Welcome back D-Bag fans! As I type this we are just days away from the start of a new and exciting season full of promise for your Jersey Shore D-Bags! We have a few new faces, but for the most part the Bags bring back the majority of the same team that won a team record 94 games last season.
The major news in the off-season is the addition of SP Art Ellis. Ellis pitched in Madison last year after 3.5 seasons in Hendersonville. He marks the first player ever to come play for the D-Bags who has a BSA championship ring from the current period, and he has 2. After an injury plagued season in Madison last year which held him to 23 starts, he is healthy and ready to be the #2 starter behind Cy Young runner up Dan Macias. This could be the 1-2 punch Jersey has been looking for in previous years. For his career Ellis has won 89 games while posting a 3.83 ERA.
As of opening day the rotation will look like this:
1. Dan Macias
2. Art Ellis
3. Rob Goodship
4. Greg Shaefer
After losing Marv Williams to injury for most of the season, he became a FA and ultimately signed with the New Orleans Looters. Gordon Brown was traded for right before the deadline and an extension couldn't be reached and he signed a 1 year deal with Niagara Falls this off-season. With neither of these players being retained it opened up a spot in the bullpen. After some solid pitching in Spring Training, the open spot will go to 22 year old Jose Ruiz. Ruiz has climbed through the Jersey system since 2010 and finished last year with a 3.27 ERA in AAA along with 56 K in 41.1 innings.
The current bullpen looks like this:
MR1 Lucio Tapia
MR2 Jose Ruiz
MR3 Brian White
SU1 Jose Gomes
SU2 Jamie Saenz
Much of the faces on offense will look the same, in fact every players has had some playing time in a Jersey uniform except one player. That player is OF Jose Ortiz. Ortiz was picked in the Rule V draft coming over from the Reno organization. He is 26 and never played above A ball, but Jersey think he has the type of skills to compete for the 4th-5th OF position. In order to acquire Art Ellis the D-Bags traded all time hits leader Parker Morrow. Morrow had been a D-Bag since the inception of the league and while it was sad to see him go, he will be replaced in the lineup by another Morrow, Adam Morrow.
The opening day starting lineup will look like this:
With a bench of:
RF Jose Ortiz* Will begin year on DL.
With much of the team in tact, Ellis adding to the rotation, Peter Larson and Matt Doyle staples in the top of the lineup for the whole year, Jersey has a reason to be excited. Expectations are high, but still have to some how find a way to overcome the dominance of the Greenville 84's and the tough competition atop of CL.
Jersey needed a change, not a managerial change, not a player change....but a change. Something to break them out of their slump of missing the playoffs and something to send them over the top. And with that, I would like to introduce to you the new logo of the Jersey Shore D-Bags.
Boom. Enjoy.
GO D-BAGS
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