It takes a village (OOTP)
 

BACKGROUND

The Toronto Osprey won the 1981 league title, before enduring a long drought of twenty years before making it back to the playoffs and losing in the LCS.

In 2002, the team's owner ran into hard times and the ballclub was falling short on payroll. This sad chapter in the franchise's history led to the team being put up for sale. The league office had to acquire the team and prop them up in the hopes that an owner would acquire them.

The league in question is the Front Office Offseason League, an online league hosted here by FOFC. The team is now part of a pilot project to let an entire community of posters determine the future of the ballclub.

YOUR TASK, SHOULD YOU CHOOSE TO ACCEPT IT

You will be able to call the shots.

The league office believes moving the team is the best way to ensure that the team can be primed for a seller, given its current stadium is in receivership and hasn't been renovated in 25 years.

You can post about anything you want. Trades, free agents, lineups or anything else. This is now your team.

Your goal? A shot at Sunday. The season schedule is like this:

Here's the league schedule:


WHAT'S NEXT?

Well, it's the offseason now. (It is, after all, an off-season league) and so, the team probably needs some free agent help. We also need to figure out where the team is moving to, as the season quickly approaches.

Owners from the league might come here and offer up trades. Or we can make them to them from here, if we discover a player we like.

The trade deadline is the same as the final export deadline, Friday night at 10pm eastern.

Ok, let's get caught up on who these yahoos are.

Last season was 2002. We finished 71-91, 5th out of the six teams in the Continental League. The CL is a no-DH league, while the Republic League (its counterpart) is a DH league. There is no interleague play. The two teams play a best-of-seven game LCS with the winners meeting a best-of-nine game playoff called the FOOL Classic each season. The playoffs are also a one-shot deal (simmed at one time) on Sunday nights.

Anyway, here are the batting and pitching stats from last year:

BATTING STATS

PITCHING STATS

Here's the team payroll situation going into next year. Salary is $65 million.

THE GOOD NEWS
1. We've got two studly top of the rotation hurlers. (Downey & Spellacy)

THE BAD NEWS
1. It's been a hitter league the past decade plus or so.
2. They are very, very expensive hurlers.
3. Ratings inflation makes the ratings look "amazing" but really, it's just the wonkiness of the league more than anything else. Adds to the degree of difficulty and why stats matter more than ratings in this league.

It'll be probably near impossible to trade those two guys, so it seems like it might be better to trade to improve the team as much as we can and see where it all lies. We happen to have the best farm system in the league and every team seems to need to move somebody and so, if we're creative, it should be possible to flesh the team out some and get them competitive pronto.

After all, we're just two years removed from the best record in the league and a playoff appearance.

As for moving the team, the finalists would be:

Montreal Maroons
St. Petersburg Pelicans
Memphis Hound Dogs
Little Rock Nine

Colorado is looking to deal some middle infielders and Valdosta has been talking about trading outfielders. I say that trying to pick off those parts that they might be willing to deal, would be a good step in the right direction.

Who specifically, we'd need to look at more closely.

I'd say move to Montreal and I'd say the infield is a bigger concern than the outfield.

Montreal Maroons?


OR

Montreal Marshals?


I'll build an entire uniform and color scheme around it, just trying to figure out which is better.

I like the name Maroons better, but I like the Marshals logo a heck of a lot more... though if there was a way to add color to the Marshals logo I think it'd be better still, but that's just me. :)

You and I are on the same page. Love the Marshals logo, like the Maroons name.

Gonna see if I can clean it up somehow...

I put in an inquiry to Colorado to see if they're interested in making a deal, so we should hear from him eventually.

In other news, the free agency list isn't organized very well, but tonight is the 2nd night (pretty much the last major night) of FA.

Kelvin Morse is an intriguing guy, but might be big ticket. Don't even know what he's asking for yet. I can confirm that when I get home.


Here are the top salaries


I think dealing for potential pitchers were the market to shake some out, could be an interesting move...blowing it up just isn't an option with those two big contracts we're saddled with, so trying to salvage the deal and see if we can get into contention -- last season wasn't terrible -- would be good.

Based on last year's team stats, Toronto was basically the best hitting team in the CL. They just couldn't pitch and so maybe, shoring up the bullpen cheaply and then trying to slug towards a pennant might be the better way to go.

What say you all?

I don't even think they have "Marshals" in Canada.

Royal Canadian Mounted Police - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Mounties would probably be more appropriate, I even like the name "Dragoons"

Cap: 082163

Jersey/Stripes: a50018

Accent: ecad3b

(just so when i get home and i'm not in front of photoshop, i have the colors.)

Field Marshal - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Dragoons, eh? Now that's an interesting name...

I guess it doesn't matter what they're called. I made a road jeresy and an "M" cap, so it's all good.

Player Report for #28 Pablo Rivera

Player Report for #18 Juan Morales

Player Report for #24 Mark Hensley

Player Report for #62 Pedro Álvarez

Player Report for #71 Tim Duhon

Player Report for #21 Joe 'Mustache' Stanton

Player Report for #22 Aaron 'Casino' Powell

Thats 2 front line 2Bs, a starting SS, a star 3B, a star-in-the-making C and two starting caliber Cs. None of them are making much money at all, nothing over 1 mil. I'd perfer to hang onto Joe Stanton of the two 2Bs, but he can be dealt.

Sorry to not make myself clear. I'm the Rancheros' owner, and I'm just putting my guys that are currently deal-able out there.

I don't think we need the 3B though, based on what I see of Jerry Manning's stats above, unless I'm missing something.

Here's who we've got in FA today. The AI made that catcher signing, I don't make signings unless you all tell me what we need, just FYI.

Friday, January 17th, 2003
Toronto Osprey: Signed free agent 1B M. Muñóz to a 2-year contract worth a total of $6,530,000.
Monday, January 13th, 2003
Toronto Osprey: Signed free agent C J. Rosas to a 3-year contract worth a total of $31,117,500.

The Maroons are swapped in-game. Once the HTML is uploaded, you can see what the unis look like. I'm not sold on it, but you know, Rome wasn't built in a day.

Here is our new starting catcher.

He's expensive, but beastly.



And our new first baseman. and he's not really new at all, he's just a re-sign.

If you want to take a look at the league file, you can download the .dat files here. Save them in a FOOL.lg folder in your saved_games in OOTP. After that, you could access in-game downloads of the online league files each night just like the other owners in the league do.

There is a login called Montreal Community and has no password.

:eek: Brilliant move by the AI in that catcher signing. That dude is just -filthy-.

dola,

Do you think we can use one of the other catchers as trade bait now because of that?

Oh yeah, totally. I'll post a trade block, but which one do we want to get rid of? Beck or Turner?

They're cheap, so I suspect we might get some bites...

Beck might yield more. He's our #1 prospect

Baseball America Top Prospects

My own gut feeling is to say make them both available and see which one nets you the best offer.

Then when you trade one, pull the other one off the block.

Good to see this thread going. Izulde, I like the participation. Hopefully we can grow the village some. I needs me some competition! ;)

I didn't know you ran Compton! :)

No offers on the prospects, but..nonetheless, the season is tonight and we'll just see how it goes. I really think the team has a chance to be competitive. So many strong young pitchers down on the farm, coupled with the offensive juggernauts we signed and I really like our chances to surprise the masses this year.

I guess we'll find out soon.

Close, but no cigar.

The Maroons pulled it close towards the end of the year and almost snuck into the playoffs, after Napa Valley started to fall back to earth, but it wasn't to be. But they came quite close with a few weeks left in the year to getting into the playoffs. Here is the season thread, that has the standings from each month of the season.

But man, what a first year! How awesome.

FINAL REGULAR SEASON STANDINGS

No cap space for Montreal. In fact, we're about $5 million over the cap.

I say that we trade Gary Downey and his albatross contract to New York, as they're the other community-owned team and I think that it'll be a deal that might put them into contention in that league. No one else would do the deal and they might not either, but..I think it's worth a try.

No word on this, so I think we're just going to take the best offer we can get on any of the three guys at the top of the payroll. It'll basically mean we get screwed on the deal, but I don't know what else to do and short of releasing them and eating the deals completely to get under...

Community teams trade between each other, to alleviate a cap problem.

Montreal trades
SP Gary Downey

to New York for
LF Terry Ellis
SP Clifford Cox
LF George Wilson

The deal gives us back a solid reliever, a good outfield option in Wilson and allows us to keep our core intact basically. Meanwhile, New York gets an ace pitcher and both teams are able to shed just inconsequential players to get under the cap after the deal.

I think it's a legit win-win, but we'll see.

After two months into the season, it seems that I was right.

Both community teams had a foundation to be successful, but apparently, it was more than that. We'll keep monitoring the situation, of course, to see if the unthinkable will happen and one or both make the playoffs.



STANDINGS AS OF JUNE 1, 2004

I'M COMING OUT...I WANT THE WORLD TO KNOW...

SS Adam Bancroft (NVY) is having a career year. He's already tied his entire HR output last year. He's got 16 HRs and 37 RBI and hitting on a .280 clip so far this year. He's on pace for 45 HRs and 103 RBI this year.

GET BEHIND ME BOYS...WE'RE GOING PENNANT HUNTIN'
31-year old hurler Andres Aguilar of Boston has quietly emerged as one of the dominant hurlers in the game. The Beantown southpaw is 8-5 with a 3.06 ERA in 13 starts this year. He's struck out 94 batters -- leading the league right now -- and has walked just 9. His eight wins are also tied with two other players for the league lead (Gonzalez of Valdosta and MacDonald of Atlanta are the other two)

Montreal's Ryan Olson is now leading the league with a 1.49 ERA, he's 6-1 on the year.

Boston's 3B Tomas Santos is hitting well above his head so far, he leads all comers with a .386 on the season, the singles machine only has 6 RBI in 166 ABs.

STANDINGS AS OF JULY 1, 2004

Aguilar of Boston leads FOOL with 12 wins and 141 strikeouts
Aguilera of Colorado leads with 26 HRs
Galvan of Montreal leads with 71 RBI
Olson of Montreal has a 1.76 ERA

Seems the Maroons lead is growing by the day...now this is curious. I didn't really expect after the trade of Downey for the team to be as successful as they've been, to be honest.

It'll be interesting to see how the second half of the season goes.

STANDINGS AS OF AUGUST 1, 2004

As we head down the stretch, things get ever more curious. Baltimore's Ernie Field leads the CL with a .335 batting average. Napa Valley's Adam Bancroft is leading the CL with 25 HRs and Francisco Galvan still leads the CL in RBI with 81 RBI.

Valdosta's Logan Walls and Julio Gonzalez are tied with Atlanta's Marcel MacDonald for the CL lead in wins with 13. Ironically, Atlanta's big time free agent signing Doug Frazier makes the Grape Crushers look smart despite their poor season, because he's 5-10 with a 4.40 ERA on a good team. Seems investing lots of money in the former all-star might not have been what the doctor ordered for anybody, as he gets up there in age.

New York looks like a genius after committing huge dollars in the acquisition of POY candidate Gary Downey who is 13-6 with a 2.33 ERA this year. It's not so much about his record, as much as what adding him to the top of their rotation did for the rest of the ballclub. New York is the best pitching team in the RL and is 2nd in many of the major hitting categories. Colorado leads in most of those areas, but hasn't had the pitching come through, though the team is in the Top 3 in most areas there.

Nate Hammond leads that team with 125 strikeouts on the year.

The battle for the Republic Shield is between Colorado and Boston who hoped to be fighting each other for the regular season title. Over in the CL, hopes are dim barring a hot month by surprise 3rd place team Brooklyn or disappointing 4th place team in Atlanta that they'll be able to overtake one of the two leaders going down the stretch.

But we'll see how it all pans out, as we head towards the end.

All-Star game happens in August.

The roster for the Continental League is:


SP J. González (VAL)
SP R. Olson (MON)
SP M. MacDonald (ATL)
SP L. Walls (VAL)
SP C. Miller (ATL)
SP Z. Lewis (BAL)
CL C. Pollock (VAL)
MR J. Browne (MON)
MR J. Madden (BKN)
CL C. Cantú (ATL)
CL L. Powell (BKN)
MR J. Stevens (VAL)
RF S. Jones (MON)
SS F. Galván (MON)
2B E. Field (BAL)
1B I. Evans (BKN)
CF J. Whitman (VAL)
3B J. Manning (MON)
C J. Rosas (MON)
LF T. Ellis (MON)
C J. Delgado (BKN)
RF D. Knight (BKN)
2B J. Días (VAL)
SS A. Bancroft (NVY)
RF F. Moore (NVY)
SS S. Rouleau (BKN)
LF J. Kong (VAL)
RF H. Nishikawa (BAL)


The roster for the Republic League is:


SP G. Downey (NYC)
SP A. Aguilar (BOS)
SP T. Ibarra (NYC)
SP A. Sánchez (BOS)
SP H. Gilliam (COL)
SP B. Sharpe (NYC)
CL K. Kichida (BOS)
CL J. Hogan (COM)
MR R. Rosas (COL)
CL C. Murdoch (NYC)
MR B. Roach (HAR)
CL C. Lindsey (HAR)
RF T. Valenzuela (NYC)
CF J. Moore (BOS)
2B C. Gagnon (HAR)
LF X. Welsh (COM)
3B G. Castillo (NYC)
1B J. Carrillo (HAR)
C G. Harris (NYC)
SS T. Wilson (COM)
C K. Quinn (COM)
RF E. Buchanan (NYC)
1B A. Árias (COM)
3B T. Santos (BOS)
1B C. Murray (BOS)
LF M. Poole (HAR)
RF E. Cruz (ANN)
RF J. Norman (COM)

STANDINGS AS OF AUGUST 9, 2004

Coming down to the wire and it looks good to believe we'll be playoffing this year, even as the two teams duke it out for position down the stretch.

STANDINGS AS OF SEPTEMBER 1, 2004

Montreal is headed to the playoffs!

FINAL REGULAR SEASON STANDINGS