Record-setting season
The Wild Things will set at least one team record this season: most players used.
Washington made another roster move Monday, releasing 6-8, 275-pound designated hitter Tim Leary and signing outfielder Tanner Leighton, who recently completed his senior season at The Masters, an NAIA school in California.
Leary was batting only .130 (6-for-46 with 20 strikeouts) since joining the Wild Things June 7. Leighton, who is from Meridian, Idaho, the hometown of former Pirates pitcher Vernon Law, batted .322 this spring with three home runs and 31 stolen bases.
Leighton becomes the 48th player to appear on Washington's roster during the regular season, which is more than the Wild Things used in any of their previous 10 seasons. They used 47 in 2009.
When Leighton makes his debut, he will be the 46th player to get into a game this year. The Wild Things signed two players, infielder Anthony Long and catcher Cody Coffman, but released them before they ever played in a game.
Washington manager Chris Bando said before the series against Lake Erie began that he had one more roster move to make. This, apparently, is the move and the flurry of roster moves will be stopping, for various reasons. One is that the Frontier League has a limit of 25 transactions (not every roster move counts as a transaction) per team during the regular season. Washington is at 21 moves, according to the league office.
"The first third of the season, you find out who will be your team. The second third of the season, you build team chemistry. The final third, you make a run for the playoffs," Bando said. "That's what we're going to do."
Bando said many of the roster moves were made because several players classified as Experienced by Frontier League roster standards did not play to the level that the coaching staff expected. Many of those players were replaced by rookies from NAIA schools in California.
"We made some poor decisions on some of the Experienced guys who we thought would be productive," Bando said. "They didn't pan out. We will have to be better at selecting our Experienced players in the future.
"Because we had some Experienced guys who didn't produce the way we expected, we went with the approach of signing all young college guys and sinking or swimming with them. What we found out is, you can't miss on your Experienced guys. They have to be the nucleus of your club. In years to come, we don't want to be having as much turnover as we've had."
Washington made another roster move Monday, releasing 6-8, 275-pound designated hitter Tim Leary and signing outfielder Tanner Leighton, who recently completed his senior season at The Masters, an NAIA school in California.
Leary was batting only .130 (6-for-46 with 20 strikeouts) since joining the Wild Things June 7. Leighton, who is from Meridian, Idaho, the hometown of former Pirates pitcher Vernon Law, batted .322 this spring with three home runs and 31 stolen bases.
Leighton becomes the 48th player to appear on Washington's roster during the regular season, which is more than the Wild Things used in any of their previous 10 seasons. They used 47 in 2009.
When Leighton makes his debut, he will be the 46th player to get into a game this year. The Wild Things signed two players, infielder Anthony Long and catcher Cody Coffman, but released them before they ever played in a game.
Washington manager Chris Bando said before the series against Lake Erie began that he had one more roster move to make. This, apparently, is the move and the flurry of roster moves will be stopping, for various reasons. One is that the Frontier League has a limit of 25 transactions (not every roster move counts as a transaction) per team during the regular season. Washington is at 21 moves, according to the league office.
"The first third of the season, you find out who will be your team. The second third of the season, you build team chemistry. The final third, you make a run for the playoffs," Bando said. "That's what we're going to do."
Bando said many of the roster moves were made because several players classified as Experienced by Frontier League roster standards did not play to the level that the coaching staff expected. Many of those players were replaced by rookies from NAIA schools in California.
"We made some poor decisions on some of the Experienced guys who we thought would be productive," Bando said. "They didn't pan out. We will have to be better at selecting our Experienced players in the future.
"Because we had some Experienced guys who didn't produce the way we expected, we went with the approach of signing all young college guys and sinking or swimming with them. What we found out is, you can't miss on your Experienced guys. They have to be the nucleus of your club. In years to come, we don't want to be having as much turnover as we've had."
Labels: Anthoiny Long, Chris Bando, Cody Coffman, Tanner Leighton, Tim Leary
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