Front Office Football Central - View Single Post

Young Drachma · 10-30-2024, 06:10 PM

SEASON LOG #4, MAY 15, 2061

CARDINALS (34-20, 1st in NL Central)

On balance, it worked out how I was hoping it would. I did some lineup reconfiguring and it worked. I moved Spencer Van Doren from leadoff to 3rd in the lineup, he's now batting cleanup but it worked extremely well with Japanese import Monta Matsui (.288/6 HR/25 RBI) having a respectable for MLB season and playing leadoff for us. St. Lucian star Pinwheel Brown is our leading hitter (.335/12 HR/40 RBI) and bats 3rd. First baseman Chase Zuniga leads the NL in RBI (51) and is on track for a 4 WAR season.

Offensively, we're among the Top 5 in the NL outside of HRs including Runs scored, OBP, OPS and WAR. Pitching remains our strength as our starters lead the league in ERA, but our bullpen needs a lot of help, currently 11th in the majors in ERA.

DRAFT NOTES
I stopped to look at the draft. One of the things I did during the recent iterations of this save before I opted for this format was to improve the intake of Latin American players into the game. For whatever reason, I had far fewer Dominicans coming through my league in the last 20 years, so I wanted to rebuild that link, as well as fix the Puerto Rican baseball pipeline, as I have fond memories of that from the 80s.

That said, it initially created a wave of very young talented Dominican players entering the majors all a bit too young and I've had to actually make them a few years older so I don't have a glut of 18 year old super players proliferating my league and turned on an 18 year old age limit to MLB.

Anyway, the Dominican players and Puerto Rican players are all part of the draft, as part of my robust feeders pipeline in-game that stocks enough players for an 80-round draft (I miss that about baseball, too.)

KEY DRAFT PROSPECTS
The Cardinals had the 18th pick, there are some decent college prospects in here but two standouts from the DR are the ones I'm most interested in. Oscar Regalado, a starting pitcher who I think would be a very valuable bullpen arm for us right now. He spent the last 3 years at Texas after not being drafted out of HS. College stats are fickle for pitchers in this league, but he had a 7.7 K/9, 108 ERA+ and 1.54 WHIP.

OF Leuri Ramirez, who was actually the 6th overall pick in 2058 by the Giants, but he failed to sign. He had a great college career winning National Player of the Year in 2059, an All-American selection and .390/.464/.776 slash line with 160 wRC+ this past year at the University of Washington.

DRAFT RESULTS (MOVE #4)
We ended up picking Regalado, it's just not everyday you have someone with 5 pitches ready go and with our bullpen woes right now, I don't really have the luxury of taking a bat that might take a while to adjust to major league pitching.

I was going to use a countermove to keep Ramirez out of the NL, but it seems like for whatever reason, the AI absolutely hates guys who have difficult signability and prefer prospects with lower potential. I think this is a flaw based on the fact that my leagues play with higher than average ratings, and the game doesn't really know what to do with it, but it's still not logical behavior.

Nonetheless, we're past the supplemental round and into the 2nd round and another 16 teams pass on Ramirez, meaning that I'm indeed going to take him. The AI wanted me to take Arizona State OF A.J. Barringer, who hit .470 during his senior year of HS, but didn't make the lineup at ASU.

NEXT STEPS
Drafting used all of my 4th move, so we're down to two moves left this season to get me through a hopeful post-season appearance for the Cards, I hope the offers I made were good enough to get everyone on board, as I won't be able to waste another move trying to make another offer.

Given that Van Doren is playing so much better, I'm less inclined to move him, that contract is a bargain relative to his production, though he'd be worth a haul on the open market. We really need to improve our offense at catcher and middle infield, unless we're just going to double down on defensive options, but all we can really hope to do is look at the market.

I'm going to be simming all the way to the trade deadline or nearby, to see if we can bolster the lineup for a post-season run. We use a ladder style playoff system, and we currently are fighting the New York Mets for the top seed, there's a strong incentive to win as much as possible because 1) rust doesn't exist in OOTP and 2) it means fewer games we have to play to potentially win a World Series.

TOUCANS UPDATE
Still in last place, I haven't checked in on them this move, I'll focus on them in the off-season and I might cut them loose for now, it's a lot easier to manage just one club and the Federal League job is so different and I don't enjoy the context switching. I think at some point I'll add a 2nd club because I like the challenge and the different lens, but I need to get a better handle on this first club before I do that.

I have a separate GM profile for them anyway, so I'll just resign when the season is done.

10-30-2024, 06:10 PM	#4
Young Drachma Dark Cloud Join Date: Apr 2001	SEASON LOG #4, MAY 15, 2061 CARDINALS (34-20, 1st in NL Central) On balance, it worked out how I was hoping it would. I did some lineup reconfiguring and it worked. I moved Spencer Van Doren from leadoff to 3rd in the lineup, he's now batting cleanup but it worked extremely well with Japanese import Monta Matsui (.288/6 HR/25 RBI) having a respectable for MLB season and playing leadoff for us. St. Lucian star Pinwheel Brown is our leading hitter (.335/12 HR/40 RBI) and bats 3rd. First baseman Chase Zuniga leads the NL in RBI (51) and is on track for a 4 WAR season. Offensively, we're among the Top 5 in the NL outside of HRs including Runs scored, OBP, OPS and WAR. Pitching remains our strength as our starters lead the league in ERA, but our bullpen needs a lot of help, currently 11th in the majors in ERA. DRAFT NOTES I stopped to look at the draft. One of the things I did during the recent iterations of this save before I opted for this format was to improve the intake of Latin American players into the game. For whatever reason, I had far fewer Dominicans coming through my league in the last 20 years, so I wanted to rebuild that link, as well as fix the Puerto Rican baseball pipeline, as I have fond memories of that from the 80s. That said, it initially created a wave of very young talented Dominican players entering the majors all a bit too young and I've had to actually make them a few years older so I don't have a glut of 18 year old super players proliferating my league and turned on an 18 year old age limit to MLB. Anyway, the Dominican players and Puerto Rican players are all part of the draft, as part of my robust feeders pipeline in-game that stocks enough players for an 80-round draft (I miss that about baseball, too.) KEY DRAFT PROSPECTS The Cardinals had the 18th pick, there are some decent college prospects in here but two standouts from the DR are the ones I'm most interested in. Oscar Regalado, a starting pitcher who I think would be a very valuable bullpen arm for us right now. He spent the last 3 years at Texas after not being drafted out of HS. College stats are fickle for pitchers in this league, but he had a 7.7 K/9, 108 ERA+ and 1.54 WHIP. OF Leuri Ramirez, who was actually the 6th overall pick in 2058 by the Giants, but he failed to sign. He had a great college career winning National Player of the Year in 2059, an All-American selection and .390/.464/.776 slash line with 160 wRC+ this past year at the University of Washington. DRAFT RESULTS (MOVE #4) We ended up picking Regalado, it's just not everyday you have someone with 5 pitches ready go and with our bullpen woes right now, I don't really have the luxury of taking a bat that might take a while to adjust to major league pitching. I was going to use a countermove to keep Ramirez out of the NL, but it seems like for whatever reason, the AI absolutely hates guys who have difficult signability and prefer prospects with lower potential. I think this is a flaw based on the fact that my leagues play with higher than average ratings, and the game doesn't really know what to do with it, but it's still not logical behavior. Nonetheless, we're past the supplemental round and into the 2nd round and another 16 teams pass on Ramirez, meaning that I'm indeed going to take him. The AI wanted me to take Arizona State OF A.J. Barringer, who hit .470 during his senior year of HS, but didn't make the lineup at ASU. NEXT STEPS Drafting used all of my 4th move, so we're down to two moves left this season to get me through a hopeful post-season appearance for the Cards, I hope the offers I made were good enough to get everyone on board, as I won't be able to waste another move trying to make another offer. Given that Van Doren is playing so much better, I'm less inclined to move him, that contract is a bargain relative to his production, though he'd be worth a haul on the open market. We really need to improve our offense at catcher and middle infield, unless we're just going to double down on defensive options, but all we can really hope to do is look at the market. I'm going to be simming all the way to the trade deadline or nearby, to see if we can bolster the lineup for a post-season run. We use a ladder style playoff system, and we currently are fighting the New York Mets for the top seed, there's a strong incentive to win as much as possible because 1) rust doesn't exist in OOTP and 2) it means fewer games we have to play to potentially win a World Series. TOUCANS UPDATE Still in last place, I haven't checked in on them this move, I'll focus on them in the off-season and I might cut them loose for now, it's a lot easier to manage just one club and the Federal League job is so different and I don't enjoy the context switching. I think at some point I'll add a 2nd club because I like the challenge and the different lens, but I need to get a better handle on this first club before I do that. I have a separate GM profile for them anyway, so I'll just resign when the season is done.