[dgally]

All stories have a beginning but our story begins two years after the Major Baseball League' inaugural 2024 season. In the inaugural season, Montreal was a division winner and World Series loser. A better 2025 squad saw them ride into the postseason once again, and, even with two of the starting SP's on the IL the majority of the season, Montreal lifted the crown. Why am I doing this now? I wanted some history first. And I've the last time I did an AAR, it was for EU4 back in 2013. That's neither here nor there. And before we continue, a break for more background of the technical variety.

The league is a fictional reflection of the 2024 MLB: 30 teams, 5 levels of minors + INT. Oh, we're in Challenge Mode by the way.

Overall + Potentials are on, 1-20, scouting on normal. As with Challenge Mode, most everything is on default and reflective on the MLB. One thing to note (mostly because I forgot is that the DH is only in one league).

No house rules initially on trading. I'm terrible at it to begin with and will need to deal much more than I usually do with this moneyball approach. I will alter this if need be.

Montreal going into the serpentine fantasy had pick 25. (And therefore had the same in the first rookie draft). After the draft, I learned that Montreal would be playing moneyball as each year we've stayed 29th on the budget list. Surprise.

Back to the Montreal Lynx, the orange and black, colloquially known by fans as the tabbies.
Coming into the 2026 season, the starting lineup remains mostly unchanged. We're led by reigning MVP Kyle Crecelius, our 24 year old SS with 15/11/9 rating (our #10 in FA draft.) It'll be a tall ask I think for a repeat. The other big bats are 1B Mike Bryan, our #1 pick in the inaugural FA draft and 2B Tom English, the #11 top positional player in the league,(our #13 in FA draft.)

Our SP looks strong, especially if knuckleballer Pablo Velez, our #2 pick in the initial FA draft can stay healthy. He's started only 33 games in the two seasons and holds our biggest contract at 25m/yr. Your manager has a soft spot for knucklers. Still, our ace is reigning Cy Young winner, 24 year old, Eric Davis (our #7 in FA draft.) Eric is the #3 pitcher in the league and Pablo takes the #17 spot.

Our BP is our weakest point. We lost our top tier closer and setup man to FA and in the two seasons the BP has been a rotating door and a source of a trade or two. It could easily be the same again.

Our farm ranks #12, headed by FA draft prospect Matt Gross at #4 However, the pipeline is calling for 2029 to be a big call up year. That's still a ways off. And we'll have big holes coming up 2 years sooner. See below.

Our contracts. Mike Bryan is in a contract year. Depending on how things shake down we may deal him at the deadline rather than take a supp pick. Last year, we brought in #2 SP Igme Tavares in exchange for our talented RF McCool. Speaking of, our current RF, eagle eye Harley Newman is in a contract year and again, we are unlikely to sign. CF Carlos Bonilla (our #6 in FA draft.) is also on a contract year but with English, Crecelius, and Davis running out of arb control, we want to save money to lock them in. Though our top prospects on the hitting side of things are a 2B and SS. Decisions will have to be made.

Our #5 SP (when Velez is healthy), Figueroa (who missed all of last seasons himself) is on a contract that's starting to skyrocket. With Velez out for 5 weeks, we need him but we'd really like to offload him before deadline day.

It should be an interesting year. BNN predicts us at 85-77 with our Canadian division rivals Ottawa & Mississauga at 87-75 and 86-76 respectively. The right deal or the wrong injury could prove fatal for any team.

There seems to be a glut of speed in the league as BNN predicts Ottawa to steal nearly 350 bags.

Of note, our Lynx have an unusual stadium. See below.

My plan is to do monthly in-game updates every few IRL days. The first month of the season will show up tomorrow. I have a bit of travel coming up so that'll alter plans somewhat but only for 5ish days.