1988 Preview
March 31st 1988 - The 8th season of EBL action is about to get underway and it will be followed by the second ever European Baseball Championships.
I liked the free-agent listing I did for 1987, so it makes a return for '88 -
Code:
Player (age) -- Old Team -- New Team -- Contract
2B Holly Connich (26) -- Warsaw -- Prague -- 5 years, $26.6M
RF Jordan Barnstaple (32) -- Copenhagen -- Dublin -- 4 years, $9.5M
SP James McIlwraith (30) -- Vienna -- Oslo -- 6 years, $29.2M
SP Jesus Ruiz (27) -- Brussels -- Warsaw -- 4 years, $18.7M
CF Armando Barrios (30) -- Barcelona -- Budapest -- 4 years, $11.7M
CF Jean-Yves Gras (31) -- London -- Sofia -- 2 years, $3.7M
SP Jeirgif Izvekov (24) -- Budapest -- Berlin -- 3 years, $13.0M
3B Dennis Frangopoulos (38) -- Milan -- Oslo -- 2 years, $9.7M
LF Constantino Deodato (30) -- Glasgow -- Amsterdam -- 4 years, $20.3M
CF Josef Metternich (27) -- Paris -- Paris -- 5 years, $21.2M
1B Igoryok Vishipanov (26) -- Dublin -- Athens -- 7 years, $26.8M
SS Harlan McRea (30) -- Amsterdam -- Lisbon -- 6 years, $23.7M
SP Yoan Lelievre (30) -- Copenhagen -- Zurich -- 5 years, $18.5M
2B Randy Schmidt (27) -- Hamburg -- London -- 6 years, $25.4M
Connich was easily the best position player available, so Prague should have gotten better. Warsaw made up for losing him by signing
Jesus Ruiz, the most successful post-season pitcher in EBL history.
Athens' signing of
Vishipanov is good news for the Avalanche fans. They also signed RP
Juan Sandoval, who is an elite closer. Lisbon also signed a decent player not listed above -
Patrick Lacroix has been a consistent performer for Warsaw and was a big part of their championship run last year.
Overall, I think the league just got more even for 1988 and it really is anybody's to win.
N.B. My fictional manager character has finally made it to an EBL team so updates might not be as frequent as they have in the past.