OOTP Developments Forums - View Single Post

Art Deco · 12-26-2022, 01:04 PM

We started the offseason with a couple of big trades to address the bullpen. First was this one:

(forgot to screen cap the trade window on this one)

Salinas was as they say, surplus to requirements, and he was going to bring us the best return. And now we have our 2032 closer in Josh Scanlon:

As you can see he led the AL in saves and has 74 over the last two seasons. His only achilles heel seems to be control as he's rated 50 and has walked a little over 4 per 9 innings. But his stuff is electric and here's hoping he can solidify the back end of the pen. But that's not all - we also picked up a 5th starter in the deal, or at least someone to challenge John Swanda, in Christian Little. Those of you who followed my 2020 Rays save know that Little was a legend there, culminating in a Hall of Fame enshrinement as he was one of the best strikeout artists in history. In this save he's nowhere near that but still a decent starter:

He's pretty solid with a chance to be a little better and will give us some options. As a 40 stamina guy he's going to be a 5-inning starter so maybe we'll pair him with Swanda in sort of a tandem role.

Another trade:

With Dax Fulton (whom we also acquired from Texas a few years back) out for the year we were going to need a reliable lefty in the pen as Alex Vesia (whom we may still bring back) is a free agent and Mason Feole was inconsistent. Tommy Burpee, the #1 overall pick in 2024, fills that bill and the cost was a guy we weren't going to tender in arbitration anyway in Raymells Rosa:

Burpee is capable of starting but hopefully we won't need him in the rotation.

Awards season:

Gold Glove: We won three with the departing Matt Manning winning the award at pitcher, the ageless J.T. Realmuto taking the award at catcher, and the also-departing Willi Castro winning at 2B.

Reliever of the Year: The AL nod went to the Yankees' Sam Weatherly, 8-3, 2.65 with 22 saves and 1.7 WAR, with our newly-acquired Josh Scanlon finishing fifth. Veteran Japanese closer Terufumi Yoshimoto of the Mets won the award for the third time in his career after an 8-win, 44-save season with a 2.23 ERA and 1.3 WAR.
Silver Slugger: Like the Gold Glove, three Rays were honored with J.T. Realmuto winning both. Also getting the nod were Wander Franco at SS and Dong-hwan Kim in LF.

Rookie of the Year: Baltimore CF Jake Westfall was the unanimous AL winner after a sterling .311-27-92 season with 5.5 WAR and in the NL 33-year-old Cuban defector Luis Arana of Milwaukee was unanimous after a .257-40-113 year with 5.1 WAR.

Cy Young: The AL voting was about as fragmented as it gets:

(Note: I voted for Mank, the former Rays prospect and wasn't the lone voter for Joe Marlette)

Leahy was a brilliant 14-2, 1.91. with 4.0 WAR but only made 25 starts and pitched 131 innings. Roach was 11-9, 3.35 and led the AL with in whiffs (221) and WAR (5.2), while Frias had the best relief season (although for some reason didn't win Reliever of the Year) with 14 wins, 3 saves, a 1.12 ERA in 88.2 IP and 2.7 WAR, although he did make 9 starts among his 42 appearances. Mank was 15-4, 3.14, led the league in innings (214), WHIP (1.07) and earned 4.5 WAR.

In the NL it was much more straightforward with Memphis' Josh Johnson taking 29 first-place votes after a 17-10, 2.76 season in which he led MLB with 254.2 IP and 284 strikeouts, good enough for 8.1 WAR.

MVP: The AL award was claimed by Yordan Alvarez of Texas, getting 31 of 32 first-place votes thanks to his .315-47-130 season in which he barely missed the Triple Crown (thanks to our Kelly Crumpton's 48 dingers). The other first-place vote went to Minnesota's Royce Lewis while our J.T. Realmuto showed in third. Wander Franco was 5th and Crumpton 7th.

In the NL Atlanta's Ronald Acuna Jr. won for the sixth time and was a unanimous pick, having hit .312/418/658 with 43 HR, 112 RBI and 8.3 WAR.

December 12: The first of the big free agents signed, and it was one of ours as Willi Castro inked a 4/85 pact with the Memphis Spirit. I would have given Castro a QO but he had already received one in 2027 from Detroit thus he was ineligible.

December 13: Texas is apparently very enamored of new acquisition Raymells Rosa and gave him a 2/20 extension.

December 14: Matt Chapman is the J.T. Realmuto of third basemen apparently as Atlanta signed the 38-year-old to a 2/46 deal to man the hot corner for them in 2032 and 2033. Also former Ray Drew Rasmussen signed a 2/1.8 deal with the Mets.

December 21: Added SS Mike Vitelli and Ps Jake Snyder and Randy Morris to the 40-man roster.

Vitelli was a 4th round pick in 2027 who has a pretty decent bat but a suspect glove while Snyder and Morris are groundballers who keep the ball in the park (both with 70+ movement ratings) and display good control. Snyder is a 31-year-old vet who's had 3 good seasons at Durham while Morris was a 15th-round pick in 2028 who's made it to AA Montgomery pitching well at every step. Both are depth.

The Rule 5 draft turned out to be uneventful with six players being taken and the AI GMs did a good job of not exposing top prospects.

December 25: The baseball world was busy on Christmas as former Ray Nathan Dettmer signed a 3/27 deal with the Giants, while another former Ray Jose Crespo signed a 2/21 pact with Texas, which along with the Raymells Rosa acquisition sees them spending serious money on their pen.

Holy crap! I was not expecting this. Realmuto has decided to forego $23M to play in 2032 and has retired. This leaves a gaping hole at catcher with only the mediocre Diego Cartaya on the active roster and not much in the pipeline. This is a serious blow to the franchise for the next season and job one is now to find a catcher. We have $23M more to spend on top of the $20M or so we had available. There is another superstar catcher out there in free agency, William Contreras, who wants a 5/128 deal. I will be reaching out to him for sure, otherwise I will have to see what's available in trade. Definitely among the more shocking developments I've had in OOTP.

December 26: Well I made Contreras an offer and word has already leaked out:

December 27: Another former Ray found a new home as reliever Tommy Doyle went the Dodgers for 2/7.3 and Jeff McNeil, who had a brief stint with us as a rental in 2029 when we won the World Series, is still commanding interest at age 39, signing a 2/32 deal with Arizona.

December 28: While all our attention is fixed on 2032, our head scout Rob Metzler is out there looking at the distant future and made a pretty nice scouting discovery:

Lugo is quite a cut above your typical scouting discovery and is almost worthy of a $5M July 2 signing.

December 30: We made a free agent signing! (No it wasn't Contreras)

Guzman has great ratings as you can see and he only cost $1.1M. The catch? His actual performance has been spotty the last few years with San Antonio (and he's also rated "fragile"). He's kind of the ultimate swingman, making 62 starts and 60 relief appearances over the last 3 years with ERAs of 4.71, 5.15 and 6.04 but he did earn 2.2 WAR in 2030 before dropping off to 0.9 last year. Here I'm taking a gamble on the ratings and some underlying metrics over the basic stats and the investment risk was minimal.

We also signed a Taiwanese import who came over in the international veteran free agent class:

Yue signed a minor league deal so no cost involved. He's not terribly likely to come up but will provide depth.

Time to let the 2031 archive generate for about 45 minutes so we'll be back with Part 2 of the offseason and see if we can sign William Contreras.

12-26-2022, 01:04 PM	#958
Art Deco Hall Of Famer Join Date: May 2020 Posts: 7,679	2031-32 Offseason: Part 1 We started the offseason with a couple of big trades to address the bullpen. First was this one: (forgot to screen cap the trade window on this one) Salinas was as they say, surplus to requirements, and he was going to bring us the best return. And now we have our 2032 closer in Josh Scanlon: As you can see he led the AL in saves and has 74 over the last two seasons. His only achilles heel seems to be control as he's rated 50 and has walked a little over 4 per 9 innings. But his stuff is electric and here's hoping he can solidify the back end of the pen. But that's not all - we also picked up a 5th starter in the deal, or at least someone to challenge John Swanda, in Christian Little. Those of you who followed my 2020 Rays save know that Little was a legend there, culminating in a Hall of Fame enshrinement as he was one of the best strikeout artists in history. In this save he's nowhere near that but still a decent starter: He's pretty solid with a chance to be a little better and will give us some options. As a 40 stamina guy he's going to be a 5-inning starter so maybe we'll pair him with Swanda in sort of a tandem role. Another trade: With Dax Fulton (whom we also acquired from Texas a few years back) out for the year we were going to need a reliable lefty in the pen as Alex Vesia (whom we may still bring back) is a free agent and Mason Feole was inconsistent. Tommy Burpee, the #1 overall pick in 2024, fills that bill and the cost was a guy we weren't going to tender in arbitration anyway in Raymells Rosa: Burpee is capable of starting but hopefully we won't need him in the rotation. Awards season: Gold Glove: We won three with the departing Matt Manning winning the award at pitcher, the ageless J.T. Realmuto taking the award at catcher, and the also-departing Willi Castro winning at 2B. Reliever of the Year: The AL nod went to the Yankees' Sam Weatherly, 8-3, 2.65 with 22 saves and 1.7 WAR, with our newly-acquired Josh Scanlon finishing fifth. Veteran Japanese closer Terufumi Yoshimoto of the Mets won the award for the third time in his career after an 8-win, 44-save season with a 2.23 ERA and 1.3 WAR. Silver Slugger: Like the Gold Glove, three Rays were honored with J.T. Realmuto winning both. Also getting the nod were Wander Franco at SS and Dong-hwan Kim in LF. Rookie of the Year: Baltimore CF Jake Westfall was the unanimous AL winner after a sterling .311-27-92 season with 5.5 WAR and in the NL 33-year-old Cuban defector Luis Arana of Milwaukee was unanimous after a .257-40-113 year with 5.1 WAR. Cy Young: The AL voting was about as fragmented as it gets: (Note: I voted for Mank, the former Rays prospect and wasn't the lone voter for Joe Marlette) Leahy was a brilliant 14-2, 1.91. with 4.0 WAR but only made 25 starts and pitched 131 innings. Roach was 11-9, 3.35 and led the AL with in whiffs (221) and WAR (5.2), while Frias had the best relief season (although for some reason didn't win Reliever of the Year) with 14 wins, 3 saves, a 1.12 ERA in 88.2 IP and 2.7 WAR, although he did make 9 starts among his 42 appearances. Mank was 15-4, 3.14, led the league in innings (214), WHIP (1.07) and earned 4.5 WAR. In the NL it was much more straightforward with Memphis' Josh Johnson taking 29 first-place votes after a 17-10, 2.76 season in which he led MLB with 254.2 IP and 284 strikeouts, good enough for 8.1 WAR. MVP: The AL award was claimed by Yordan Alvarez of Texas, getting 31 of 32 first-place votes thanks to his .315-47-130 season in which he barely missed the Triple Crown (thanks to our Kelly Crumpton's 48 dingers). The other first-place vote went to Minnesota's Royce Lewis while our J.T. Realmuto showed in third. Wander Franco was 5th and Crumpton 7th. In the NL Atlanta's Ronald Acuna Jr. won for the sixth time and was a unanimous pick, having hit .312/418/658 with 43 HR, 112 RBI and 8.3 WAR. December 12: The first of the big free agents signed, and it was one of ours as Willi Castro inked a 4/85 pact with the Memphis Spirit. I would have given Castro a QO but he had already received one in 2027 from Detroit thus he was ineligible. December 13: Texas is apparently very enamored of new acquisition Raymells Rosa and gave him a 2/20 extension. December 14: Matt Chapman is the J.T. Realmuto of third basemen apparently as Atlanta signed the 38-year-old to a 2/46 deal to man the hot corner for them in 2032 and 2033. Also former Ray Drew Rasmussen signed a 2/1.8 deal with the Mets. December 21: Added SS Mike Vitelli and Ps Jake Snyder and Randy Morris to the 40-man roster. Vitelli was a 4th round pick in 2027 who has a pretty decent bat but a suspect glove while Snyder and Morris are groundballers who keep the ball in the park (both with 70+ movement ratings) and display good control. Snyder is a 31-year-old vet who's had 3 good seasons at Durham while Morris was a 15th-round pick in 2028 who's made it to AA Montgomery pitching well at every step. Both are depth. The Rule 5 draft turned out to be uneventful with six players being taken and the AI GMs did a good job of not exposing top prospects. December 25: The baseball world was busy on Christmas as former Ray Nathan Dettmer signed a 3/27 deal with the Giants, while another former Ray Jose Crespo signed a 2/21 pact with Texas, which along with the Raymells Rosa acquisition sees them spending serious money on their pen. Holy crap! I was not expecting this. Realmuto has decided to forego $23M to play in 2032 and has retired. This leaves a gaping hole at catcher with only the mediocre Diego Cartaya on the active roster and not much in the pipeline. This is a serious blow to the franchise for the next season and job one is now to find a catcher. We have $23M more to spend on top of the $20M or so we had available. There is another superstar catcher out there in free agency, William Contreras, who wants a 5/128 deal. I will be reaching out to him for sure, otherwise I will have to see what's available in trade. Definitely among the more shocking developments I've had in OOTP. December 26: Well I made Contreras an offer and word has already leaked out: December 27: Another former Ray found a new home as reliever Tommy Doyle went the Dodgers for 2/7.3 and Jeff McNeil, who had a brief stint with us as a rental in 2029 when we won the World Series, is still commanding interest at age 39, signing a 2/32 deal with Arizona. December 28: While all our attention is fixed on 2032, our head scout Rob Metzler is out there looking at the distant future and made a pretty nice scouting discovery: Lugo is quite a cut above your typical scouting discovery and is almost worthy of a $5M July 2 signing. December 30: We made a free agent signing! (No it wasn't Contreras) Guzman has great ratings as you can see and he only cost $1.1M. The catch? His actual performance has been spotty the last few years with San Antonio (and he's also rated "fragile"). He's kind of the ultimate swingman, making 62 starts and 60 relief appearances over the last 3 years with ERAs of 4.71, 5.15 and 6.04 but he did earn 2.2 WAR in 2030 before dropping off to 0.9 last year. Here I'm taking a gamble on the ratings and some underlying metrics over the basic stats and the investment risk was minimal. We also signed a Taiwanese import who came over in the international veteran free agent class: Yue signed a minor league deal so no cost involved. He's not terribly likely to come up but will provide depth. Time to let the 2031 archive generate for about 45 minutes so we'll be back with Part 2 of the offseason and see if we can sign William Contreras.