just aren't that many, and they are worth more than we can pay to get them."
Assuming they do not make significant moves before the season begins, the four starters are Sheng Kawolski (33), City Moore (38), Aldo Sanch (28), and Mike Dawson (25). According to OSA scouts, they are respectively rated 80, 51, 46, and 44. The Swatters organization has no pitchers with a potential above 36 in their three levels of minors.
"We can say that our pitching staff lacks talent," Lakes said. "Every team's pitching staff lacks talent."
One team that was a heavy buyer in the offseason was Starlight. Their biggest talent gain was trading for SP Digger Vadim (27), considered one of the top pitchers in the league and under 30. However, to give him up, the Killers had to give up three top talents in LF Ken Debate, assumed to become a star soon, and good prospect pitchers in Pat Skinner (22) and Saw Valdez (20). According to Starlight manager Austin Shuler, the Killers are in "win now mode." They also have acquired within the last calendar year 1B Oren Gep from Diamond City, C Biter Trout from County Crossing, and RF Hurr Lee Reyes from Lexington.
"Our minors are suddenly empty," Shuler said.
All of the teams with top pitching staffs have some players they are afraid will fall off the cliff, in baseball terms, with sudden dead arms.
Atom Cats manager Fourth Wall acknowledged the same.
"We've enjoyed one of the best pitching staffs in the league through various players," Wall said. "But now we have those cliff divers to worry about."
Atom's "cliff divers" include SP Bow Rome (37), SP Tristan Marble (34), and CL Chopsticks McWilliams (35). Rome had a career-best 19 wins in 2305, along with his second-best ERA of 3.66. However, the Cats are not expecting similar results.
"We're trying to get as many innings as possible and outscore the other team," Wall said. "We need to make sure we send up nine guys to hit the hell out of the ball to punish the other team's divers."
OSA only rates 15 pitchers as being "excellent," which is 68/80 or above in their rated abilities. Four of those players are over 30. Six more are approaching 30.
Lakes believes that there should be more focus on developing pitchers. He also wishes that chems were allowed in the league, if only stimpacks.
"(Stimpacks) would help," he said. "If not (stimpacks), we probably need to coach our youth more on being good pitchers. I think some teams are just lofting up softballs and waiting for their turns to bat. We need more pitching talent coming into the league."
The CBO office was unavailable for comment, along with OSA scouts. Regardless, there is a problem brewing for the league, including rising ERAs. For example, in the NCA, the ERA in the past two seasons were 1st and 3rd in CBO history. In 2306, the SCA had its highest ERA since 2300.
"I don't want 10-8 games," Wall said. "I want 3-1 games."