1873 - Trades and Opening Day Roster
Posted 11-07-2016 at 01:30 PM by TheEquinox
The spring training is over, it's opening day 1873. Another 50 matches against Chicago, Brooklyn and Cincinatti are ahead of us.
I've made a change to the game settings, I changed the star ratings to be relative to the MLB instead of absolute. I don't think it should really make a difference, because there are no international leagues yet (and I'm not sure there will be any in a history game) - so I think both settings should yield the same results. But I was wrong. The new setting seems to be much more realistic. Now there are only like 30 players with a rating >= 4 stars and not hundreds anymore.
However, changing this setting also opened my eyes about my roster. Suddenly, almost everybody dropped to 2.5 or 3 stars - except Levi Meyerle, who is rated with 4.5 stars on his 3B position and Joe Start, who got a 4 star rating as 1B. As Levi and Joe were our only real constant top-performers so far, I think this star rating evaluation is much better.
This also was a good help in making some trades. And I'm going to start with a huge one:
We sent 4* 1B Joe Start, 3.5* 2B Santiago Uribe and 2* SS Dickey Pearce to Baltimore in exchange for 5* LF Tom York and 4* potential prospect RF Carlos Tamayo.
With Start and Uribe, we are losing two Boston fan favourites, which they obviously didn't like at all. Both were regular starters last season, Joe Start played in 49 of 50 games. Baltimore wanted both of them or Levi in exchange for York, so there wasn't much of a choice.
Both are obvious losses for our team, but I think we can compensate them relatively well. We've got plenty of other options on the 1B position, and we still got Dick Higham who can fill the gap on the 2B position.
However, Tom York is a real gem:
According to his stats, his best seasons are still to come, but I think his ratings speak for themselves. He lacks a bit defensively, but so do most players in the MLB. 15 Errors per game per team happen regularly, so that's not the biggest focus. I believe Tom is the perfect guy at the #4 or #5 spot in the batting lineup, and we'll see if he can deliver a few homeruns this year. If he hits 5, he'll likely top the league.
Another position we urgently needed to improve, was the Shortstop position. I found a candidate for a trade which seemed to fit the bill:
After the acquiry of Tom York for the LF position, we had five LFs in the roster, so I decided to let Count Gedney go. That wasn't quite enough yet to convince Cleveland yet, so I put the 2.5 star 1B prospect Omar Garcia and 25$ in cash on top of it. Good riddance, and here's our new shortstop, Mike McGeary:
According to his ratings, he's a slightly above average hitter and a solid defender. He's also quick and should be able to steal a few bases. I'm pretty confident, he'll do the job for the season.
The last transfer is probably the most exciting one. The first year draft came up with this starting pitcher:
Obviously, I had no chance to get him, as he was the #1 pick of the draft by the Cincinatti Reds. Luckily, it seemed they were really in the mood to make a trade, and this is what we came up with:
While Candy Cummings did a better job than expected in his first MLB season, he just wasn't able to keep up with the Chicago's two time triple-crown pitcher Al Pratt. Not even close. I wanted a real bomb for the SP spot, someone who would be able to offer some competition to Pratt. I didn't know the Chicago Pitcher was going to pick up a 9 month injury just two weeks before opening day at the time we made this trade, but anyways, I think with Hugh Campbell, the future looks very bright for Boston. Daniel Cervantes and Mark Drake are two players which didn't manage to break through into the first team permanently, so I think they aren't really a big loss.
The draft was completed without any real highlights for Boston. Other than Hugh, 1873 was a very weak vintage of new players, and we didn't pick up anyone worth mentioning.
Here is the final roster for the 1873 season:
Pitchers:
Mike Edmunds returned from AAA this year, after my attempt to turn him into a Starter kind of failed. A reliever is what he is and what he will stay.
Batters:
The catcher position will be covered by Jorge Guzman this season. He's been Dick Higham's backup last season, but after we had to move Dick back to the 2B position, it's now Jorge's time to show his potential on the field.
Dan Cadron is a left-fielder I promoted from the minors towards the end of last season. He developed into a very nice 1B player during the off-season and spring training, and he'll get his chance to try and compensate the loss of Joe Start this season.
The rest of the squad seems to be relatively solid. Certainly not worse than the previous season. I'm really keen to see what kind of an impact our new signings can make. Especially Hugh Campbell as a starter...
We'll see. Onward to the first ballgame!
I've made a change to the game settings, I changed the star ratings to be relative to the MLB instead of absolute. I don't think it should really make a difference, because there are no international leagues yet (and I'm not sure there will be any in a history game) - so I think both settings should yield the same results. But I was wrong. The new setting seems to be much more realistic. Now there are only like 30 players with a rating >= 4 stars and not hundreds anymore.
However, changing this setting also opened my eyes about my roster. Suddenly, almost everybody dropped to 2.5 or 3 stars - except Levi Meyerle, who is rated with 4.5 stars on his 3B position and Joe Start, who got a 4 star rating as 1B. As Levi and Joe were our only real constant top-performers so far, I think this star rating evaluation is much better.
This also was a good help in making some trades. And I'm going to start with a huge one:
We sent 4* 1B Joe Start, 3.5* 2B Santiago Uribe and 2* SS Dickey Pearce to Baltimore in exchange for 5* LF Tom York and 4* potential prospect RF Carlos Tamayo.
With Start and Uribe, we are losing two Boston fan favourites, which they obviously didn't like at all. Both were regular starters last season, Joe Start played in 49 of 50 games. Baltimore wanted both of them or Levi in exchange for York, so there wasn't much of a choice.
Both are obvious losses for our team, but I think we can compensate them relatively well. We've got plenty of other options on the 1B position, and we still got Dick Higham who can fill the gap on the 2B position.
However, Tom York is a real gem:
According to his stats, his best seasons are still to come, but I think his ratings speak for themselves. He lacks a bit defensively, but so do most players in the MLB. 15 Errors per game per team happen regularly, so that's not the biggest focus. I believe Tom is the perfect guy at the #4 or #5 spot in the batting lineup, and we'll see if he can deliver a few homeruns this year. If he hits 5, he'll likely top the league.
Another position we urgently needed to improve, was the Shortstop position. I found a candidate for a trade which seemed to fit the bill:
After the acquiry of Tom York for the LF position, we had five LFs in the roster, so I decided to let Count Gedney go. That wasn't quite enough yet to convince Cleveland yet, so I put the 2.5 star 1B prospect Omar Garcia and 25$ in cash on top of it. Good riddance, and here's our new shortstop, Mike McGeary:
According to his ratings, he's a slightly above average hitter and a solid defender. He's also quick and should be able to steal a few bases. I'm pretty confident, he'll do the job for the season.
The last transfer is probably the most exciting one. The first year draft came up with this starting pitcher:
Obviously, I had no chance to get him, as he was the #1 pick of the draft by the Cincinatti Reds. Luckily, it seemed they were really in the mood to make a trade, and this is what we came up with:
While Candy Cummings did a better job than expected in his first MLB season, he just wasn't able to keep up with the Chicago's two time triple-crown pitcher Al Pratt. Not even close. I wanted a real bomb for the SP spot, someone who would be able to offer some competition to Pratt. I didn't know the Chicago Pitcher was going to pick up a 9 month injury just two weeks before opening day at the time we made this trade, but anyways, I think with Hugh Campbell, the future looks very bright for Boston. Daniel Cervantes and Mark Drake are two players which didn't manage to break through into the first team permanently, so I think they aren't really a big loss.
The draft was completed without any real highlights for Boston. Other than Hugh, 1873 was a very weak vintage of new players, and we didn't pick up anyone worth mentioning.
Here is the final roster for the 1873 season:
Pitchers:
Mike Edmunds returned from AAA this year, after my attempt to turn him into a Starter kind of failed. A reliever is what he is and what he will stay.
Batters:
The catcher position will be covered by Jorge Guzman this season. He's been Dick Higham's backup last season, but after we had to move Dick back to the 2B position, it's now Jorge's time to show his potential on the field.
Dan Cadron is a left-fielder I promoted from the minors towards the end of last season. He developed into a very nice 1B player during the off-season and spring training, and he'll get his chance to try and compensate the loss of Joe Start this season.
The rest of the squad seems to be relatively solid. Certainly not worse than the previous season. I'm really keen to see what kind of an impact our new signings can make. Especially Hugh Campbell as a starter...
We'll see. Onward to the first ballgame!
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