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Art Deco · 03-27-2025, 07:07 AM

As always we start off with the in memoriam section, noting those who have hung up the cleats after the season.

Notables: MacKenzie Gore, Andrew Vaughn (350 HR), Riley Greene, Gavin Lux, Jarred Kelenic, Gunnar Henderson.

Former Rays: Raimfer Salinas (469 homers, 29 in his lone season in Tampa Bay), Shane Baz, Vidal Brujan, Isaac Paredes, Kelly Crumpton, Joshua Baez.

Now onto business. I hinted at several trade candidates in the State of the Team post above, and they turned out to be more than hints as we moved several big names who were key pieces of the squad over the last several years.

We start with the biggest of the lot:

Farewell to Luis Berumen, who once looked like the second coming of Miguel Cabrera only to crater this past season but who's still rated 75 contact and 70 power so should rebound in Chicago. Fortunately despite coming off a replacement-level season (0.2 WAR) Berumen still commanded quite a bit on the trade market and we filled one of our rotation holes with quite an addition in the 26-year-old lefty Cedillo. He was 12-1, 2.22 in 24 starts with the Cubs last year after leading the NL in ERA at 2.65 the year before and has earned 9.5 WAR combined in 2037 and 2038. And he'll come in about $8 million cheaper than Berumen as he hits his first year of arbitration. We also picked up a future bullpen piece in Baylor, who has 65 current stuff with potential for 70 and just needs to get his control up from its current 35 to the potential 45 to be MLB-ready. The fan interest "almost crashed" as it will again with the next deal:

Berumen and Charlton were the 3-4 hitters in the lineup the last several years and while Charlton didn't fall hard like Berumen last season, he was down just below 3 WAR and was ready to command $18M in arbitration while we had a parade of 1B/LF/DH types to replace the two. I was hoping to grab another quality starter for Charlton but in the end the best deal I could get was for another first-sacker in Lopez, the #75 prospect in baseball. He made his debut with San Diego and raked (317/381/653 with 9 HR in 101 AB) and rates out 60 across the board with 65 potential. He's also a RH hitter which will help us with lineup balance should he win the job.

The next one:

Ironically it was Rivas, another long-time Ray but a backup the last couple years, who brought us a starter in Blake. Rivas has given us speed and good hitting against LHP but with the emergence of Danny Rodriguez really had no shot at regular playing time anymore. With several OF types in the system, there was no point in paying him $4M to ride the pine so we shopped him and made this deal. Blake is a back-end rotation guy, but solid at 50/65/60 and went 12-8, 3.63 and earned 2.3 WAR splitting the season between Arizona and New York. He'll earn $3.2M next season and we now have 2 rotation spots filled.

However, we did create another rotation hole with this deal which came as a shock even to me:

Anyone following knows the Joe Marlette story this year, and after he exercised his player option at $29M (to no one's surprise) I figured we were kind of stuck with him and hoping he'd do OK as the 5th starter. Nevertheless I gave shopping him the ol' college try and by retaining 40% I found a taker in Houston. This is either great news for us as we save $17M we can spend on the bullpen and/or another starter and saddle the Astros with a rapidly depreciating asset, or our current rivals for AL supremacy somehow manage to work wonders with him and squeeze out a good season from him and he beats us in the ALCS. This deal was a salary dump and Trejo is a pending free agent, so ignore the return.

Phew! So where does all the wheeling and dealing leave us? With an approximate $113M payroll, down $37M from when we started and giving us up to $55M to play with to fill a rotation hole or two and build the business end of the bullpen.

Speaking of the bullpen:

November 9: Signed RP Jamie Arnold to a 2-year, $3M extension and RP Chad Montgomery to a 2-year, $2.4M extension.

These aren't big moves but both pitched well for us in middle relief and are welcomed back with open arms. Along with fellow MRs Battle and Coggin, we at least that part of the bullpen in decent shape; now we need to find the 7th-9th inning guys. These deals are included in the $113M payroll I just mentioned.

November 10: We found a starter, and we didn't have to look far:

Signed SP Chris Ericson to a 2-year, $13M extension.

We're getting the band back together (kinda) as Ericson will give us another rotation arm after pitching quite well in his return last season. He's a 40-stamina guy so we'll have to squeeze 5 innings but they should be good innings. So now the rotation looks like Morales-Gutierrez-Cedillo-Ericson-Blake which should be pretty good and we can turn our attention to the bullpen. I still wouldn't rule out getting another starter if we can find a #2 or #3 somehow but this crew will do. That could be Gabe Bryant if he accepts our qualifying offer but I'm not expecting him to.

Awards Season:

Gold Glove: Danny Rivera didn't hit for us last year (205/306/412) after coming over from Seattle but he continued to play a fine RF and won for the third consecutive year. Former Rays star OF Orlando Tosado made the transition to 1B with the Mets and took home the gold there as well.

Reliever of the Year: The former Ray beat out the current (and probably soon to be also former) Ray as Houston's Jadon Smith got the nod over our Tony Alicea 26-6 and 148-106 for the AL award. Smith, who had his issues last year with us (3.82 ERA) bounced back to save 53 games with a 1.92 ERA for the AL champion Astros. The Mets' Brad Jones was a unanimous NL winner thanks to a 39-save, 1.68 ERA season.

Silver Slugger: We took home a trio of them as SS Jeremy Begley, LF Tony Fisher and CF Danny Rodriguez were all honored. We'll see if their names are called again for more.

Rookie of the Year: As if there were any doubt:

D-Rod had an incredible first year earning 6.4 WAR and I look forward to seeing what he does for an encore. In the NL the winner was also unanimous as St. Louis LF Jared Brown had a fine .302-24-99, 3.6-WAR season.

Cy Young: It was a threepeat for Baltimore's Joe White, who took home the hardware again after a 12-11, 3.20 season with an incredible 353 whiffs in 208 IP, good for 6.4 WAR. It was somewhat close though as he beat out Cleveland's Wayne Weir, who might have had a better year at 16-10, 3.41 with 282 Ks and 7.3 WAR. White bested him 17-8 in first-place votes and 172-134 in points. Our Danny Morales finished fourth. In the NL the Mets' Juan Ramires went 16-8, 2.53 with 233 whiffs and 5.0 WAR to take a comfortable win with 28 first-place votes.

MVP: Our Jeremy Begley was a bridesmaid once again (he finished 2nd last year and 3rd in 2036), this time losing out to San Antonio slugger Darius Williams, who did have a monster year at the plate, leading the AL in runs, hits, RBI, AVG, OBP, SLG (and of course OPS) after hitting 350/420/689 with 46 HR, 144 RBI and also leading the league in WAR at 8.9 to Begley's 8.0. Williams took 29 first-place votes and Begley the other three (including mine). And who else could it be in the NL but Melvin Archundia, who tied Barry Bonds' single-season homer record of 73 while knocking in 167 and batting .333. He earned an MLB-best 9.0 WAR and was a unanimous winner. The scary thing is that he's only 23 and this was his 2nd MLB season.

November 27: We lost one and tied one in arbitration as Danny Morales (in his final arb year) and Tony Fisher (in his first) both wanted long-term contracts instead of 1-year deals. Morales was awarded a whopping $20.6M instead of the $19M we offered while Fisher demanded the same $5.7M we ended up offering so we're calling it a draw. Unsurprisingly Gabe Bryant rejected our qualifying offer and became a free agent, so we'll earn a compensatory 1st-round pick when he signs elsewhere.

November 29: Free agents have filed and ironically the top 3 relief options are all former Rays closers - the aforementioned Jadon Smith as well as Eric Lewis and Tony Alicea who were in our pen this past season. They want $16-18M/year but if the market softens a bit on whoever the odd man out is we could see a reunion as I have $46M to spend at the moment. I was hoping for a top Asian reliever to come over as a free agent and not cost as much but this year's crop of professional IFAs was weak.

December 5: Traded for a back-end bullpen guy:

The veteran Washington is coming off a down year (6 saves, 4.86 ERA) but still is rated 75/50/65 and had 32 saves with a 2.17 ERA in 2037 so he's a worthy gamble. The cost wasn't too high either as the Nats will eat just over half of his salary so he'll only cost $4.2M while Gotay is a decent but not spectacular prospect at a position we're a mile deep in.

December 6: Gabe Bryant signed a 3/57 deal with Milwaukee. As good as he'd been for us this might have been pushing it considering he's 35. And since it came in a bit lower than expected we're getting a compensatory 2nd round pick, not a 1st-rounder.

December 15: We have our closer:

Kelly saved 33 games for the Rockies last year and although his ERA was bloated at 4.87 it was due to playing at Coors and suffering a .363 BABIP against - it was still good for 2.1 WAR, an excellent total for a reliever. He's rated 60/70/65 and fanned 81 in 68 IP

December 20: Added IF Jim Vroom and P Omar Sears to the 40-man roster.

These were the two guys I wanted to protect from Rule 5 as Sears will likely have a bullpen role with the big club this year after saving 35 games between Montgomery and Durham, having come over last winter in the deal with Seattle that also brought us Danny Rivera and Ines Monts. Vroom was our #1 pick in 2034 and still has 60/55 contact/power potential with the ability to play 2B, SS, 3B and LF. We do have a 40-man spot open in case anyone catches our eye in the draft.

December 21: Selected P Sebastien Burns from Minnesota in the Rule 5 Draft; lost OF Rocky Corniell to Memphis and P Jordan Rodriguez to Cleveland.

You win some, you lose some. Burns is a 26-year-old righty with good stuff (65) and decent movement and control (50) as reliever and also has the capability to be a 45-stamina starter so he could make a useful swingman. Corniell had a couple of cups of coffee with us in recent seasons and should make a decent 4th OF for Memphis as he can defend in the corners and hit some, but was well down our depth chart. The same goes for Rodriguez, who almost made a few cameos but whom we viewed more as AAA depth.

December 25: In the OOTP world they work on Christmas Day, and the Dodgers signed our free agent reliever Stan LeVea to a 3/25 deal.

December 29: The Nationals seem set to recreate our 2037 bullpen as they signed closers Jadon Smith (3/35) and Tony Alicea (3/33), so no reunion with those guys on our end.

December 30: And another member of our 2037 (and 2038) bullpen has found a new home as lefty Branden Gammage goes to division rival New York for 3/21.

03-27-2025, 07:07 AM	#1515
Art Deco Hall Of Famer Join Date: May 2020 Posts: 7,121	2038-39 Offseason: Part 1 As always we start off with the in memoriam section, noting those who have hung up the cleats after the season. Notables: MacKenzie Gore, Andrew Vaughn (350 HR), Riley Greene, Gavin Lux, Jarred Kelenic, Gunnar Henderson. Former Rays: Raimfer Salinas (469 homers, 29 in his lone season in Tampa Bay), Shane Baz, Vidal Brujan, Isaac Paredes, Kelly Crumpton, Joshua Baez. Now onto business. I hinted at several trade candidates in the State of the Team post above, and they turned out to be more than hints as we moved several big names who were key pieces of the squad over the last several years. We start with the biggest of the lot: Farewell to Luis Berumen, who once looked like the second coming of Miguel Cabrera only to crater this past season but who's still rated 75 contact and 70 power so should rebound in Chicago. Fortunately despite coming off a replacement-level season (0.2 WAR) Berumen still commanded quite a bit on the trade market and we filled one of our rotation holes with quite an addition in the 26-year-old lefty Cedillo. He was 12-1, 2.22 in 24 starts with the Cubs last year after leading the NL in ERA at 2.65 the year before and has earned 9.5 WAR combined in 2037 and 2038. And he'll come in about $8 million cheaper than Berumen as he hits his first year of arbitration. We also picked up a future bullpen piece in Baylor, who has 65 current stuff with potential for 70 and just needs to get his control up from its current 35 to the potential 45 to be MLB-ready. The fan interest "almost crashed" as it will again with the next deal: Berumen and Charlton were the 3-4 hitters in the lineup the last several years and while Charlton didn't fall hard like Berumen last season, he was down just below 3 WAR and was ready to command $18M in arbitration while we had a parade of 1B/LF/DH types to replace the two. I was hoping to grab another quality starter for Charlton but in the end the best deal I could get was for another first-sacker in Lopez, the #75 prospect in baseball. He made his debut with San Diego and raked (317/381/653 with 9 HR in 101 AB) and rates out 60 across the board with 65 potential. He's also a RH hitter which will help us with lineup balance should he win the job. The next one: Ironically it was Rivas, another long-time Ray but a backup the last couple years, who brought us a starter in Blake. Rivas has given us speed and good hitting against LHP but with the emergence of Danny Rodriguez really had no shot at regular playing time anymore. With several OF types in the system, there was no point in paying him $4M to ride the pine so we shopped him and made this deal. Blake is a back-end rotation guy, but solid at 50/65/60 and went 12-8, 3.63 and earned 2.3 WAR splitting the season between Arizona and New York. He'll earn $3.2M next season and we now have 2 rotation spots filled. However, we did create another rotation hole with this deal which came as a shock even to me: Anyone following knows the Joe Marlette story this year, and after he exercised his player option at $29M (to no one's surprise) I figured we were kind of stuck with him and hoping he'd do OK as the 5th starter. Nevertheless I gave shopping him the ol' college try and by retaining 40% I found a taker in Houston. This is either great news for us as we save $17M we can spend on the bullpen and/or another starter and saddle the Astros with a rapidly depreciating asset, or our current rivals for AL supremacy somehow manage to work wonders with him and squeeze out a good season from him and he beats us in the ALCS. This deal was a salary dump and Trejo is a pending free agent, so ignore the return. Phew! So where does all the wheeling and dealing leave us? With an approximate $113M payroll, down $37M from when we started and giving us up to $55M to play with to fill a rotation hole or two and build the business end of the bullpen. Speaking of the bullpen: November 9: Signed RP Jamie Arnold to a 2-year, $3M extension and RP Chad Montgomery to a 2-year, $2.4M extension. These aren't big moves but both pitched well for us in middle relief and are welcomed back with open arms. Along with fellow MRs Battle and Coggin, we at least that part of the bullpen in decent shape; now we need to find the 7th-9th inning guys. These deals are included in the $113M payroll I just mentioned. November 10: We found a starter, and we didn't have to look far: Signed SP Chris Ericson to a 2-year, $13M extension. We're getting the band back together (kinda) as Ericson will give us another rotation arm after pitching quite well in his return last season. He's a 40-stamina guy so we'll have to squeeze 5 innings but they should be good innings. So now the rotation looks like Morales-Gutierrez-Cedillo-Ericson-Blake which should be pretty good and we can turn our attention to the bullpen. I still wouldn't rule out getting another starter if we can find a #2 or #3 somehow but this crew will do. That could be Gabe Bryant if he accepts our qualifying offer but I'm not expecting him to. Awards Season: Gold Glove: Danny Rivera didn't hit for us last year (205/306/412) after coming over from Seattle but he continued to play a fine RF and won for the third consecutive year. Former Rays star OF Orlando Tosado made the transition to 1B with the Mets and took home the gold there as well. Reliever of the Year: The former Ray beat out the current (and probably soon to be also former) Ray as Houston's Jadon Smith got the nod over our Tony Alicea 26-6 and 148-106 for the AL award. Smith, who had his issues last year with us (3.82 ERA) bounced back to save 53 games with a 1.92 ERA for the AL champion Astros. The Mets' Brad Jones was a unanimous NL winner thanks to a 39-save, 1.68 ERA season. Silver Slugger: We took home a trio of them as SS Jeremy Begley, LF Tony Fisher and CF Danny Rodriguez were all honored. We'll see if their names are called again for more. Rookie of the Year: As if there were any doubt: D-Rod had an incredible first year earning 6.4 WAR and I look forward to seeing what he does for an encore. In the NL the winner was also unanimous as St. Louis LF Jared Brown had a fine .302-24-99, 3.6-WAR season. Cy Young: It was a threepeat for Baltimore's Joe White, who took home the hardware again after a 12-11, 3.20 season with an incredible 353 whiffs in 208 IP, good for 6.4 WAR. It was somewhat close though as he beat out Cleveland's Wayne Weir, who might have had a better year at 16-10, 3.41 with 282 Ks and 7.3 WAR. White bested him 17-8 in first-place votes and 172-134 in points. Our Danny Morales finished fourth. In the NL the Mets' Juan Ramires went 16-8, 2.53 with 233 whiffs and 5.0 WAR to take a comfortable win with 28 first-place votes. MVP: Our Jeremy Begley was a bridesmaid once again (he finished 2nd last year and 3rd in 2036), this time losing out to San Antonio slugger Darius Williams, who did have a monster year at the plate, leading the AL in runs, hits, RBI, AVG, OBP, SLG (and of course OPS) after hitting 350/420/689 with 46 HR, 144 RBI and also leading the league in WAR at 8.9 to Begley's 8.0. Williams took 29 first-place votes and Begley the other three (including mine). And who else could it be in the NL but Melvin Archundia, who tied Barry Bonds' single-season homer record of 73 while knocking in 167 and batting .333. He earned an MLB-best 9.0 WAR and was a unanimous winner. The scary thing is that he's only 23 and this was his 2nd MLB season. November 27: We lost one and tied one in arbitration as Danny Morales (in his final arb year) and Tony Fisher (in his first) both wanted long-term contracts instead of 1-year deals. Morales was awarded a whopping $20.6M instead of the $19M we offered while Fisher demanded the same $5.7M we ended up offering so we're calling it a draw. Unsurprisingly Gabe Bryant rejected our qualifying offer and became a free agent, so we'll earn a compensatory 1st-round pick when he signs elsewhere. November 29: Free agents have filed and ironically the top 3 relief options are all former Rays closers - the aforementioned Jadon Smith as well as Eric Lewis and Tony Alicea who were in our pen this past season. They want $16-18M/year but if the market softens a bit on whoever the odd man out is we could see a reunion as I have $46M to spend at the moment. I was hoping for a top Asian reliever to come over as a free agent and not cost as much but this year's crop of professional IFAs was weak. December 5: Traded for a back-end bullpen guy: The veteran Washington is coming off a down year (6 saves, 4.86 ERA) but still is rated 75/50/65 and had 32 saves with a 2.17 ERA in 2037 so he's a worthy gamble. The cost wasn't too high either as the Nats will eat just over half of his salary so he'll only cost $4.2M while Gotay is a decent but not spectacular prospect at a position we're a mile deep in. December 6: Gabe Bryant signed a 3/57 deal with Milwaukee. As good as he'd been for us this might have been pushing it considering he's 35. And since it came in a bit lower than expected we're getting a compensatory 2nd round pick, not a 1st-rounder. December 15: We have our closer: Kelly saved 33 games for the Rockies last year and although his ERA was bloated at 4.87 it was due to playing at Coors and suffering a .363 BABIP against - it was still good for 2.1 WAR, an excellent total for a reliever. He's rated 60/70/65 and fanned 81 in 68 IP December 20: Added IF Jim Vroom and P Omar Sears to the 40-man roster. These were the two guys I wanted to protect from Rule 5 as Sears will likely have a bullpen role with the big club this year after saving 35 games between Montgomery and Durham, having come over last winter in the deal with Seattle that also brought us Danny Rivera and Ines Monts. Vroom was our #1 pick in 2034 and still has 60/55 contact/power potential with the ability to play 2B, SS, 3B and LF. We do have a 40-man spot open in case anyone catches our eye in the draft. December 21: Selected P Sebastien Burns from Minnesota in the Rule 5 Draft; lost OF Rocky Corniell to Memphis and P Jordan Rodriguez to Cleveland. You win some, you lose some. Burns is a 26-year-old righty with good stuff (65) and decent movement and control (50) as reliever and also has the capability to be a 45-stamina starter so he could make a useful swingman. Corniell had a couple of cups of coffee with us in recent seasons and should make a decent 4th OF for Memphis as he can defend in the corners and hit some, but was well down our depth chart. The same goes for Rodriguez, who almost made a few cameos but whom we viewed more as AAA depth. December 25: In the OOTP world they work on Christmas Day, and the Dodgers signed our free agent reliever Stan LeVea to a 3/25 deal. December 29: The Nationals seem set to recreate our 2037 bullpen as they signed closers Jadon Smith (3/35) and Tony Alicea (3/33), so no reunion with those guys on our end. December 30: And another member of our 2037 (and 2038) bullpen has found a new home as lefty Branden Gammage goes to division rival New York for 3/21.