NL West

Arizona Geckos owner: kennedrj

Arizona was blessed with a deeper farm system than major league roster. At the ML level, the Geckos have a respectable lineup, led by veterans Chip Herrera and Stew Dunston. However, the ML pitching cupboard was left bare for the Geckos, with the team having to plug pitching holes with three, count 'em, THREE rule five draft picks. The team's success this year will hinge on getting strong performances out of some uncertain pitching at the ML level.

Although not boasting any blockbuster stars-in-waiting there are several solid pitching prospects three or four years away from ML, led by Ubaldo DaSilva, Butch Pierce and Chad Murphy. There are also a stable of positional prospects, led by 3B Carmen Mitchell.

Las Vegas Daredevils owner: andersaa

The latest act on the Las Vegas Strip is the new baseball franchise the Daredevils.
They have their eyes set for the season 1 championship with future all-stars: Lou Dunn, a top notch 2B in his prime: Yeico Hernandez, a young power hitter that might take both the gold glove and Silver slugger at 3B; and Bernie Federowicz, a CF who will have fun in Vegas with 100 patience and no temper. In preliminary scouting they will surely take the NL West even with holes in pitching and the lack of a cleanup hitter. The pitching will get a lot better as soon as future ace Herb Stone is ML ready.

Oklahoma City Kingfishers owner: fishsqueeler

The Kingfishers has decided to go young. Really young. Waived most ML postion players and promote from within. They did not sign a single free agent or make a trade. Only future star in the field is 21 year-old 2B Aubrey Stottlemyre he will be an allstar in a year or two. The franchise was given the gift of pitching, and they have promoted all of that ptiching up to the ML level producing one of the best young rotations in the NL. 31 year-old Ace Alfredo Vargas will be the leader of this team, 26 year-old Jimmie Whitaker is decent but won’t get any better, 23 year-old Jimmie McGowan is ML-league ready and will get better; 25 year-old Seth Zimmermancould get really good, and 21 year-old Gus Ni will be a stud when he develops. The Kingfishers will win alot of low scoring games, and are looking forward to the 6th pick in the draft.


Salt Lake City Miners owner: zbinder

The initial prognosis for this team was "Cellar Dweller" so I immediately started trading off assets to cut payroll and build for the future. At some point, I started to feel like I could compete so I took on a contract and signed 2 free agents. The big problem the franchise faced was in the low minors. No talent was in the pipeline, so I've been working to trade AAA players and above for LowA and HighA players to ensure that a few years from now I'll have a few players to promote to the bigs.

Key Loss: Chien-Ming Meng - Trading him to CIN may turn out to be a huge mistake.

Key Additions: RF Willie Lopez
SS- Rob Melhuse
2B- Bobby Puffer

The additions of Lopez, Melhuse, and Puffer will allow the Miners to keep a few prospects in the minors for another season, giving the franchise control over the players for another year. These defensive additions hopefully will help shore up our pitching staff until our minor league talent gets promoted to the Bigs.

Outlook - If the cards fall right, we could be a few games over .500 and could possibly contend for a wild-card. But that's going to take some luck. Our goal is to play .500 baseball this year.

The Future - The following prospects are expecting promotion:
Lawrence Walker - (Season 2)
Arnold Papelbon - (Season 3)
Reagan Weiland - (Season 4)
Tony Epstein - (Season 5)