DARWIN EXPLAINS HOW THEY WON

Just how did the Finches win the East in 2007, and what are their chances of doing it again?

Darwin manager PZ Myers bristled at the question put to him by reporters. “What do you mean, how did we do it?” barked the Finches’ skeptical skipper. “We did it by outplaying the other clubs, obviously!”

Still, the question begs analysis. After all, the Finches had finished below .500 the year before only to post the league’s winningest mark, the biggest turn-around in league history as a matter of fact. GM Scott Hatfield, in a private interview, discussed how and why things worked out as they did:

“Well, first of all, the groundwork for our revival was laid by a 2006 deal with division rival Frostbite Falls. They wanted Ben Sheets, and they didn’t seem to have much interest either in OF Aaron Rowand or 2B Placido Polanco. That they threw in RHP Chad Billingsley means that we ended up getting three starters for a guy that we had gotten tired of seeing in the trainer’s room. All three guys have improved to the point that we hope to keep them in our plans for this year, but as you can see that was a huge deal for us.”

“Secondly,we recognized that we had to upgrade our overall attack to play in the East, which had three of the league’s top four run-scoring clubs in 2006. We needed some big bats, and we were able to get them largely because we had stockpiled a lot of talent in the lower levels and that allowed us to deal from strength in the open market. We had the depth that we could move a lot of minor-league talent. I mean, think about how much talent we moved in order to position ourselves. By the end of the year we had moved five fine young arms: Yovanni Gallardo, Jon Lester, Adam Loewen, Gustavo Chacin and Zack Greinke. We also dealt some super prospects in OF Delmon Young, OF Justin Upton and SS Reid Brignac. That depth allowed us to get some help to win now. We couldn’t have added Chipper Jones and Lance Berkman’s bats to our lineup without it.” More somberly, Hatfield added, “I don’t think you’re going to see anything like that again, cashing in so much futures to win now, because with the new 40-man roster no club is going to have that kind of depth in the minors anymore.”

“Third,” Hatfield added, “we made a conscious decision to build up our bullpen rather than spend serious dollars to acquire more #3 starters. The fact that a perennial champ like Frostbite Falls was willing to spend so much to get a Ben Sheets told me we were never going to get anywhere trying to upgrade our starters. There were too many other clubs in there going for the same piece of cheese. Instead, we built what we honestly think was the league’s best overall bullpen, with J.J.Putz and Cla Meredith just super.”

“Another thing that helped us,” Hatfield continued, “was a change in strategy in the Draft. The Finches had never been a club to pounce on another club’s talent in the draft, but in 2007 we really made it our business to not only improve our club through the draft but also bleed some of the talent from our rivals. I think we caught some other clubs with their pants down, frankly. Billy Hall (Frostbite), John Smoltz (Worcester) and Carlos Guillen (Brooklyn) were all pluses from our perspective”

“Finally,” Hatfield conceded, “we were a lot healthier than the other clubs in the division. Frostbite Falls lost Chris Carpenter and Rocco Baldelli, Worcester lost B.J. Ryan, Rich Harden and about four other pitchers at one point or another, and Brooklyn—well, what can I say? They had the worst run of injuries I’d ever seen, culminating in a trade for—there’s no nice way to put it—a guy who’s going to stay on the DL. This was a huge factor, and I don’t think we can expect that again. I do expect the other clubs to be serious contenders, and (frankly) to try to bleed the current champs's roster. We'll just have to see.”