Richmond Renegades Head to San Antonio

The owners of Major League Baseball's Richmond Renegades have sold their franchise to a new ownership group in San Antonio, Texas. The former Renegades will now be known as the San Antonio Stars and will play their home games at the newly renovated Nelson Wolff Municipal Stadium in Bexar County, Texas.

Wolff Stadium is a paradise for pitchers. Singles, doubles, triples and home runs to right field are all well below the National League average and only its relatively short 310 foot left field fence placement allows home runs to that field to be near the number hit in other NL stadiums.

Making use of their stadium pitching advantage, the Stars picked up free agent starting pitcher George Reagan this season. Reagan, the best pitcher available in the latest free agent draft and third all time with 1337 career strikeouts, signed with the Stars for 5 years and $103 million dollars.

HughesJR, the first year General Manager and Field Manager for the Stars, said that the team would not be shy to pick up talent needed to make a run at the playoffs. The Stars are a member of the National League's south division and missed a wildcard playoff birth by 2 games last season. "I think that the addition of George Reagan might get us over the hump this year", said HughesJR.

The Stars did have some free agent defections this season as well. The one with the biggest impact was the loss of starting pitcher Gabe Lemke to the Durham Associates. Lemke was 8-6 with 175 innings pitched and a 3.80 earned run average last season with the former Santa Cruz Redwood (now the LA Kingz) and the Richmond Renegades. HughesJR said that he was very happy to have Reagan instead of Lemke. "Gabe is a good pitcher, but his arm is not what it used to be", said HughesJR.

The fans in San Antonio are thrilled to have a major league team and the Stars' management is excited that they should be able to compete in the National League South this season. We will keep an eye on the Stars as the season progresses.