Quick! Name a few
players on the Kansas City Tornadoes.
Ok, that’s our two-time defending champs, so it shouldn’t be hard,
right? Well, there’s Oliver North, of
course. (Naturally, you had to go their
first. Media whore!) And of course their best hitter every year is
Jesus Cruz. (Nice. Can you keep going?) Umm, ok…
so there is that Turkey guy also.
(Right you are, Fernando “Turkey” Bautista) Without thinking, you just named the best
leadoff hitter in the ABL, and the 2017 TML MVP and 2018 TML Silver Slugger. You might even come up with a few other
names, like staff-ace Reynaldo Martinez, or slugger Akio Toyoda. But even after listing all of these names,
you have not begun to touch the true core and heart of this team. The Anchor of the Tornadoes is not a prodigy
like Oliver North, nor a big bat like Cruz or Bautista, or even the premier man
in the rotation, Reynaldo Martinez.
As the curtain prepares to rise on an
8th ABL campaign, the atmospheric conditions across the heartland
point to yet another strong Tornado season.
The baseball club from Kansas City is coming off back-to-back World
Series Championships so they are not about to sneak up on anyone in 2019. Team officials believe this year’s Tornadoes
are primed to field their best team yet, and there is certainly evidence to
suggest that the Tornadoes are officially the team to beat in the ABL right
now. The offense is shaping up to be one
of the league’s best this year, and the starting rotation has performed
admirably and is young enough that additional development is likely. But
the team feels that the unsung hero of their recent Championship run, and the
underrated anchor of the team, rests with their young arms coming out of the
bullpen.
There was a time not too long ago
when the Tornadoes bullpen was the Achilles heel of the team. Year after year the relievers in KC would
come in to put out the fires only to spread more gasoline than Exxon. Just a
couple years ago the closer in KC, Millard Moore, finished with a 6.75
ERA. Guys like Tynan Gibson and Jorge
Magana had been around since the inception of the team, but were still failing
to fulfill on their promise and potential, and the Tornadoes had the worst
bullpen in the league. In response, the
front office made a deliberate and bold paradigm shift in how to build a
pitching staff. “We spent the early
years trying so hard to focus on starting pitching,” says owner Tim Ervin. “But we eventually realized this strategy was
backfiring because so many teams had the exact same focus on starters and so
the market was soft.” Because so many
teams coveted starting pitching, you had to have a top five pick to get a sure
thing in the draft, and teams would select marginal starters with promise in
the early rounds over much stronger relief pitching prospects. “We were one of those teams for many years,”
Ervin said flatly, “trying desperately to drill for SP-gold against all the
other teams in the league.” The front
office adapted by drafting bullpen arms early in the draft, and making
significant trades that added quality young arms as well. By acquiring relievers when the majority of
the league was mining for starters, the Tornadoes were able to gather a lot of
young talent that has been developing together in the system, and they have
made several key trades for young bullpen arms as well. The result is young corps of relief arms that
has reached their peak development at the same time and now should be
considered the best young bullpen in the ABL--- and at a bargain price to boot. The entire projected 6-man bullpen for the
Tornadoes this year is between the ages of 22 and 27 and despite leading the
league last year in ERA from the bullpen, the entire combined cost for these 6
arms this year will be less than 8 million dollars. All six of these relievers hit at least 98 on
the radar gun and two of them throw the heater at 101 mph. They are not fond of giving up the longball,
as three of the arms have a GB% over 70, and the other three come in at 68, 66,
and 62 mph. Here is the projected Anchor
for the Tornadoes in 2019:
Alan Buckley – Closer
/ Age 26. Salary: 500k.
Acquired with 19th pick in first round in 2015. Last year was his first as the team closer,
and Buckley saved 33 games and posted a 2.31 ERA with a WHIP of just 1.00. In 70 innings he allowed just 48 hits and
struck out 85.
Jon Lewis – Setup
/ Age 27. Salary: 4.6 million. Acquired in trade with the Mustangs in
2015. In four seasons with the KC
bullpen, Lewis has a combined 2.81 ERA.
In the setup role last year, the southpaw allowed just 3 home runs and
struck out 100 batters in 90 innings.
Michael Burton –
MR / Age 25. Salary: 500k. Acquired
with the 16th pick in round two of the 2015 draft, Burton is a good
example of how the Tornadoes grabbed a top flight young reliever in the draft
when everyone was distracted by starters.
After some development, Burton burst on the ML club last year and was a
big contributor with a 2.50 ERA and a 0.98 WHIP in 54 innings.
Ernesto Lopez – MR
/ Age 22. Salary: 500k.
Acquired when he was just 17 years old when scouting found him in the
Dominican back in 2014, he was immediately signed to ML contract. This early contract forced Lopez onto the ML
roster at the tender age of 20 two years ago, perhaps before he was ready. But he has continued to develop, and last
year he pitched 50.2 innings with a 2.66 ERA and zero homers allowed. Lopez has allowed just 2 home runs in over 90
innings over the past two seasons.
Juan Lujuan – MR /
Age 27. Salary: 500k. Acquired in the 2016 trade that sent former
Staff Ace Antonio Gomez packing, Juan Lujuan is the middle innings eater on the
team, with the 17-rated stamina by OSA.
Lujuan is coming off a season where he posted a 3.81 ERA in over 80
innings.
Glenn Rush – MR /
Age 27. Salary: 1.25 million. Acquired in the 2015 trade that sent former speedster
Lawrence Fox packing, Glenn Rush missed most of last season with a serious
injury that resulted in Tommy John surgery.
Still, in the last two seasons combined for KC, Rush has pitched 101.2
innings with a 2.66 ERA.
The plan to stockpile relievers was
so successful, in fact, that the Tornadoes even traded a 5-star relief prospect
to the Seattle Sasquatch--- Andres
Nevarez. And the list above also doesn’t
include another reliever acquired in trade, David Perez, who performed very
well in 22 innings with the big league club last year, and will be first
alternate promoted from Joplin this year if someone falls prey to an injury. A bullpen with this type of depth and talent,
allows the team to accentuate their strengths in the starting rotation and, to
a degree, hide their weaknesses. And a
bullpen this young and inexpensive suggests that the Tornadoes will anchored by
from the pen for many more years.
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