The NL’s best team (with the worst name and logo)
Technically a new franchise being added to the league. But this is really a merger from two of the top teams in the lower division a few years ago. Force once went undefeated and won the championship. Scoobies were a perennial threat to win. They shocked the SASL Community when they announced their merger in January. Combining two elite teams, we now have what some call the clear favorites to win the NL division.
They have already won a few awards this year. They won the SASL Razzies for the worst team name and worst team logo so far. We expect the team to end up with a quite a few All-Star nods as well and make a deep playoff push. The amount of talent in this team is no joke and they are led by two of the top captains in the league in Prince and Scooby aka Rakesh.
The one concern we have is how will they deal with all the egos of big name players under one team? It isn’t easy to tell guys “We need to get this guy some at bats, so you need to sit this one out”. Let’s see how the leadership team handles it.
Team:
Ok, you ready? Not only are they led by Prince and Scooby, their first big get was the 2018 NL MVP himself, Frank Perez. What a cornerstone to build your franchise around. Then they added former all-stars Shazim, Mike Kovacik, Travis Mahadeo and Kevin Persaud. This is an impressive array of stars littered up and down the roster. All of these players can hit extremely well. All have seen ratings as high as 7 in previous seasons. To top it off, they picked off former Outlaws player in the versatile Saiful who will anchor the Outfield and should occupy one of the first two spots in the lineup.
To surround the top end talent, they rounded out the roster in Kunal, Burhan, Akil, Harvey, Gotham and a few others. Let’s see what these guys bring to the table. If they can play anything above league average, we may be talking about the heavy favorites to win it all.
However, the old adage “Pitching and defense” still applies in SASL. There was a reason Hit Squad won it all last year. Can Scooby step up and deliver under pressure in the mound? Will Frank be playing SS or back to the Outfield? Who is their second basemen and third basemen? Mike K can only DH at this point of his career. Sure, they will outhit most teams, but when it comes to playoff time, that won’t be enough.
Off season Grade: A-
Would have been an A, but we still can’t get over the name and logo. Sorry. But kudos to Prince and Scooby to put in a monster team on the field. Some call the merger taking the easy way out, but how can you fault a team for doing everything to win the coveted trophy?
Prediction:
This is a tough one. In one hand, we can hand them the trophy now. They are the obvious best team on paper as of right now. But chemistry in a team is hugely underrated and overly important. It is very tough to win in year 1 of a franchise, especially with a merger who has not played together before. We think they lose in the semifinals to a veteran team in a huge upset.
