Prior to 2021, Butter's franchise had only one winning season and one playoff trip, and oddly enough, they did not occur in the same season.
It had be eight years of struggles and failed rebuilds that either didn't work or were given up on too soon. But then came the name change.
Like the Devil Rays before him, he shed the old name and brought on a new one that ushered in his best season to date. The Charleston Boiled Peanuts went 227-216-38 to earn the No. 3 seed, where they upset the No. 2 seed.
The season came to an end in the NLCS, but the statement had been made: The Charleston Boiled Peanuts are for real!
... Well, they were.
Now, all of a sudden, after delivering a franchise-best year to the city of Charleston, the Nutz are on the move. Like the Baltimore Colts before him, he's packed up the franchise and started the move West.
Colorado is the final destination, and the new team name is still unclear, a bit hazy, if you will.
What is clear is that no matter what the name is, the franchise that spent so long in JLB purgatory finally got the monkey off his back.
Butter. ... Put down the Who Hash and focus.
"Oh, you weren’t talking about the team, but the metaphorical monkey," he said, sitting up straight and pushing aside the strange Ego waffle peanut butter and jelly sandwich. "Making the playoffs in this league has been a challenge. The teams that make it regularly have built solid squads top to bottom and I tip my hat to them. I’ve been working and tweaking my team ever since my first year in the league, and it never seems like it’s tweaked the right way, or tweaked enough. We have to eventually stop tweaking and rely on a solid core going forward, and this squad has that core featured in it, with a few minor league pieces set to move up in the next two seasons."
Ah, see. Butter figured it out. Stop tweaking and rely on the solid core.
Wait, what's that? I'm just getting word from JLB fact checkers that Butter traded away 11 players in the offseason. That includes some of his top pitchers from a year ago in Kevin Gausman and Joe Musgrove.
"I went into the offseason knowing I was moving some pitching," Butter said. "Musgrove was frustrating last season. Never really knew which Joe we were going to get. So, with that in mind, he was already set to find a new home. And to get Kris Bryant’s bat in Colorado in return was enough for us to pull the trigger. Originally Gausman was penciled in as part of the rotation. And we were looking to try and move Bassitt instead. We received no bites on Bassitt, but saw the attention that Gausman received and decided to move him for a veteran bat (Hoskins) and a young arm that we feel will have his breakout finally with new surroundings in Miami (Luzardo)… And when you look back at the trade that sent Luzardo out of Charleston a year ago and how he made his way back, ultimately that trade from a year ago tips into my favor in a big way. Especially considering the performance of Urias last season and the potential output from him as well as Clevy this season. But ultimately, Lynn, Urias, Clevy, Bassitt, Mize, Luzardo and Ohtani can certainly keep this rotation in the mix in the NL."
I can't disagree with that.
There were many offseasons in the past where I looked at Butter's roster and the transactions he made and scratched my head in disbelief.
That's not the case here. He got Kyle Schwarber and Kris Bryant for a pair of starters, which adds some significant potency to his lineup.
Hoskins was a nice grab, but there are some question marks with him for sure. Same goes for a few others in the lineup, but the fact remains, the Nutz are going to be tough.
"There are some deadly bats in our lineup," he said. "Yeah, we’re going to strikeout a bunch, but we have guys who can help us in other categories to balance out the Ks.
Much of that balance will come from MLB the Show cover boy Shohei Ohtani. Last year's AL MVP, batted .257 with 46 homers and 100 RBIs. He walked 96 times and stole 26 bases. He also went 9-2 on the mound with 156 strikeouts and a 3.18 ERA.
That really is impressive. What's more amazing is how he doesn't get a 100 score on Fantrax. The only 100s were Jose Ramirez and Adam Wainwright. How does Shohei not match that? If anything, he should be well over 100.
But hey, I guess after eight years of losing, Butter won't be picky about silly stuff like that. He knows, in his heart, Shohei is a 100.
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