2245 SEASON
My whole mantra since taking over this team has really been about defense, speed & pitching. Well after the first year, anyway. And because old Veterans Stadium was doing us no favors, that's how we had to play.
It'll be interesting to see what the new stadium plays like starting next year, now that the move is complete. I'd hope it means that lefties don't get killed so hard when they play at home, because the disparity was really affecting our ability to entice free agents because they knew it would tank their numbers.
Corey Arentsen was a former 1st rounder of the Iowa franchise and a few years ago, when I had him near the cusp of the starting rotation, I almost traded him because I didn't think he had the chops to pitch on a contender and I wasn't willing to wait to find out.
With minor league stats in this league mostly useless for predicting future talent and ratings turned off, I just wasn't sure precisely what to expect from him, but man did he surprise me with his performance en route to the Billy Chapel award for best pitcher.
The boldest off-season move I'd made last year was dealing former MVP
Joe Peters IX to New York in a five-player deal, in exchange for
SP Justin Harris and
OF Alex Brown. My logic in this deal was 1) to get out from under the Peters contract and 2) avoid the possibility that he might regressed even further playing in our park and 3) fill positions that could help us.
It worked as well as one could have hoped. Justin Harris went 14-6 with a 3.40 ERA (6.2 WAR) in his walk year, finished 3rd for Pitcher of the Year. OF Alex Brown was also in his walk year, hit .276 with 26 HRs, 76 RBI and a WAR of 1.4.
Together their WAR
almost replaced what Peters did (7.9) in New York, the difference is I don't think he'd have produced that well had he stayed in Philly and we needed a top line starter more than I needed a leadoff hitting gold glove winner who wasn't putting it together at the plate.
As for the post-season, this was the first year in the 12 years of expanded playoffs that division champs were no longer given an automatic bye into the Elimination Series, after Halifax finished with the 2nd best record in the Nationwide League, but were going to be stuck playing in a Wild Card Series (which is now best-of-3, instead of just one game) and in the end, it worked out.
Both LCS featured the Top 4 teams in baseball and the champions -- for the 2nd time in three years, were the Quakers who boasted the best record in the game en route to a franchise record 105 wins.
So to recap, we cut payroll by about $37million and followed up last year's disappointment with more wins and a title.
Hard to argue with.
Like last year, we're going to have to let some heroes go. Before this dynasty, I really wasn't much in the mindset of teams/GMs that have to make such hard decisions about who to let go after a championship run. I tend to like to bring back the same core when it's possible and while we've done that, with this last few years of division titles in Philly, we've had to tinker a lot to keep things intact without blowing things up too dramatically.
Payroll is currently at $101m (but about $15m of that is dead money from trades I made...so it doesn't count) and so we're going to dip into the FA pool and pick up at least one middle of the rotation starter and perhaps an outfielder. The problem is, elite players are going for over $20m and so we kind of have to trudge the secondary market because I'm not inclined to really take on anymore long-term contracts that I can't deal unless it's a core guy.
We're a playoff team as-is, but the team we have now probably wouldn't repeat unless we got really lucky or someone had a breakout season somehow. I don't tend to like to leave these things to change, especially if there's an opportunity to bring someone in who can help AND deprive a potential opponent of said player as well.
We're 8th in payroll, but as a firmly big-market team, I'm enabling some latitude so long as things don't get past $125-$130m I think we're okay. That sounds like a lot, but it'd only get me maybe two really good players if we're lucky and we have holes to fill.
After this run is officially over, I'm going to go back and recap this era because I really did/do like these guys that we have on this team and it's been the most immersive club I've managed in a long while. I'll be sad to see this run end, but I don't know if it'll ever be a true "breakdown" of the club, as much as we'll probably just constantly be retooling while the plane is in the air.
Our minor league system is currently ranked 13th, a big step up from where it used to be, but that's not me managing it. I do make sure to get a prospect or two when I make deals with other teams, but given the inexact science of that, I've been getting guys who are a long ways away from the bigs.
Lastly, our 2242 1st rounder (5th overall) Jaiden Beatty is a Top 20 prospect. He's 22 and I'm not sure I'm willing to fly with him in the lineup, though as a 4th outfielder he's not the worst person to have around, he's young and under team control.
I am strongly considering shipping him off for proven talent if I can find the right deal, as I tend to think outfielders are pretty disposable unless it's someone elite. The beauty (difficulty?) of playing stats only like this, is I have no idea whether he's really good. I assume he is because he's highly rated, but I kind of want to sell high on him as a result.
