When Josh and Dan Kohler walked into the general manager office of the franchise they just took over, it was in a state of disarray that they could have never imagined. Chairs and tables were flipped over, papers littered the floor, banana peels were haphazardly strewn about the floor like a wild game of Mario Kart and there was poop splattered on the walls and ceiling.
"What the hell is this?" Josh asked.
"Looks like a damn monkey wrecked this place," Dan added.
"You're not wrong there," I told them. "So you want to buy the place?"
With no other vacancies in the JLB, what choice did they have? So like Peter and Egon in Ghostbusters, they shrugged and said, "We'll take it."
Scouring the roster, they certainly liked what they saw on offense, but the pitching looked like their office.
So naturally, with their strength being on the hitting side, the new owners decided to rebrand their franchise around their biggest bat.
Oh, Mike Trout?
"We are going to be named 'The Stantonians' in homage of the worst Yankee announcer ever and his stupid home run calls and the fact that Giancarlo is gonna lead us to the promise land," said Josh, who appears to be the spokesperson for the Stantonians at this point.
Given the fact that those 35 words are about 34 more than Monkey said in the last year on Slack, the franchise is off to a great start.
But why the hell did they go with Stanton as the face of the franchise when Mike Trout is sitting right there on the roster?
"At the end of the day, Stanton took a fastball to the face, so he earned the right to put that pretty thing to use," Josh said. "I think it’s also important to highlight to the league our loyalty to the Yankees and the Bronx’s short right field porch that turns Stanton line drive, opposite field singles, into bombs. As for Trout, he may be on the way out. He’s been limping around blowing his chance at becoming the GOAT and he needs to know who is king in the clubhouse. Stanton chose salary and wins. Trout chose salary and weather."
Wow, the Stantonians are coming out swinging. It will be interesting to see what Trout thinks when he hears that he was not only shunned for the naming honor, but he was also dissed openly in the press. I'm betting Bryce Harper may even start asking Jim Vaughn to see if he can play with his buddy.
Still, at the end of the day, it may be hard to find the exact value back for Trout in the offseason. The big names always make more sense to trade in-season when you can acquire more talent and not have to worry about the keeper impact.
And who knows, maybe an offer comes in for Mr. Stanton and the whole team is turned upside down. This is the danger of naming your team after a player — right, Choo?
So what does happen if that dream offer for Stanton comes in?
"We would likely have to reevaluate at that point," Josh said. "Hopefully, we’ll always have an idiotic John Sterling home run call for some Yankee on our roster (get your ass over here, Correa) that we can name our team after. And if he starts to underperform, we will cut the fat faster than a butcher on speed."
I'm not going to lie, I do prefer consistency with team names from year-to-year, but if the consistency for this franchise is always having a Sterling call-related name, I'm down for that.
Certainly better than hearing them live. I have to say, I just Googled to find a list of them, and I didn't realize how bad some of these calls are.
We all know the "All Rise" for Judge and the "Gary is Scary" for Sanchez, but my goodness, the Joey Gallo and Kyle Higashioka calls are atrocious.
"We wanted to pay homage to the Yankees and absurdity of John Sterling, who, along with Suzyn Waldman, might be the worst announcers with the lowest baseball IQ in the history of the game," Josh said. "We vote Bob Costas as a replacement – he is magnificent. As for puns, they don’t come naturally and so I hate them."
Well, hopefully the franchise management comes a little more naturally for the Kohler brothers, because they certainly have a little bit of work to do, but they aren't too far behind here.
And considering how well new franchise owners do in the JLB, they have history on their side.
"I think the guy before us cleaned house with our pitchers without any regard for us," Josh said. "I’m glad he left us with some solid hitters because I think pitching is generally overvalued, but he’s on the short list of people I might hate that I never met. He will not be mentioned in the class we teach called 'How we won in 2022 despite inheriting a team owned by a monkey.'"
Man, Josh really nailed this interview. Dare I say, he hit it out of the park:
He hits a drive! It is high! It is far! It is ... Gone! Over the center field wall on the very first pitch! The Kohler Bear! Reaches into the Kohler and cracks open a cold one! No Joshing, no jiving, just a Dan Slam!
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