New Owners for Season 71

 

New Owners for Season 71

 

As Season 70 came to an end two owners made it known that they wouldn’t be returning, after being eliminated from the playoffs another owner came forward to let me know that he too would be leaving.

 

With the season coming down the stretch and needing to owners the process to fill the openings began.  People on the wait list were contacted and bjschumacher was the first to step forward and step forward in a big way.  He wanted to get started to become familiar with his new team immediately, the owner leaving was very gracious in allowing this switch to take place early.

 

Taking over a division franchise is never easy.  Can you keep it on top?  Do the core players have another run or two in them?  What can be done to enhance the team so that it can make a deeper run in the playoffs.  bj has 175 seasons in HBD to help him retool his franchise into the type of team he prefers and will take into battle in the NL East

 

After the season ended, the real battle for new owners began.  The competition for owners gets more difficult each passing year it seems.  The hope of all in the HBO world is that the new WIS owner will help stop the loss of long time owners and continue to draw in new owners to help build the membership back up. 

 

To that end it was nice to see a previous owner return when jbugg08 contacted me with his interest.  The fact that our world left a good enough impression that he wanted to return is great.  The kicker was that he was able to reclaim a former team.

 

Having moved around in my HBO career, I can attest to feeling an allegiance to a former team and have returned to once again guide that team.

 

In this case bugg stepped into a precariously balanced team.  Coming off a 114 win season this team has the talent to continue to compete, yet the team payroll is huge and creates budgetary issues in other areas.  Leaving bugg to figure out how to deal with aging players carrying large salaries.  Fortunately, he has 161 seasons of experience and two WS titles to draw from making him an excellent choice to take the leadership position of this team.

 

The last team available was the 114-win NL North Division Champion that was grabbed by harley04.  This team has won over 100 games the past six seasons.  While harley doesn’t have the same amount of experience of the other two newcomers, he is building a very nice resume showing he can be a force to be reckoned with.

 

However, he does have some things to figure out and determine how he’d like to proceed.  While accumulating a tremendous amount of success over the last 6 years this team has also built a huge payroll number that will need to be handled with care so that the bottom doesn’t fall out and the descent doesn’t turn into an extended stay in the basement to match their time at the top of the division.  So harley will get the opportunity to show off his HBD skills right out of the chute and my money is on him to prevail.