How'd We Ever Win Eight? Pessimistic Players Season Preview
A Brief History
The second longest tenured member of The Defectors wasn’t always so pessimistic. He captured the Defectors Cup in only his third year in the league, dismantling the Russian Men in the 2003 Cup finals. Since then, however, crushing defeats in the 2006 Cup finals (to Shup after posting a league best 121-54 regular season record) and 2009 Cup finals (a 331.85 point series loss to Otto) have made the team name more appropriate.
Pess has fielded a playoff team in almost every season of his Defectors career but hasn’t reached the finals since that devastating loss in 2009. Recently Bklyn Royal Giants has been the turd in his punchbowl; seeing him off in three of the past four seasons.
2014 saw Pess run up a league best 114-48 record during the regular season. Joey Bats and a resurgent V-Mart led the way for an elite offense while god-king Kershaw carried the pitching staff. Tanner Roark and Josh Harrison were tremendous mid-season acquisitions from the free agency pool. Jumbo Diaz: less so. After dispatching Nebraska Crawfish (points WC winner) in the first round, Pess met the 4th seed Bklyn Royal Giants in the semifinals. In the end, Brook’s pitching staff proved to be the difference and the Pessimistic Players were defeated by nearly 130 points in the series.
Top 3 ML Hitters for 2015
Pess boasts an embarrassment of riches on offense making it difficult to narrow this down to just three. Assuming everyone stays healthy, it’s hard to look past his trio of Blue “J”s.
When baseballs dream, they dream about soaring through sunny skies and rolling through soft green grass. That is, until Joey Bats murders them. The only difference between Freddy Krueger and Jose Bautista is that Krueger is vulnerable in the real world.
Jose Reyes, human Leatherman multi-tool, bounced back from injury in 2014 and posted big numbers across the board. You can expect another great season hitting in front of Bautista, Edwin Encarnacion, and the final Blue J on Pessimistic Players, Josh Donaldson.
Donaldson put together a couple great seasons in the Oakland National Park and Wildlife Preserve and moving to the Rogers Centre launching pad could portend a monster line.
Top 3 ML Pitchers for 2015
It would be blasphemy to put anyone in this section with god-king Kershaw so I’ll just note that Jeff Samardzija is pretty good and youngster Kyle Hendricks was mighty impressive as a senior circuit debutant last year.
2 Prospects for the future
If not for recent TJ surgery, Brady Aiken would probably head this list but in his absence I’ll take Sean Newcomb and Kyle Schwarber.
Minor Leaguer who could make a difference in 2015
Pess also has one Crush Davis lurking on the farm but a bounce back campaign from Davis would probably need to come on another team’s major league roster considering the guys ahead of him on Pess’s (Freeman/V-Mart)
Projected Record
For the first time in years, Pess finds himself in a division not named the Charm City Clusterfuck. Sadly, realignment doesn’t work out for everyone. Gone are the Catz and Birds of his youth in favor of Dawgs and Pelicans. Still, this member of the old guard will put together a solid season in the ShadowCat Memorial division and finish 92-70 because his offense will score 50 points a night.
