Whitby, San Diego Swap Players
Monday, July 22nd, 2024
Earlier today, officials from the Whitby Battalion and the San Diego Warewolves announced that they had finalized negotiations on a trade between the two teams. The deal will send 20-year-old minor league catcher Jamie Foster, 19-year-old minor league right fielder Dillon Pearson and 20-year-old minor league starting pitcher Luis Ortega to San Diego in exchange for 37-year-old starting pitcher Kelly Holbrook and 25-year-old minor league second baseman Ron Gill.

So far this season Holbrook has a 10-8 record, 21 starts, 139.2 innings, 92 strikeouts and a 3.87 ERA.




Jamie Foster

MANAGEMENT UNDER PRESSURE IN SAN DIEGO

High Payroll, Bevy Of Talent Not Playing Up To GM Norris' Expectations

Despite adding two SIMBL superstars in sluggers DeShaun Mack and Mario Montalbano during the past off-season to a playoff team, the nine-time SIMBL champion San Diego Warewolves have had a disappointing start to the 2024 SIMBL season. Adding to the disappointment is losing up and coming young ace Vincente Lopez (above) for at least eight weeks in 2024 SIM 7. The 'Wolves have never missed the playoffs in the SIMBL's previous 19 seasons.                                                                                                                                              

By Kevin Norris
San Diego Warewolves GM
SIMBL Contributor

44 games into the season and the San Diego Warewolves are at .500. It's not standard for a franchise that has won nine SIMBL championships in the past 19 SIMBL seasons with two already in the SIMBL New File Era in 2019 and 2021. San Diego is the most successful and most winningiest franchise in the SIMBL's previous 19-season history.

'Wolves GM Kevin Norris spoke to the SIMBL media and to San Diego fans today.

"We are not exactly where we wanted to be at this point in the season. We kind of thought this was a better team than we had expected. We continue to experiment with the batting order. Mario Montalbano has been the most consistent hitter for the Warewolves so far hitting forth in the order. DeShaun Mack has always had trouble hitting in April and May but has started to settle down hitting third in the order."

"The big disappointment has been Julian Winfield. We have tried him almost everywhere in the lineup. He seemed to hit well when he is batting third, but we felt that Mack has hit well there in the past few SIMs as well. Kent Harvey has had a bad start although he just came off the disabled list, we are hoping that he can get his game going so we can put him back as the leadoff hitter. That probably will be likely now with Bill Wells hitting as well as he has as the new leadoff guy."

When asked about the rebuilt pitching staff of the nine-time SIMBL champions Norris continued:

"The pitching has been good for us although the injury bug has passed through the lower part of our rotation. Vincente Lopez is the latest to be hit by that very bug."

"The team is at five hundred but we are thinking that this team might not be as good as we expected, or there is the fact that we underestimated the strength of the teams in our conference. At this point I feel that we have underachieved. We, as the management of this ball club, will continue to improve this team and find ways to win every SIM."

"The schedule is not easy for us this week. We are up against two first-place teams in Hollywood and Rochester in which neither team we have had success playing against this season. We will have a big decision to make at the trade deadline as we ask ourselves is it time to cut salary and rebuild. The option to blow this team up and rebuild has been on our minds. We are not happy fielding a high payroll of players that are under achieving. We are not comfortable with $173,000,000 payroll," barked Norris.

"Winning was not an option this season it was a priority, and the players on this team have not bought in to that concept. If Winfield can find his game, and this team can stay healthy we may be able to contend for the SL wild card. At this point, a lot of things are not going right for us, we are expected to lose a lot of money this season. An underachieving team at $173,000,000, I think the pressure is on us now, and this is a lot worse if we miss the playoffs this season."