The Gulf League - Fun in the Sun, South of the Border

[luckymann]

Being very constrained financially for now, we signed no extensions over the break. I hope to remedy that ASAP and have a fairly short list of core guys we want as cornerstones to build around.

We did sign pitcher Dolf Luque on a minors FA deal.

Our mix of players proved problematic off-field last year and we offload one of the problem guys in this trade, with Turkey clearly the focal point:

Fairly happy with the squad, although we are once again picked to come last.

Let's go get some!

[luckymann]

After we picked him up as a FA in the offseason, Dolf "The Pride of Havana" Luque's first GL go-around didn't go well, with him posting a 2-6 record and ugly 8.83 ERA over his 11 starts before we sent him home to Havana for a stint with our AAA Sugar Kings.

So far, it seems to be working.

[luckymann]

The 2002 All-Star Break sees our Conspiradores mired in last place at 40-49 and, if there's been any improvement on 2001, it has been only marginal.

Once again it is our pitching causing most of the damage, although our .310 BABIP tells me we've been unlucky as well.

Our young hitters continue to shine, however, with Shotime living up to his star billing already with nearly 4 WAR (5 if you combine it with his pitching) and Juanjo (302/424/528 slash with 17 homers and 54 RBI) advancing his claims as a truly elite hitter.

Fantastic news on that front, with Señor Soto signing on with us thru 2012. We also tie down Kiké Hernandez thru 2008 and Turkey Stearnes thru 2010.

That leaves only Elly de la Cruz and Shotime among our "cornerstone" players unsigned. Shohei is on the min again next year and that's when we'll sit him down to talk extension, will Elly is expensive and may be the one we can't afford to keep out of this nucleus. We'll see. Things are frustratingly tight, handicapping not only our ability to sign more guys but also to give some a run at the top flight, as we want to avoid unnecessarily starting clocks.

Not long until the Draft and we again expect to have among the first shots to fire. It will target an elite pitcher, and I'll give a full rundown shortly.

[luckymann]

A sharp but shallow player pool awaits us for the 2002 Gulf League Rookie Draft, with a few rippers there for Round 1 but a vertiginous drop in quality after that.

We get knocked about a bit in the Lottery, dropping from #2 to #6 but in the end it matters not as we get our guy and a handy relief arm in R2.

Here are the first two rounds plus supps and our picks in full:

We know fixing our pitching in this young league full of raw players is going to be tough in the short-term but we feel Leon will end up being added to the list of cornerstone players for our club.

He and Joakin will wile away the second half of 2002 at AAA Havana but we expect both will be with us at the QCs on OD 2003.