Had so much stuff in that first November post so I figured I'd make a new one.
Our first deal of the offsesason:
Moreno was going to be non-tendered, didn't want to be paying him $15M, so I shopped him to see what I could get, and it turned out to be Escobar, Columbus's 2nd round pick in 2028. He's a hulking dude, 6'8" 250 with current 75 gap power and 60/65 current/potential HR power. He also has a decent eye. The catch is he's rated 40/45 contact, and although he's rated a 65 at 1B, the component fielding ratings are all in the 40s, which is odd. He'll probably play at AA Montgomery.
Alec Sachais won the gold glove for AL pitchers today, so congrats to him.
Congrats, Jordan Diaz!
Rightfully this should have gone to Jose Alvarado (who got his one first-place vote from me), who had 0.5 more WAR than Diaz and had 20 saves, but Diaz is a good choice too and was one of the main reasons we had our best-ever bullpen this past season.
Joe Barker (DH) and
Nate Clark (LF) won Platinum Stick Awards. So did
Adley Rutschman (C), but that was for his work with Baltimore. During his time with us, it was as if he were using an actual platinum bat.
November 13: Texas's Victor Presas (15-6, 2.64) won the Cy Young, beating out his teammate and last year's winner Wil Diaz. Surprisingly, Marc Wagner finished 3rd (guess it was all those strikeouts), Alec Sachais was 4th and Jon Hayes was 5th. Jack Flaherty (14-4, 2.53) won it once again in the NL. It was his fourth Cy Young in the last five seasons, and it was unanimous. The only year he didn't win it (2028), he was out injured most of the year and limited to 11 starts.
November 14: Vlad Guerrero Jr. (yawn) won the MVP once again, his third straight, fourth in the last five years, and seventh overall. He was .350-38-118 this year with 7.5 WAR. Nate Clark's .303-51-144 year was good for 2nd, he received 6 first place votes to Vlad's 22. Jasson Dominguez finished 7th, Ricky Widmar 9th and Joe Barker 10th. The first two of those would have made it a very interesting race had they not missed the last 4-6 weeks of the season. Colorado's Corbin Carroll won it in the NL thanks to a .372-21-78 season, a season that saw him hitting .400 as late as early August before gravity caught up to him. Juan Soto was a distant second.
November 15: Let the deals begin!
I've decided to put Andy Aparicio in the rotation next year, so someone has to go and it's Leiter, who's now 30 and if not on numbers, on ratings he's the fifth best of the 2030 rotation (of course this would make him the ace on some teams, and a #2 or #3 starter on most). The return here is Soranno, the #1 overall pick in 2027, who has 70 stuff potential (60 present) as a starter (80 if you believe OSA) along with 65 movement (or 70 per OSA). He was up as a reliever with Cincinnati last season and pitched quite well over 44 innings. He's probably ticketed for Durham this year to be a full-time starter. And Allen is a legit starting prospect as well, and will either be at Montgomery or Durham. Soland was our 2nd round pick who underwhelmed in his first exposure to pro ball and at best is a slap-hitting MLB 2B.
And here's another big trade:
As mentioned before, DeLeon was nice to have with Bobby Witt Jr and Ricky Widmar getting hurt from time to time so I lose that security blanket, but the emergence of Dane Ayers made DeLeon an asset we were kind of wasting since he's a legit regular SS or 3B who should hit 35-40 HR in full-time play as you can see from the numbers above. So we got a nice return for him. First and foremost, we get a quality catcher to job-share with Luis Corpus. Runnels is really a .240 hitter, but he's one year removed from a .276-19-51 season in 83 games which was worth 3.7 WAR. He dropped to .205-8-25 in 69 games this year with Will Smith back from injury, so his real ability is somewhere between those two seasons. If he played 150 games, he'd hit 25-30 HR so as long he produces decently he'll help us. The real prize here is Thompson, an extreme groundballer who throws 97-99. He's been a top 20 prospect and the scouting has him as a potential #1 starter. He's had stints in relief the last two seasons with St. Louis, and right now he probably takes over Aparicio's role in the bullpen, although I eventually want to get him into the rotation. The eventual idea here with acquiring Sorrano and Thompson in these deals is that Christian Little isn't forever, he has two more years of team control left and because of his fragility I don't see signing him to an extension. I actually like Sachais and Hayes more long-term. Also Sorrano and Thompson are 65/70 movement guys, a much more important factor in Publix Park.