First off, here's our World Series trophy:
Also managed the "Delivered a Dynasty" achievement:
Now to get down to business. I had a rude surprise once the season ended, as when I acquired him I missed the fact he had a opt-out on his contract after this season:
Whoops! There goes 8 WAR of talent. At least we'll get a compensatory draft pick. So hello starting 2B Connor Kirkley. He ain't gonna put up 8 WAR but the editor shows his resulting stats at 280/409/515, with 32 HR and 116 BB so we're not exactly hurting there. It does free up about $9M and our payroll can be up to $180M but I'm going to self-impose a much lower payroll given how many good players we have and to make it a bit more of a challenge.
The main problem is a surplus of good players, not only in the context of the starting lineup and our regular roster, but the 40-man as well with way too many good players possibly subject to Rule 5, including some top 100 prospects. Right now I'm only looking at two openings on the 40-man (Lux and Ryan Jeffers, whom I'm going to non-tender since Carlos Perez is out of options and deserves a callup), and one of those goes to Julio Cedillo, currently on the 60-day IL. So this is the situation:
Players who are definitely on the 2029 Opening Day roster (17):
C-Ruiz, C.Perez, 1B-Barker, 2B-Kirkley, SS-Widmar, SS/3B-DeLeon, 3B-B.Witt, OF-J.Dominguez, Clark, J.Diaz. SP-Sachais, McClanahan, Little, Money. RP-JDLC, Alvarado, Aparicio.
Players who should be on the OD roster but I may trade (12):
1B-Y.Alvarez, OF-Fabian, Torkelson, Cedillo. SP-Anglin, Leiter. RP-Espino, Filby, Johns, Chamberlain, Bowers, Godwin.
Others on the 40-man who could go either way (10):
C-Burkes, 1B-Barillas, Sharp. 3B-Lammers, IF/OF-Ayers. OF-Berdin. P-Bienick, Patten, Gough, Bayley.
Burks and Barillas are definitely ticketed for Durham.
Then I have these guys who are eligible for Rule 5 and not on the 40-man:
Top 125 prospects: Danny Ceja, Jose Gonzales, Jesus Pelaez, Dayle Jenkins.
Very Good prospects: Malachi Benford, Steve Saucedo, Jon Whiteleather, Stan Collier, Ian Haley, Aiden Meola, Travis Luensmann, Amari Smith, Daniel Olarte, Caleb Picciotti.
So everyone except those in that first group of 17 I may end up trading, and that's a lot of players. The goal will be to get young non-Rule 5 eligible prospects and I'm prepared to do a lot of 3-for-1 or more deals, preferably with teams in the NL.
November 1: Some big names retired: Andrew McCutchen, Gerrit Cole (Yanks retired #45), George Springer, Trea Turner, Jose Altuve (Astros retired #27), Liam Hendriks, Xander Bogaerts, and Casey Mize. Surprised the Yankees retired Cole's number, he had a few good years with them, but wasn't anything special over his last few.
November 6: Let the dealing begin:
The get here is Hardaway, the #3 overall pick in 2027 and the #1 rated prospect by BNN. He's a 2B, which fills a fairly thin position in the organization, whereas the key guy we traded, Jose Gonzales, plays a position we're deep at right now, SS. We have Widmar and DeLeon at the MLB level, and Jesus Pelaez, a 90-100 ranked prospect, behind him, along with recent draftees Erik Batchelder and Jeff Leininger. Gonzales is the #31 prospect, and Olarte is well-regarded by OSA as a potential mid-rotation starter but I'm not as personally high on him. Patten deserves to be in MLB and has shown in stints he can pitch, so I expect him to do well with the Giants. As for the other guys in the deal we received, Saldana is further along than Olarte and has mid-rotation potential himself, he'll pitch at Montgomery or Durham next year. Robles is an interesting guy, massive power, cannon for an OF arm, but really can't play the OF and can't run, making him a born DH type.
Meanwhile here's a look at Hardaway's ratings, kind of mouth-watering:
Right now he's only a 35 at 2B, but I imagine those numbers will go up in time. He'll probably start the year at high-A Charlotte and I'm looking for him to be ready by 2031. As for the effect on the roster crunch, Saldana takes Patten's spot on the 40-man so no help there, while Gonzales and Olarte were Rule 5-eligible and now I don't have to worry about them.
November 9: Blake Money won the Gold Glove for pitchers in the AL. Had no idea he was a frontrunner.
November 10: Espino won this award in 2025 as well:
November 11: Gavin Lux (2B), Jasson Dominguez (CF) and Nate Clark (DH) won the Silver Slugger award at their respective positions. Dominguez's was particularly impressive given he only played about 2/3 of the season in the bigs with 404 AB.
November 12: Another award for Dominguez:
It's funny, I thought Widmar was going to win it because I was always looking at Dominguez's numbers solely with the Rays, but if you add his Yankees stint he had 5.3 WAR to Widmar's 5.1.
November 13: This came as no surprise, but great to see nonetheless:
They're going to need to rename the AL Cy Young to "Tampa Bay Rays Pitcher of the Year" as this marks the 5th time in the last 6 seasons a Rays starter has won it, with Tyler Glasnow taking the honors in 2023 and 2026, Matt Manning in 2024 and Shane McClanahan in 2027. Speaking of Manning, he ended up having a great season with the Diamondbacks (much better than his last 2 with the Rays, which were decent), and got my vote for the NL version. Unfortunately though he ended up finishing 3rd to Davis Sharpe of the Cardinals (13-7, 2.38).
November 15: Vlad Guerrero Jr. took the AL MVP over Gavin Lux, getting 29 out of 30 first-place votes (guess who voted for Lux?). I thought it would be a bit closer given how close their numbers were and how close they were in WAR, but so be it. Down ballot Nate Clark finished 6th and Jasson Dominguez 7th. The MVP award was Vlad's 5th in the last 7 years, having won in 2022, 2023, 2025 and 2026. Over in the NL Juan Soto won unanimously, a .324-60-148 season with 113 walks will do that. It was the third time Soto won after doing so in 2022 and 2026.
November 25: More tradin':
I really, really, really didn't want to trade Johns, but there's just no place for him with 6 starters (plus Andy Aparicio!) on the roster already, and because of all those starters there's no place in long relief for him either. I love his combination of control and whiffs (you can see the MLB numbers above in the story). But in exchange we get our 1B of the future and #33 prospect in MLB in Rivas
and we get to open up 2 40-man spots in the deal as Barillas was taking the other and he's completely expendable now with the Rivas acquisition. Barillas has great power and can hit - but only against righties, he can't hit lefties to save his life so his ascension to the MLB roster was always going to be problematic. The other two guys I traded (Krull and Reynoso) are 1/2 star nobodies to get the deal to complete. More on Rivas: he's 70 gap power, 65 current power, 75 potential power, 45/55 contact. He would hit 267/329/555 in the bigs today with 46 2B and 35 HR, and has some room to develop, and is rated 50 defensively, which is fine at that position. The other two guys we got have interesting bats with Hodges 80 current gap power and 60/65 HR power, but he's a mediocre OF. He's ticketed for AA. Tuley was Philly's 2nd round pick in 2027 and looks to be an all-around decent hitter and fielder and the scouts like him a lot.
Well, this stinks: He'll end up missing most of the 2029 season:
