Relentlessly Average

The Biscuits have only been in Montgomery - and known as the Biscuits - since 2004, when they decamped from Orlando after a 30-year stint bringing middling lower-tier baseball to the apathetic citizens of Central Florida in the friendly confines of the delightful Tinker Field. But it's Montgomery Riverwalk Stadium at the corner of Coosa and Tallapoosa Street where I will be introduced today as the man in charge of the Montgomery Biscuits.  It’s a fine park. The first base side is a converted old train shed that dates back to 1898, low-hung with white stucco and exposed dark wood beams. The current train station is just two blocks away, and you can see trains passing back and forth on the tracks from the outfield concourse. Over the first base line, you used to be able to see the Alabama state Capitol building in the distance, before the stadium expansion project was started: an extra 15,000 seats are being added behind home plate, on the first base side, and in right fie...

It started with the unfathomable - a tragedy on the biggest American stage. Super Bowl 53, in the sparkling alien spaceship that is Mercedes-Benz Stadium in downtown Atlanta. Tom Brady, soon-to-be-six-time Super Bowl champ, poster boy quarterback of the New England Patriots, husband to a supermodel, an MVP-caliber player at 41, lines up behind center to take a snap versus the NFC Champion Los Angeles Rams. It’s midway through the second quarter of a scoreless game.  The next play would wound the American consciousness and change the course of sports history in this country forever.  Rams defensive coordinator Wade Phillips, a heterodox strategist if there ever was one, dials up a ballsy play call: a double-corner blitz, in which both defensive backs ignore the wide receivers they are usually tasked with covering and sprint straight for the quarterback. It’s a preposterously risky move - no NFL team had run a double-corner blitz all season - and against a laser-precis...

The ink is barely dry on my contract to become the new Manager and President of Baseball Operations, Tactics, and Merchandising for the Montgomery Biscuits, but I have to get to work. Opening Day is just three days away.  I’ll say this for the roster: the outfield looks good. Centerfielder Jorge “Sabertooth” Villacres should be one of the best players in the league: lightning-quick bat speed, hit for average and power, premium defense in center field. Our corner outfielders, Josh Zambrano and Josh Shemanski, are certified mashers. The rest of the roster is … the regular flotsam and jetsam you might expect on a lower-tier AA club.  Catcher is the most obvious position of need. The Biscuits’ incumbent starter, Sergio “The Wrench” Delgado, projects as maybe slightly above average behind the plate, and a slap hitter to the side of it. Backing him up is Sergio Delgado, an Alabama native and 15-year AA veteran (imagine) still holding on at the age of 37 to whatev...

The newest edition of Out of the Park Baseball’s insanely deep baseball management sim, OOTP 20 , has been out for just under a month, and the reviews are, as expected, solid all around . While I’m sure the game is just fine, I don’t see a reason to upgrade. I’m still contemplating and enjoying last year’s edition. As the great Brian Phillips said (of the Football Manager series) you can’t review these games with just a few weeks’ or months’ experience. It's like reviewing Buddhism. Yes, you can do it, but you have to take your time.  In the spirit of Brian’s Football Manager-simulated Pro Vercelli epic , I’ll be taking over the AA Montgomery Biscuits and (God and algorithms willing) leading them to World Series glory. You might be wondering how that’s possible. But you’d be forgetting that I am the greatest OOTP manager of all time.  I’ve set up a custom simulation universe in which all 30 major league teams exist with real players and rosters as of opening day 20...