What a roller coaster of a season for the Outlaws.
One of the original teams of SASL from way back when the league was in its infancy, the Outlaws are a legendary team with a lot of legendary battles along the way. More often than not, the final battle was always among themselves. Has any team in their history have had more players , playing with a chip on their their shoulders? The mentality for Outlaws was always- Us Against The World.
2018 version of Outlaws saw the return of Saiful Ashraf from a few year long hiatus. Saiful was busy playing cricket leagues, but the urge to play in SASL bought him back. He joined up with Outlaws legend Greg Murello to start the next chapter in Outlaws history. We saw the returns of veterans Sekander, Ramin, Jawid etc. Majid, Ahmad, Pervez, Louis, Josh, Waqas, etc filled out a very well rounded roster.
2018 Season in recap:
Outlaws finished the regular season in 4th place with an 13-11 record. They finished 5th on offense out of 8 teams. And they finished 3rd in the league in defense. Never a dominant team, these used their toughness and grit to scrape together wins. Outlaws got off to a 3-1 start before going on a 5 game losing streak including an embarrassing forfeit weekend to Empire.
Then they won their next 6 of 7 games to get right back in the thick of the race heading into the second half off the season. Finally they finished the season 4-4 including a sweep of the 516 in their final weekend to secure a spot in the Saturday Night Lights 1 game elimination game. Talk about a roller coaster season.
Saturday Night Lights:
Outlaws faced 516 in a 1 game elimination, so of course the stakes were high. The game was broadcast live to viewers at home. SASL fans expected a close and intense matchup. What transpired on the field can be best described as embarrassing display of sportsmanship.
Outlaws lost the game by a good margin and had players thrown out of games. If this was truly the last game of the Outlaws franchise, it did not end well. Player ejection, cursing, threats, a huge loss later, their season ended in a whimper.
The Future:
If there is a return for Outlaws in SASL, they have some complimentary players pieces to build around. While Greg and Majid did not have out of the world seasons as their rankings suggested, they can still build around them and Saiful, Pervez, Ahmad, etc are still young enough to take a step forward. They will need one or two players that can be MVP type to have any shot to compete against teams like Ducks, Savages, 516, Mets, etc.
If there is a return for Outlaws, they will need offensive firepower. No player had a OPS over 1.6. That just won’t cut it in the AL where some heavy hitters reside. But, there aren’t many middle of the order hitters going around in the SASL. They will have to recruit from the outside.
If there is a return for Outlaws, they will need to work on their locker room. Going against each other is not only detrimental to the team, it makes future free agents pause from considering Outlaws. Why would any FA consider such dysfunction.
Final words:
The team had so much attendance issues, there was no flow to them. It was not a cohesive unit. You want to go to battle along with your brothers, not with your brothers. It almost felt like Saiful was babysitting a room full of grown men. It must have been hard.
With the way their season ended, we can’t imagine how the Outlaws are feeling going into their season.
We wish them the best of luck, but maybe it is time to put the Outlaws franchise out of their misery.
