Goldeyes swing and miss in 2023

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This article was published 05/09/2023 (734 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Andrew Collier isn’t going to sugarcoat things: The 2023 season represented a big swing-and-a-miss for his Winnipeg Goldeyes.

A 43-57 record, one of the worst in franchise history, and an 11th-place finish in a 12-team league qualifies as a massive disappointment for a group that had great expectations and championship aspirations.

“Top to bottom, nobody likes to lose here,” the Goldeyes general manager told the Free Press on Tuesday, while eight rival organizations prepare for the start of their American Association playoffs.

“It doesn’t sit well with anybody here.”

Change is inevitable in the world of independent baseball, where roster turnover is frequent even for the most successful squads. But Collier said work is already underway to ensure this type of campaign becomes the exception, rather than the norm.

“We will do everything we can to right the ship and make the changes we need to get back to the playoffs,” he vowed.

It’s hard to pinpoint just one specific problem with the Goldeyes, who definitely weren’t greater than the sum of their parts. In fact, some terrific individual performances were wasted.

“I think it was just the lack of consistency throughout the year,” said Collier.

How does a team that had the league hits leader (rookie Dayson Croes) and one of the best pure sluggers (veteran Max Murphy had 26 home runs and 84 RBI to rank second and third overall) finish near the bottom of nearly all offensive categories? That’s difficult to do.

Same goes for a pitching staff that was among the worst in the league, despite Canadian starter Landon Bourassa tying for the lead in wins (11) and starter Joey Matulovich finishing second-best in strikeouts (121).

“Just look at our last week, it kind of epitomized our entire season. We were playing one of the best teams in Kansas City (the Monarchs finished first overall at 59-40) and we should have won all three games. Instead, we won one out of three,” said Collier, pointing to a pair of extra-inning losses.

Winnipeg went 8-18 in games decided by a single run, the last blow coming on Saturday in Fargo-Moorhead when a 4-3 lead turned into a 5-4 defeat to the RedHawks in the bottom of the ninth inning.

“You look back at the season and flip some of those games where we could have, should have won and we’d be in a playoff spot. That’s very frustrating,” said Collier.

In that sense, the bullpen was arguably the weakest link, with a rotating cast of arms during the season as first-year manager Greg Tagert tried to find the right mix.

“Whether it wasn’t getting the hit when we needed it, or the shutdown inning from the bullpen when we needed, it just didn’t seem to happen when we needed it in those close games,” said Collier.

Winnipeg used a whopping 26 different hurlers this year, if you count position players who occasionally were used for mop-up duty in blowouts. That’s an enormous number, and a sign of the struggles.

Matulovich’s 3.78 earned-run-average was among the best of qualified starters in the league, yet his record ended up just 5-9 thanks to a lack of run support and several blown leads.

Winnipeg’s home and road splits were quite stark, as well. The Fish went a respectable 26-24 in the friendly confines of Shaw Park but an ugly 17-33 in enemy territory.

Speaking of Tagert, everyone knew he had huge shoes to fill by replacing Rick Forney, who stepped down after more than two decades in the organization — including championships in 2012, 2016 and 2017 — to take a job closer to his Maryland home.

“Anytime you make a change like that after so many years, there are a lot of unknowns,” said Collier, adding a thorough review of what went wrong will include sitting down with the 59-year-old Tagert, who has another year left on his contract.

“He’s a pro with 30 years of experience who had a plan coming in and went through with that plan,” said Collier. “It was a different makeup of the team than Rick had put together and, yeah, we just couldn’t get that consistency that we needed throughout the year.”

Collier said it’s too early to say what the future holds for any players on the active roster. Winnipeg holds their American Association rights for next season, but much will be determined by whether the organization wants them back, whether the player wants to return or whether they have other options, either in the baseball world or beyond.

Safe to say the likes of Murphy, 30, and Croes, 23, who were both named league All-Stars on Tuesday, would be welcomed back with open arms.

“It really is incredible what (Murphy) did this year after what happened to him last year,” Collier said, of the broken leg the reigning league Player of the Year suffered in a playoff game last September.

“It just says a lot about the person that he is. He had a goal of coming back and not just being 50 per cent or 60 per cent. He wanted to be every bit the player he was last year. And he accomplished that.”

Croes, who hails from Aruba, represents one of those great success stories of independent baseball.

Other silver linings include a small uptick in attendance, with the Goldeyes averaging 3,641 after drawing 3,414 last year. Although it fell short of getting back to their pre-pandemic levels of more than 4,000 per game, it was a step in the right direction considering the overall performance.

There was also the 30th anniversary celebration which culminated in a gala lunch last month that honoured retired slugger Reggie Abercrombie and included a surprise appearance by Forney. It served as a reminder of the connection the Goldeyes have with the community — and motivation for Collier and company to get back to their winning ways ASAP.

“Winning is the ultimate goal,” said Collier. “But from what what I do and what our staff do, we don’t control the wins and losses, but we can control that people have a good time and we can control that we put on a good show.

“That was definitely a high point of the year.”

mike.mcintyre@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @mikemcintyrewpg