I'll go a bit out of chronological order to deliver the big news:
Barela is back! It won't be cheap and he'll turn 35 in March but he's showing no signs of slowing down after a record-setting postseason.
We also made a trade:
Traded from our catcher depth where Ferguson was 4th on the depth chart but is a capable big-leaguer, and received a quality reliever in Leonard. The only catch is that he's coming off a partially torn UCL and will miss the first couple of months of the season. It's a bit of a gamble but the price was right and we need some depth in the pen. We're still going to have to find a closer though.
Awards season:
No Gold Glovers for the Rays with Yuji Morioka at SS our best candidate.
Silver Sluggers: Juan Davila (2B), Luis Barela (3B), Jon Morales (RF), Alex Duran (DH).
AL Rookie of the Year, as if there was any doubt:
The NL nod went to Washington OF Butch Bain who hit .314-18-75.
AL Reliever of the Year:
It was the second time he'd won it, having received the nod in 2044 with Washington when he put up a 4-WAR season. And the NL winner is a very familiar name: Satoshi Sato, who left us last year as a free agent and signed a 1-year deal with Philadelphia where he went 7-4, 1.41 with 44 saves and earned 3.1 WAR. So both of these guys are free agents and we need bullpen help. Time will tell.
Cy Young:
Detroit's Eric Rimbach was the runaway AL winner, taking 27 of 32 first-place votes. He was 17-4, 2.75 and earned 5 WAR. Our Dave Rose was second with 4 first-place votes and 20-game winner Greg Bookhart finished 4th with the other first-place vote (mine). In the NL the winner was the Dodgers' Sam Chapman who earned 29 top nods after a 14-8, 2.62 season and 206 whiffs in 223 IP.
MVP (as there also could be any doubt):
Jon Morales joins Fred Lynn (1975) and Ichiro Suzuki (2001) as the only rookies in MLB history to win MVP and he was a unanimous winner. And it was a clean sweep of win, place and show as Rays took the top three spots with Luis Barela and Juan Davila right behind Morales.
December 10: First of the big free agent signings as perennial 40-homer guy Mike Collin signed for 3/71 with the Angels. The former Baltimore 1B hit his share of homers over the years against us so I'm glad to see him out of the division.
Some good news:
We'll see if he's lot any stuff in spring training but this is excellent news as he was originally projected to miss the first month or two of the season. As usual with OOTP23, despite this message it still showed 4 months left on his injury so I had to go into the editor to remove it. This bug has annoyed me and I've mentioned it several times in the bug forums but it's never been fixed.
December 12: And there goes Abelaldo Gray, signing with the division-rival Yankees on a 3/34 deal.
December 14: Lefty swingman Chris O'Brien, who never really panned out with us and who was non-tendered, signed a minor league deal with St. Louis.
December 18: Former Ray reliever Ed Pretty, whom I considered making an offer to, signed for 2/9.4 with Milwaukee.
December 21: Added IF/OF Jayden Jackson and OF Jon McGovern to the 42-man roster.
Rule 5 time. Even though we had 8 spots open on 42-man these were the only two I didn't want to lose. Jackson is an excellent defensive 2B/SS who can also play a good LF (his bat is a bit iffy though) and I've already mentioned McGovern as a potential platoon partner for Chris Kidd in CF. With all the openings we could grab someone in Rule 5 for a change.
December 22: Lost P Josh Callahan to Indianapolis, 2B Edwin Maldonado to Pittsburgh, RF Ramon Aponte to Milwaukee and LF Joel Wagner to San Diego in the Rule 5 Draft.
An incredibly active Rule 5 Draft with 26 players in total taken with 2049 expansion team Indianapolis grabbing 6. Our losses will open up a bunch of slots at Durham but not really set us back. Callahan is a 34-year-old starter with 40 stuff who was decent with the Bulls but not in our plans; Maldonado is a 36-year-old middle IF who's injured; Aponte has a torn PCL although it should be healed by spring training, he had a couple of fine seasons at AA Montgomery in 2048 and 2049 but got hurt last year and also wasn't in our plans. Wagner was the one I'd probably have preferred not to lose but at best he was a 4th OF with decent speed and contact ability but a marginal fielder who can't really play center. Also Chris O'Brien was left unprotected by St. Louis and was selected by Oklahoma City.
I didn't see anyone worth selecting as the best-rated players were only 2.5 stars with 3-star potential.
December 23: Lefty reliever Jon Cunningham, who had languished in our high minors for a few years after we acquired him from Oakland in 2044 before getting hurt and losing some stuff, somehow finagled a 2/7 deal with the Dodgers. He's rated 60/45/45 so nothing terribly exciting.
December 28: Swingman Angel Roig, who pitched decently for us out of the pen but flopped in the rotation last year, signed a 1/940K deal with the Rockies, and the clubhouse sent me a message they were glad to see him gone.