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Art Deco · 06-17-2022, 12:54 AM

November 10: Well we finally got out from under the Victor Robles contract, as we got $15M/year in relief thanks to this trade with Cleveland:

We are retaining $5M/year, parted with a couple of other guys whom we weren't going to keep around (Kilgore and Wetherbee) and threw in a C prospect in Jose Meding and in the end we get a starting pitcher in Prosecky. He's more of an innings-eater type, having gone 9-15, 4.44 with Cleveland last year in 192 innings. The lefty is rated 50 stuff, 65 movement, and 50 control and he makes the minimum.. Although we'll have 2-3 openings, he's not yet a lock for the rotation; we could use him in long relief.

Robles bounced back to have a decent 2.4 WAR season in 117 games after a dismal 2027 but he never looked to be getting back to the 5-WAR guy he was before we signed him. We now have a hole in CF as Ryan McKenna, whom I was considering having fill in, wants a 3/13 deal which seems a lot for a guy who I picked up off the free agent scrap heap last summer. Mo Hampton Jr, who was up last year for a while when Robles was hurt, is an excellent defender who put up a 7.7 ZR in Durham last year and has a little pop, but isn't a very good overall hitter. We'll just see how the offseason goes and who becomes available, etc.

Awards season time. Unlike last year when it was the James Hays show (MVP & Cy), we'll likely be shut out this year although Hays has a shot at another Cy Young (he led the AL in pitcher WAR but that seems to not be a big consideration in OOTP's pitching awards).

Gold Gloves: LOL, we're not getting any.

Reliever of the Year: Somehow Tyler Zuber of KC won it because he had a 1.16 ERA in 54 innings (but only 6 saves and only 1.1 WAR). Yasunari Uehara got my vote and apparently it was the only vote of any kind he received which is ridiculous since he led AL relievers in WAR at 2.7, had a 7/77 BB/K ratio, a very good 2.45 ERA and 29 saves. The voting made no sense.

Silver Slugger: We actually did win one as Wander Franco took the award at SS.

Rookie of the Year: Marc Petro of Oakland (.256-21-65) took it in the AL with 31 of 32 first-place votes. Finishing a distant second was our own Dominic Scavone. In the NL, El Paso's Andy Kelly was an unanimous winner, hitting .279-14-48 in a partial season.

Cy Young: Wow, he did it! Back-to-back Cy Youngs for Hays:

Thought for sure Francis Martes' sexier 19-6, 3.10 was going to win it but he finished a distant third. Hays had a very good season but nothing like his otherworldly 2027. We're going to pay through the nose for him in arbitration this year but it'll be worth it.

In the NL the unanimous winner was Atlanta's Luke LaFlam, who was 15-11, 2.89. He threw a whopping 236 innings and earned 5.0 WAR. It would have been his rookie season as well but he pitched 58 innings over parts of the previous two years and just missed out on rookie eligibility or I'm sure he would have won RotY as well.

MVP: In a league when nobody had a truly outstanding season, the AL MVP vote was always going to be a muddle and it did end up a close race as the White Sox' Matt Wong took it, 355-332 over Baltimore's Billy Carlow with each receiving 14 first-place votes (I voted for Carlow). Wander finished 5th in the voting. Wong hit .303-32-98 and played a good LF, earning 6.3 WAR. Carlow hit .284-39-103 and led the AL in SLG and OPS. The 2nd overall pick in 2026 also can pitch and made 3 starts for Baltimore which albeit were nothing special.

In the NL there wasn't much doubt as Atlanta's Jasson Dominguez won unanimously after a monster year which saw him hit .283-55-128 and play Gold Glove defense in LF (he'd play CF but Atlanta has another Gold Glover in Christian Pache), and compiled 8.6 WAR.

Back to our regularly scheduled trading, we found a home for JT Ginn:

(Although this says the Texas GM is going to think about it, he already thought about the offer I submitted without Ricciardi and said we had a deal if I included him, so I put the trade through. Contract law and all that, y'know.)

Dax Fulton is a power lefty who can start or relieve (60 or 70 stuff depending on which) and was 5-9, 3.52 with 16 saves and 101 Ks in 105 IP, making 13 starts mixed in. Not sure yet what role I'm going to use him in. Seise meanwhile is a defensive wizard at 3B who had a ZR of 8.5 last year at the hot corner. He isn't much of a hitter (262/320/387) but thanks to his glove earned 3.1 WAR. He can play SS too, with a potential rating of 60 with enough reps. I wanted to upgrade our defense and Seise should see a lot of time at 3B with Dom Scavone likely ending up at DH mostly. Ricciardi meanwhile was expendable as we have a lot of 1B and with a 40 contact tool he seems to be Angelo DiSpigna 2.0. Carbajal is a longshot prospect.

And we have another trade:

Remember Andy Kelley, mentioned previously in this post? Yep, the NL Rookie of the Year is headed to Tampa Bay in a swap for Heston Kjerstad, who was slated to make $6.3M/year. Kjerstad still rates better than Kelley but HK's problem is staying on the field - he averaged only 90 games the last two seasons with us. He did hit a lot of big homers for us the last 5 years including a pair in Game 7 of this year's World Series (#toosoon) but he was into his last year of team control. Gonzalez is a bit of a longshot while Corona I considered at one point our 3B of the future (ahead of Kelly Crumpton a few years back) but kind of stagnated. He can play in the majors now as an average-fielding 3B with 20 HR and a .240-.250 BA, in other words a second-division starter.

Kelley meanwhile is a 65 LF but can play center (45-rated). Since we're looking at Greckel and Kirilloff in the corners, center is where he'll have to fit although I'll probably have Mo Hampton Jr or a Mo Hampton Jr-type backing up to come on as a defensive replacement late in games. Also you may have noticed that we were between assistant GMs as nobody gave me feedback on this trade. Shortly after it was completed, we hired former Rays front office guy and former Astros GM James Click to be our AGM.

December 6: We signed an interesting international FA to a minor league deal:

Sasaki has some pretty good potential and he didn't cost us anything. He's potentially a little light on HR power for a 1B and we have Jonathan Guiterrez at Montgomery as well who's a more advanced 1B prospect but Sasaki should have decent future value, either for our club or as a trade chip.

06-17-2022, 12:54 AM	#709
Art Deco Hall Of Famer Join Date: May 2020 Posts: 7,582	2028-29 Offseason: Part 1 November 10: Well we finally got out from under the Victor Robles contract, as we got $15M/year in relief thanks to this trade with Cleveland: We are retaining $5M/year, parted with a couple of other guys whom we weren't going to keep around (Kilgore and Wetherbee) and threw in a C prospect in Jose Meding and in the end we get a starting pitcher in Prosecky. He's more of an innings-eater type, having gone 9-15, 4.44 with Cleveland last year in 192 innings. The lefty is rated 50 stuff, 65 movement, and 50 control and he makes the minimum.. Although we'll have 2-3 openings, he's not yet a lock for the rotation; we could use him in long relief. Robles bounced back to have a decent 2.4 WAR season in 117 games after a dismal 2027 but he never looked to be getting back to the 5-WAR guy he was before we signed him. We now have a hole in CF as Ryan McKenna, whom I was considering having fill in, wants a 3/13 deal which seems a lot for a guy who I picked up off the free agent scrap heap last summer. Mo Hampton Jr, who was up last year for a while when Robles was hurt, is an excellent defender who put up a 7.7 ZR in Durham last year and has a little pop, but isn't a very good overall hitter. We'll just see how the offseason goes and who becomes available, etc. Awards season time. Unlike last year when it was the James Hays show (MVP & Cy), we'll likely be shut out this year although Hays has a shot at another Cy Young (he led the AL in pitcher WAR but that seems to not be a big consideration in OOTP's pitching awards). Gold Gloves: LOL, we're not getting any. Reliever of the Year: Somehow Tyler Zuber of KC won it because he had a 1.16 ERA in 54 innings (but only 6 saves and only 1.1 WAR). Yasunari Uehara got my vote and apparently it was the only vote of any kind he received which is ridiculous since he led AL relievers in WAR at 2.7, had a 7/77 BB/K ratio, a very good 2.45 ERA and 29 saves. The voting made no sense. Silver Slugger: We actually did win one as Wander Franco took the award at SS. Rookie of the Year: Marc Petro of Oakland (.256-21-65) took it in the AL with 31 of 32 first-place votes. Finishing a distant second was our own Dominic Scavone. In the NL, El Paso's Andy Kelly was an unanimous winner, hitting .279-14-48 in a partial season. Cy Young: Wow, he did it! Back-to-back Cy Youngs for Hays: Thought for sure Francis Martes' sexier 19-6, 3.10 was going to win it but he finished a distant third. Hays had a very good season but nothing like his otherworldly 2027. We're going to pay through the nose for him in arbitration this year but it'll be worth it. In the NL the unanimous winner was Atlanta's Luke LaFlam, who was 15-11, 2.89. He threw a whopping 236 innings and earned 5.0 WAR. It would have been his rookie season as well but he pitched 58 innings over parts of the previous two years and just missed out on rookie eligibility or I'm sure he would have won RotY as well. MVP: In a league when nobody had a truly outstanding season, the AL MVP vote was always going to be a muddle and it did end up a close race as the White Sox' Matt Wong took it, 355-332 over Baltimore's Billy Carlow with each receiving 14 first-place votes (I voted for Carlow). Wander finished 5th in the voting. Wong hit .303-32-98 and played a good LF, earning 6.3 WAR. Carlow hit .284-39-103 and led the AL in SLG and OPS. The 2nd overall pick in 2026 also can pitch and made 3 starts for Baltimore which albeit were nothing special. In the NL there wasn't much doubt as Atlanta's Jasson Dominguez won unanimously after a monster year which saw him hit .283-55-128 and play Gold Glove defense in LF (he'd play CF but Atlanta has another Gold Glover in Christian Pache), and compiled 8.6 WAR. Back to our regularly scheduled trading, we found a home for JT Ginn: (Although this says the Texas GM is going to think about it, he already thought about the offer I submitted without Ricciardi and said we had a deal if I included him, so I put the trade through. Contract law and all that, y'know.) Dax Fulton is a power lefty who can start or relieve (60 or 70 stuff depending on which) and was 5-9, 3.52 with 16 saves and 101 Ks in 105 IP, making 13 starts mixed in. Not sure yet what role I'm going to use him in. Seise meanwhile is a defensive wizard at 3B who had a ZR of 8.5 last year at the hot corner. He isn't much of a hitter (262/320/387) but thanks to his glove earned 3.1 WAR. He can play SS too, with a potential rating of 60 with enough reps. I wanted to upgrade our defense and Seise should see a lot of time at 3B with Dom Scavone likely ending up at DH mostly. Ricciardi meanwhile was expendable as we have a lot of 1B and with a 40 contact tool he seems to be Angelo DiSpigna 2.0. Carbajal is a longshot prospect. And we have another trade: Remember Andy Kelley, mentioned previously in this post? Yep, the NL Rookie of the Year is headed to Tampa Bay in a swap for Heston Kjerstad, who was slated to make $6.3M/year. Kjerstad still rates better than Kelley but HK's problem is staying on the field - he averaged only 90 games the last two seasons with us. He did hit a lot of big homers for us the last 5 years including a pair in Game 7 of this year's World Series (#toosoon) but he was into his last year of team control. Gonzalez is a bit of a longshot while Corona I considered at one point our 3B of the future (ahead of Kelly Crumpton a few years back) but kind of stagnated. He can play in the majors now as an average-fielding 3B with 20 HR and a .240-.250 BA, in other words a second-division starter. Kelley meanwhile is a 65 LF but can play center (45-rated). Since we're looking at Greckel and Kirilloff in the corners, center is where he'll have to fit although I'll probably have Mo Hampton Jr or a Mo Hampton Jr-type backing up to come on as a defensive replacement late in games. Also you may have noticed that we were between assistant GMs as nobody gave me feedback on this trade. Shortly after it was completed, we hired former Rays front office guy and former Astros GM James Click to be our AGM. December 6: We signed an interesting international FA to a minor league deal: Sasaki has some pretty good potential and he didn't cost us anything. He's potentially a little light on HR power for a 1B and we have Jonathan Guiterrez at Montgomery as well who's a more advanced 1B prospect but Sasaki should have decent future value, either for our club or as a trade chip.