Grundy County Grizzlies
Exclusive Interview!  6 Burning Questions with Jack Howard

Q:  In recent year’s you’ve had high 1st round picks and used those selections on Drew, Peralta, Loaiza and Prior.  Will your history with these players influence what you do with this year’s #1 pick?


A: Of course my past history of 1st round selections will influence greatly how I choose my 1st round pick this year, and in the future.  My prior 1st round decisions have not worked out as I had hoped.  I have passed on the games premier power hitters over the years - I traded the 1st overall pick used on Albert Pujols, and have passed on Prince Fielder and Ryan Howard (no relation).  While my team has been a perennial loser - I have traded the No. 1 pick more often than I have kept it.  

If I knew Mark Prior was going to spend more time on the DL than pitch - I obviously would have chosen differently.  I am able to give him another chance and carry him on the DL since he failed to pitch last year.  I based my pick on what I had read about Prior and his early experience with the Cubs.  I had similar experience and same bad luck with 1st round pick of Zack Greinke.  Greinke wasn't injured, he just lost his competitiveness.  Maybe he has gotten it back.  Greinke will fill a role this year as a 6th starter or long reliever - or both.  My only first round SP success was my choice of Roy Oswalt. Oswalt is an ACE.  He was a favorite and pitched several years for the Griz before getting the team Miguel Cabrera in trade.

Stephen Drew - last year's Troy Tulowitzky had a so-so 2007.  He is young and still has upside potential.  With Yuniesky Betancourt providing solid D and a decent bat, I can hold on to Drew and wait for him to assume the position.  Jhonny Peralta, considered my worst first round pick (#3 overall) by my fellow NASBLers.  I liked him.  He still was my best batter at SS in 2007, but his defense falls a little short of competitive needs in the league.  I expect he will hit and his defense will improve.  I made a management decision that I should not carry 3 SSs (or 3 players at any one position) going into the draft, especially if we stay in a rut and chose a SS for the 3rd straight year with my 1st round pick.  I also drafted Jimmy Rollins with a late 1st round pick the same year I drafted Oswalt.  Rollins would really look nice in a Griz uniform this year.  However, we are happy that we got Justin Morneau for him, very happy.

Many also considered Estaban Loaiza a bad 1st round pick.  We all saw him have one great year with the White Sox and my thinking was that he had developed into a top-notch pitcher due to his experience in MLB and developing a new pitch, not despite those facts.  

So what will I do this year.  Can I continue to ignore the best power-hitting rookie available?  I doubt it.
Do I pick a SS for the 3rd straight year?  I have been told I have a one-track mind.
Do I go for pitching?  I believe every major league GM and field manager would ask me not to based on my track record with 1st round pitchers.
There are other theories on how to use the first pick:  Best player available?  Might bring us back to a friendly Colorado SS or Milwaukee 3B, maybe someone else.
Fill my needs?  Back to pitching, pitching, outfield, outfield.
Trade the pick.  No one seems to want it.
 

Q:  GCG is (over) loaded at the corner IF positions; are any of those players likely to switch teams before the season’s over?


A: No - we trimmed the roster to 2 players per position.  We understand it may not be a wise decision to draft a player where we have 2 players all ready sharing a position, but we will have a valid reason for doing so, if we do that.  We are not opposed to trading, but we have not been offered a deal that we consider is fair value.  I will only trade when it helps my team.  At this point, I am only looking to improve my team through the draft.
  

Q:  Is it easier to predict future success for a pitcher or position player?


A: I have not had much success with either.  I do think players satisfy predictions more often then pitching.  The problem with what you read is - writers usually only write positive information and always hedge their outlook/prediction for the player/pitcher - just in case the player has a good season.  Usually the less the writers know about the player, the greater the player's potential.  The one fact to remember is that everyone who puts on a professional baseball uniform knows how to play the game and someone believes in him. 
 

Q:  What player on your team are you the most excited about when looking at the next five years, and why?


A: Miguel Cabrera, Justin Morneau, Stephen Drew, and this year's first pick.  They are all young and I believe they will all deliver and turn the franchise record around.  They should contribute for many years.
 

Q:  Will GCG management assign a full time trainer/masseuse to help Ben Sheets be a consistent 200+ innings pitcher?

 

A: We are thinking acupuncture.  I have a pin and when we get the cards, I will start the procedure.  Sheets may become a holy man.

Q:  What do you enjoy to most about NASBL?


A: Steady group of managers that appreciate the league and perform well together.
Good support, good website, good information flow, fun be part of the information (fantasy) flow. A lot of good teams and no dominant team that wins year after year.


2007 Year in Review

The Numbers

 

Record: 47-115 (16th in the league)
Expected Record: 51-111 (16th in the league)

Runs Scored: 708 (16th in the league)
Runs Allowed: 1089 (16th in the league)
Run Differential: -381 (16th in the league)

  



What went right?
Juan Pierre (.257/3/33) continued his amazing Robin Hood spree with the Grizzlies, robbing from the rich and giving to the poor a league-leading 89 times. In addition, Pierre was finally able to bring his old bugaboo, the caught-stealing, under control. His full-season career low 17 cs gave him an excellent 84% success rate, 3rd highest in the league. Rounding out the goodspeed hat-trick, Pierre legged out 14 triples, tied with Troy's Ichiro Suzuki for the 3rd highest total in the league. In addition to Pierre's heroics, rookie 5th round outfielder Matt Murton (.317/4/31) showed promise. GCG joined DFW and NYK as the only teams to earn the $500 FA Money award for having a better road record than home record.

What went wrong?
Despite a host of 1st-round offensive talent (Jhonny Peralta, Stephen Drew, Miguel Cabrera, Russell Martin, Rocco Baldelli, Justin Morneau) the Grizzly offense failed to eat their Wheaties, posting a sub-.400 team slugging percentage for a 3rd consecutive nutritionally imbalanced year. From the mound, Jamie Moyer (5-22, 6.44) and Vicente Padilla (6-21, 7.58) became only the second pair of NASBL teammates ever to lose 20 games in the same season, and the first such pair in 8 years to do so (joining Daryl Kile and Kevin Millwood of the 1999 Ozark Wolf Pack).

In retrospect, the critical decisions were:
1. Trading ace pitcher Roy Oswalt for uber-prospect Miguel Cabrera (.312/11/54)... and then turning him into a part-time player. Cabrera, a 1st round selection (6th overall) by HHA in the 2004 draft had averaged over 100 rbi, 100 runs scored, and 30 hr's in full-time duty for the Hawaiians in 2005-2006. Oddly enough, upon his arrival in Grundy County he was relegated to a time-share arrangement at 3b with veteran Mike Lowell (.280/16/48). While the Grizzly offense struggled, Cabrera often sat on the bench (78 games started, 104 games played).

2. Selecting J.D. Drew's little brother Stephen (.271/2/12) with the 1st pick in the 2007 draft. With 2006 1st rounder Jhonny Peralta (.225/8/44) and defensive whizkid Yuniesky Betancourt (.226/1/38) already under contract, the Grizz surprised draft prognosticators by going SS in the draft for the 2nd consecutive year. While Drew's batting average led the pack of Grizzly shortstops, his playing time trailed the pack (just 42 games played and 155 ab's).

3. Not making a trade to turn the talent-rich yet overcrowded Grizzly infield into an asset in other areas. While Grundy had 2 great 3b's, 3 good shortstops, and 3 very good 1b's (Youkilis, Morneau, and Nick Johnson), the Grizzly outfield was running one-dimensional Juan Pierre and a collection of spare parts (Matt Murton, Matt Diaz, and an injured Rocco Baldelli) out to the outfield every day. While manager Jack Howard did attempt to alleviate the infield congestion and bolster the outfield by moving Kevin Youkilis to left field for 110 games, the misplaced infielder struggled to tally a mere 12 x-chance outs on the season, whilst committing 13 errors. While second-tier offensive players were gobbling up hundreds of ab's, the most talented Grizzly bats were languishing on the bench. The telling stat? With the exception of Juan Pierre, every single Grizzly rode the pine for 40 or more full games.

Looking ahead to 2008

Can Russell show a little more muscle in 2008 than his 1hr / 36 rbi in 2007?


Three key questions
1. Is journeyman Mike Cuddyer (.260/20/83 with NYK in '07) the answer to the Grizzlie's perennial outfield production problems? With The Thief gone (selected by LVI in the supplemental draft), the Grizzly outfield cupboard, with the exception of Cuddyer, is once again bare. If nothing else, the veteran rightielder will not lack for opportunity.

2. Will Miguel Cabrera earn a promotion to full-time play? How one of the best hitters on two historically great offensive teams (HHA '05-06) can find himself mired on the bench of the most punchless team in the league (16th in runs scored) is an interesting tale. Fact is, for all their problems, the 2007 Grizzlies simply had too much offensive infield talent. And 2008 is looking little different. With the failed 'Kevin Youkilis as outfielder' experiment unlikely to be repeated, the Grizz now have 3 quality starting 3b's (Youk, Lowell, and Cabrera) as well as 2 quality starting 1b's (Morneau and Youk). With only 1 DH slot to go around, any way you slice it one of the Grizzlies top 4 offensive players will be doing important stuff like organizing the bat rack while his compatriots try to push the Grizz into the first division.

3. Is the Zack Attack back? Following the single worst season ever for an NASBL pitcher (2 wins, 23 losses, and a Boeing-like 7.77 ERA in 2006), Zack Greinke understandably spent the 2007 season in a psychiatric ward. Several hundred shock treatments and lithium tablets later, is the 2005 first rounder once again ready to compete on the NASBL level? Truth be told, the former Golden Child was an above-league-average pitcher in his 2005 debut season (5.05 ERA vs a 5.14 league average, and 9 complete game in 21 starts.) Having recently cut their 2006 1st round pick (Jhonny Peralta) and having gotten only 42 games out of 2007 1st rounder Stephen Drew, it is becoming increasing vital that Grundy President and CEO Hog Howard see some return on his large recent investments. A nice bounce back season from Zack Greinke would go a long way in this regard.


Projected lineup
C – Russell Martin
1B – Kevin Youkilis
2B – Brandon Philips
3B – Mike Lowell
SS – Stephen Drew / Yuniesky Betancourt
RF – Mike Cuddyer
CF –
LF –
DH – Justin Morneau / Miguel Cabrera


Rotation
Ben Sheets
Mark Buehrle
Zack Greinke
Jon Garland



Closer
Bob Howry