[Purple Cowboy]

Note: This is a league that started with the arod/garlon database in 2006. Career leaders are only those who were active in this game world, i.e. Barry Bonds is the all-time home run leader. I simmed 15 years and then took over the worst team.

October 31, 2020

It was late at night on a humid and damp Halloween when I got the call. It was my old friend, minor league baseball manager, and agent Herb Watson huffing and puffing excitedly on the other end of the line.

“There’s an opening and they want you!”

“Calm down,” I replied as I got up out of my bed, scratching my head as I stood. “What’s going on?”

“It’s sunny; it should be great!” he said, his smile nearly visible through the happy tone of his voice.

I should have stopped right there.

It was the Oakland Athletics. In the 2020 season they posted the worst record in baseball with a 44-116 mark. In fact, in the 15 years since Major League Baseball fired Bud Selig, hired Fred Jones, and decided to seal off career records and “restart” Major League Baseball, it was the worst record “in history” and the first time a club had failed to win at least 50 games. Overall in 15 years the A’s have an unflattering 1,039-1,391 record with just two winning seasons, the last one way back in 2007 (84-78; the team’s only playoff appearance as well).

“It’s over for Silva,” Herb blurted about 58-year old Manuel Silva, Oakland’s former General Manager. “He’s out as of today. The owner is arranging some hasty interviews as a formality but he wants you over there now to start looking over the team. You’ve got three weeks until arbitration and free agency filings.”

“Wait a second,” I said, unsure of exactly what I should do next. “I haven’t made any decisions yet.”

I couldn’t really get the “yet” out as Herb stepped right on the end of my sentence with “oh no, you have to take this. We had a deal already you remember that – fair and square. And TV and newspapers already know.”

“What?!” I exclaimed, taken completely by surprise. “You can’t make my decisions for me like that you’re supposed to have my best interests at heart!”

“I do,” he answered with a confident but slightly insulted-sounding sigh. “This is going to be your chance to turn this whole thing around. Make the A’s a winner. Just think about it for a second - anything you do is going to be an improvement.”

He had a great point there. Even if I was a bungling idiot I could probably still win more than 44 games. I was sure of it. Just the sort of no-lose situation I was looking for.

“Okay,” I said as thoughtfully as I could, “send me what you have.”

My blackberry went off instantly with some files giving me a financial breakdown of the club. Last year the A’s had the 29th highest payroll… out of the 30 MLB clubs. Only Cleveland’s $23,952,800 was lower than Oakland’s $34,127,000. By contrast, the reigning American League Western Division Champion Angels boasted the highest payroll in baseball last season at $154,021,400. Not great news to have a spender like that in the division to be sure.

More bad news was that our payroll of $34,127,000 was $4,000,000 over budget. Why would I want this job again?

Surprisingly, Oakland’s finances have remained in the black over the last 15 years. Seemingly available funds of slightly over $38,000,000 might give the team some breathing room going into the 2021 season. Another beep on the blackberry revealed that 9 players on the 25-man roster were at least 32-years old and that 16 players were either eligible for free agency or arbitration. One positive of the situation is that no one on the current 25-man roster has a contract lasting longer than 2022 so the next two years had tremendous opportunity for change. And changes obviously needed to be made.

I told Herb I’d take the job and he said the team was sending a car over to take me to the airport. I ran to the bathroom for a quick shave and to check to make sure my pits didn’t smell too badly. Everything worked out.

When we got to the airport it turned out to be the first time a car I had ridden in had ever simply driven straight onto the tarmac! The private flight check-in was at its own exit apart from the rabble waiting for passenger flights - the easiest and most stress-free experience I had ever encountered.

Herb met me on the flight. In fact he was already aboard and sipping a gimlet when I a bit nervously climbed up the short metal steps and into the cabin.

“Jim,” Herb said, “grab a drink and let’s take a look at the staff.”

I nodded to him as casually as I could manage and made my way over to the bottle of gin sitting inside a cut-out portion of an ice sculpture of an Oakland Athletics baseball cap, the cut-out being where the A’s’ logo would normally appear. I dropped some ice cubes into a short glass and smothered them with gin, a little steam visible the instant the liquid hit the ice. A splash of tonic and I move over to Herb and take the seat across the table from him.

“No lime?”

“Gin on the rocks, amigo,” I answered dryly. If I smoked I would have lit a cigarette right then for emphasis. I kind of felt badly that I didn’t smoke because I didn’t want to furrow my brow but I did it anyway instinctively because I didn’t have anything to distract myself.

“Okay, so what do you think?”

Herb gave me folders on the existing Oakland coaching and scouting staff. My immediate instinct was that the manager, whoever he was, would have to go so that I could put an initial stamp on the team. It would be easier to have my own guy on the managerial hotseat and symbolically it would say to the fans that the Athletics are not going to put up with a manager leading the team to the worst record in league history. Speaking of the fans, though, only 445,239 came out to watch the hometown team last year, a dismal 5,497-per game. Herb’s crack marketing team rated our market size and fan loyalty as “almost non-existent.” On a scale of 1-100 the marketing professionals gave us a 9 for fan loyalty.

The manager, 46-year old Mexican-born Miguel Padilla, had a contract in place for $552,000 per year through the 2024 season. Getting rid of him was going to hurt but it had to be done for us to begin our new era. The same thing for his bench coach Jiten Caunce, a 45-year old from Glencoe, Illinois, signed through 2022 at $534,000 per year. Aside from perhaps replacing 50-year old Ohio native Nesto Rodriguez, the pitching coach, the rest of the staff and the entire scouting team seemed more than adequate for the season ahead. Keeping a bit of consistency within the previously existing power structure was always in the plans and exceptional hitting coach Millard Barton and head scout Gaspar Zelaga and his team fit that role perfectly.

I looked over to Herb.

“Let’s see who’s out there first.”

“Okay, Jim,” Herb agreed. And so we went to work.