OOTP24: Flags Fly Forever

[JetsIn06]

I've been looking for a challenging way to play this game for two decades. I've bounced between a lot of different ideas, many of them inspired by various members of this community. QuikSand's incredibly written FOF Dynasty Reports, going all the way back to the beginning of my time here, have always inspired me to find more challenging and interesting ways to play these games we love that lose some of their difficulty as they're mastered, but a recent re-read of The Highlander Challenge inspired me to take some recent house rules I've been playing with and document an OOTP career here on FOFC.

I do think I've found something that works for me. My major gripe with OOTP is that I feel like I can get whatever player I want, especially in Free Agency. I can always offer more money (if I have it) and it's pretty rare that I ever have to *stop* bidding. I've implemented a system that uses some dice rolls to help prevent this, both limiting the number of transactions I can make, and limiting the quality of players I can pursue day-in and day-out throughout the offseason.

Without further delay, here's the gist of how I'm playing:

- At the beginning of every offseason, we roll a RNG 2x from 0-3. The first roll is the number of Free Agents we can sign that our scout rates as 45+ Potential (20-80 scale, increments of 5). The second roll is the number of trades we can make until the following offseason. If I roll a 1, and a 2, that's one FA acquisition of substance and two trades I can make for the next 365 days.

- A player acquired on waivers or added in the Rule 5 Draft (who, additionally, must be 26 or older for us to claim/draft) will remove one from my choice of those totals.
- I can trade two-for-one to gain an extra transaction (e.g. If I have 3x free agency adds and 1x trade, I could "trade in" 2x of my free agent adds to gain an extra trade.)

- One transaction from either Free Agent Acquisitions or Trades can be rolled over into the following season, but not both.

- Additionally, Free Agency has its own wrinkles on *when* I can make an offer; I can only make offers to Free Agents on Monday, in-game. Additionally, to make an offer, I roll a RNG from 2-8. If the player is rated as a 60 POT, I need to roll a 6 or higher to make an offer. If the player is rated as a 45 POT, I need to roll a 5 or higher. If they're rate as a 80 POT, I need to roll an 8. If I don't roll the number required, I sim ahead until the following Monday and can try again. But as you can imagine, the good players often get taken while I'm waiting to roll the right number

Some quick Settings notes:

- Scouting is set to low.
- Ratings are 2-8, and we only see potentials. No current ratings (other than defense, speed, etc)
- TCR is set to 125.
- Injuries on High.
- Trading Difficulty is set at 75% to the right and Hard Mode is turned off.
- We're starting in 1912 with no history. Stats, financials, and overall feel of the game is modern despite the year. Uniforms, stadiums, etc are stuck in a 1950's era time loop. Players and teams are all fictional. Modifiers are re-calced every year based on 2012 real-life totals. Such is the beauty of this game.

Finally, I've posted similar recaps from prior careers on Reddit under a different name, so if you frequent r/OOTP, the house rules may look familiar.

Okay, FOFC. Let's do this.

[JetsIn06]

So here's the deal. I was about to pick the worst team and just erase all the history and start from scratch, but instead what I ended up doing was simming from 1880-1912, expanding by two teams (from 12 to 14) and I'll take over one of the new squads. So we'll start from scratch history wise but my team will be shit to begin, which is exactly the way I want it.

Also - I can, and will, get fired in the game. When that happens we'll take a gap year and pick up somewhere new that's interesting/challenging.

For now though, we're heading south and we're taking over the New Orleans Kingfish. We play at Kingfish Field, a 53,000-seat ballpark with a short porch in left field that favors RHB and suppresses lefty power.

As I mentioned, we'll start with 14 teams (7 in the Columbia League, 7 in the Federal League) but definitely will expand over time.

Before we even get to the Expansion Draft, we're asked to invite 10 International Free Agents to camp to learn more. This is a new feature that I think I understand but haven't played with yet, so interested to see how this plays out.

[JetsIn06]

As I mentioned above, we're going through this expansion because I want a shitty team to start with, but once we get to Opening Day 1912 we're erasing all of the history and pretending like this never happened.

Still, I'm approaching this like I would a more typical Expansion Draft. I'd love to start with some younger guys who play up the middle. A pitcher would be great but we may look towards free agency to grab a veteran or two. Bullpen pieces are always easy to find in the draft, but outside of two or three good arms I won't be focusing too heavily there.

And discussing free agents reminds me - we need to roll for our acquisitions.

FA - 1
Trades - 2

Not ideal for a team with 0 players on it. But we have to make it work. I'll amost certainly try to land a SP with the FA spot and probably utilize my ability to swap the 2x trades for an extra FA acquisition.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. The draft. It's now.

We'll end up with 30 players - each team is protecting 20 players with 3+ years of service, and we're allowing five players from each team to be taken in the draft as a whole.

We have the first pick, and there's three players that look to be worthy of my selection:

LF Jon Vos is 23, a god-awful OF but could definitely be a DH, with tremendous contact ability and decent power to go with it. Eye could be plus as well, but no speed, no defensive ability - what's this guy going to look like at 30?

SS Mike Clark is a 55 according to our scout, a relatively light-hitting, glove-first guy, but also 32 years old. Not a great guy to build around, long-term.

Finally, there is a guy listed as a SP. Nelson Martinez, 26, excellent stuff and solid movement but lacking the command I'd like to see. He's under contract for another three years (through 1914) at a very reasonable rate (around $10-12M). I think this is the way to go, and he becomes the first ever New Orleans Kingfish.

I go back-to-back SP with our next pick, adding Juan Garcia, 24. He's a side-arming lefty that may end up in the pen but has four great pitches and elite stuff that'll just get better in the pen. We'll let him have his shot in a starting role to kick things off, and he's under team control for four years.

Wannabe OF Jon Vos is still available, so we take him with the next pick and at the very least have a guy who won't strike out and maybe with some luck could have a .400 OBP someday.

Switch-hitting 2B Paul Bermudez is taken with our fourth selection - he's an all-around solid hitter with very little to write home about re: his defense. He can really never move off 2B, but has some speed and hits the ball in the air.

The last guy I'll mention, our fifth selection is CF Ed Carty. He has great range and is good enough to stay in center, makes a ton of contact but no eye to speak of. With just two years of service time, the 23-year-old Carty will be under team control for another four years.

[JetsIn06]

As I mentioned above, we're going through this expansion because I want a shitty team to start with, but once we get to Opening Day 1912 we're erasing all of the history and pretending like this never happened.

Still, I'm approaching this like I would a more typical Expansion Draft. I'd love to start with some younger guys who play up the middle. A pitcher would be great but we may look towards free agency to grab a veteran or two. Bullpen pieces are always easy to find in the draft, but outside of two or three good arms I won't be focusing too heavily there.

And discussing free agents reminds me - we need to roll for our acquisitions.

FA - 1
Trades - 2

Not ideal for a team with 0 players on it. But we have to make it work. I'll amost certainly try to land a SP with the FA spot and probably utilize my ability to swap the 2x trades for an extra FA acquisition.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. The draft. It's now.

We'll end up with 30 players - each team is protecting 20 players with 3+ years of service, and we're allowing five players from each team to be taken in the draft as a whole.

We have the first pick, and there's three players that look to be worthy of my selection:

LF Jon Vos is 23, a god-awful OF but could definitely be a DH, with tremendous contact ability and decent power to go with it. Eye could be plus as well, but no speed, no defensive ability - what's this guy going to look like at 30?

SS Mike Clark is a 55 according to our scout, a relatively light-hitting, glove-first guy, but also 32 years old. Not a great guy to build around, long-term.

Finally, there is a guy listed as a SP. Nelson Martinez, 26, excellent stuff and solid movement but lacking the command I'd like to see. He's under contract for another three years (through 1914) at a very reasonable rate (around $10-12M). I think this is the way to go, and he becomes the first ever New Orleans Kingfish.

I go back-to-back SP with our next pick, adding Juan Garcia, 24. He's a side-arming lefty that may end up in the pen but has four great pitches and elite stuff that'll just get better in the pen. We'll let him have his shot in a starting role to kick things off, and he's under team control for four years.

OF but really DH Jon Vos is still available, so we take him with the next pick and at the very least have a guy who won't strike out and maybe with some luck could have a .400 OBP someday.

Switch-hitting 2B Paul Bermudez is taken with our fourth selection - he's an all-around solid hitter with very little to write home about re: his defense. He can really never move off 2B, but has some speed and hits the ball in the air.

The last guy I'll mention, our fifth selection is CF Ed Carty. He has great range and is good enough to stay in center, makes a ton of contact but no eye to speak of. With just two years of service time, the 23-year-old Carty will be under team control for another four years.

[Chas in Cinti]

Following..

[JetsIn06]

Originally Posted by Chas in Cinti

Following..

Great to see it. Thanks for following! Another update incoming...

[JetsIn06]

The draft is complete - SS Max Clark, who we mentioned as a potential first pick, was available for a while and we grabbed him. We also did end up with three solid relievers which is somewhat inevitable as they're not typically protected in expansion drafts, but also may not be super helpful to a team that's as bad as we'll likely be.

One thing I didn't mention about Clark - he's due about $19M per year for the next three years. It's a lot - more than I would pay for a guy like this on the open market, probably. But I'll have the room as I don't expect to sign any big ticket free agents and having someone to man the most important spot on the infield will be nice. I also think he, along with the relievers I mentioned, could be trade bait eventually.

A quick look at the squad, pitching first:

	POS	Name	Inf	Age	T	POT	STU P	MOV P	CON P	VELO	STM	G/F	G	GS	IP	BABIP	K%	BB%	SIERA
SP	M. Casas		30	L	40	4	7	5	91-93	4	EX GB	0	0	0.0	.000	0.0	0.0	0.00
SP	J. Davis		26	L	35	4	8	5	90-92	4	EX GB	0	0	0.0	.000	0.0	0.0	0.00
SP	J. Garcia		24	L	45	8	6	4	93-95	4	GB	0	0	0.0	.000	0.0	0.0	0.00
SP	N. Martinez		26	R	60	7	6	4	96-98	5	NEU	0	0	0.0	.000	0.0	0.0	0.00
SP	B. Murphy		36	L	40	4	6	5	91-93	5	EX GB	0	0	0.0	.000	0.0	0.0	0.00
RP	F. Berrios		23	R	45	5	6	5	95-97	4	GB	0	0	0.0	.000	0.0	0.0	0.00
RP	L. Tucker		29	R	60	7	4	5	96-98	6	NEU	0	0	0.0	.000	0.0	0.0	0.00
CL	S. Antill		33	L	65	7	5	6	97-99	5	GB	0	0	0.0	.000	0.0	0.0	0.00

And then the bats:

POS	Name	Inf	Age	B	POT	CON P	POW P	EYE P	C ABI	IF RNG	OF RNG	PA	2B	3B	HR	BB%	SO%	BABIP	wOBA	wRC+	SB	WAR
C	K. Batty	26	R	40	6	6	5	4	3	2	0	0	0	0	0.0	0.0	.000	.000	100	0	0.0
C	R. Kirkham	25	R	40	4	4	5	5	3	2	0	0	0	0	0.0	0.0	.000	.000	100	0	0.0
1B	M. Murillo	26	L	50	5	6	5	2	5	2	0	0	0	0	0.0	0.0	.000	.000	100	0	0.0
2B	C. Ortiz	25	L	50	5	5	5	2	6	5	0	0	0	0	0.0	0.0	.000	.000	100	0	0.0
2B	B. Potratz	29	L	45	5	3	5	2	6	3	0	0	0	0	0.0	0.0	.000	.000	100	0	0.0
3B	R. Rea		26	R	45	4	4	4	2	5	5	0	0	0	0	0.0	0.0	.000	.000	100	0	0.0
3B	E. Saxton	29	R	50	5	5	5	2	4	2	0	0	0	0	0.0	0.0	.000	.000	100	0	0.0
SS	M. Clark	32	R	55	5	4	5	2	7	4	0	0	0	0	0.0	0.0	.000	.000	100	0	0.0
LF	E. Wank		27	R	45	6	3	3	2	4	6	0	0	0	0	0.0	0.0	.000	.000	100	0	0.0
CF	E. Carty	23	S	50	6	4	3	2	4	7	0	0	0	0	0.0	0.0	.000	.000	100	0	0.0
RF	D. Harter	30	R	45	5	5	4	2	2	4	0	0	0	0	0.0	0.0	.000	.000	100	0	0.0

[JetsIn06]

With the draft complete, this is where we wipe the slate clean - no more history, no more stats - we pretend we didn't just do an expansion draft and we're just one of the 14 teams in the Universal Baseball Association.

We do need to fill out our roster. As a reminder, here's our allowance on transactions. Check out the first post for more details.

FA - 1 allowed
Trades - 2 allowed

I do think I'd like to hang on to the trades and not swap them for an extra FA acquisition, as we have a few guys who should have some trade value and we need to start getting some talent in to our system.

Oh - one other house rule I'll mention. Our Scouting and Player Dev budget cannot be more than 2x the league baseline. I find it a little too easy to build dominant minor league systems by just maxing out the Player Dev budget, so we'll limit ourselves a bit there.

As far as FA goes, we have about $25M in budget room. There's a SP out there, 27-year-old Dennis Blauser, a 60-rated southpaw that sits 96-98. He also went to high school in Monmouth County, NJ which is where I grew up, so we've gotta try and make him an offer, right?

Digging in though, he wants a ten-year deal, which is not exactly in my plans at the moment.

SP Jeff Bullock is more my speed. He's 36 and looking for a one-year deal worth $1.7M. Financial flexibility is key right now. He's a 50 Pot, so he'll count against our FA add and we'll also need to roll a 5 or higher to make an offer (again, see first post for details on how we can add players).

We sim to Monday and use random.org to roll a number between 2-8. We need a 5, and get a 5, which means we can make an offer to Bullock. Knowing we will have to re-roll and sim ahead a bit to re-offer if he doesn't accept, we bump up our offer to $2M and he signs a week later.

The new allowance:

FA - 0 allowed
Trades - 2 allowed

I'd like to hang on to at least one of the trade allowances for the deadline, just in case we pull out a miracle and are competitive. But I'm curious if we can shop one of the higher priced guys on our roster like SS Max Clark or one of the relievers. We take a look and there's nothing too interesting offered to us, so we move ahead towards spring training as is, outside of grabbing some 40 Pot and under players in FA and the Rule-5 draft who don't cost against our acquisitions to fill out the roster.

[JetsIn06]

Actually, before we head to the Sunshine State for spring ball, the International FA signing period is now in January, so let's take care of that first.

Similar rules here apply as far as rolling 2-8 to make an offer, but we're not limited to the Monday rule and can make a new offer every day (but only one per day, and only one player per day).

We miss out on the elite international guys, but do land 50-rated Juan Vasquez, a SP out of Venezuela. Not a huge strikeout guy but very high movement and control. 45-rated SP Elder Damsio joins him, along with a handful of lower-rated players. They're 16 years old and will head to our international complex, so there's no immediate impact on our major league club, but this is our first step towards building a successful team.

We sim ahead through spring, going 9-17. This is the worst record in the Federal League, and hopefully not a prelude of what's to come.

[JetsIn06]

Here we go...year one of what will hopefully be many to come in New Orleans. I'm thinking I'll stop at the draft and again around the trade deadline and take a look at where things are standings/stats wise and talk through the decision making.

We get to draft day - but before we try to find the next great Kingfish, let's look at where we're at in the standings:

COLUMBIA LEAGUE

Team	                W	L	PCT	GB	Pyt.Rec	Diff	Home	Away	XInn	1Run	M#	Streak	Last10
Baltimore Atlantics	37	20	.649	-	32-25	5	16-8	21-12	5-3	13-2	100	W2	7-3
Brooklyn Originals	31	26	.544	6	35-22	-4	15-14	16-12	1-6	5-12		L2	5-5
Montreal Canadiens	31	27	.534	6½	33-25	-2	16-10	15-17	3-3	9-8		W1	6-4
Chicago Packers	        29	28	.509	8	33-24	-4	17-10	12-18	4-1	7-13		W4	6-4
Kansas City Monarchs	26	31	.456	11	24-33	2	17-12	9-19	3-7	6-8		L1	4-6
Cleveland Buckeyes	24	33	.421	13	25-32	-1	12-20	12-13	2-3	5-13		L5	4-6
Georgia Peaches	        22	35	.386	15	22-35	0	13-17	9-18	3-1	9-7		L4	2-8

FEDERAL LEAGUE

Team	                W	L	PCT	GB	Pyt.Rec	Diff	Home	Away	XInn	1Run	M#	Streak	Last10
Pittsburgh Arsenal	32	25	.561	-	33-24	-1	13-12	19-13	6-2	11-9	106	W1	5-5
New York Knights	31	25	.554	½	28-28	3	19-8	12-17	3-2	9-8		W1	7-3
St. Louis Lions	        31	26	.544	1	34-23	-3	18-12	13-14	3-3	6-10		W2	5-5
Boston Shamrocks	29	29	.500	3½	27-31	2	17-17	12-12	4-3	15-10		L1	4-6
Washington Wasps	28	30	.483	4½	24-34	4	12-17	16-13	3-3	10-6		L1	7-3
New Orleans Kingfish	26	32	.448	6½	25-33	1	13-18	13-14	3-4	11-7		W1	4-6
Philadelphia Patriots	23	33	.411	8½	24-32	-1	12-15	11-18	3-5	5-8		L1	5-5

Honestly, it's better than I expected. 26-32, 6.5 GB. Don't see any reason to expect us to play much better than this, so barring an amazing June/July I think we'll end up selling. We'll look at some individual stats later...

The Draft

The task at hand is this draft. We are using a lottery system moving forward, but since this is our first year, I've set the league to draft in reverse order of the current standings. That gives us the 5th overall pick and there's quite a few guys worthy of consideration.

POS	Name	        Age	B	T	POT	Prone	CON P	POW P	EYE P	STU P	MOV P	CON P	PIT	STM	DEM	        Sign	SctAcc
3B	S. Bell	        18	R	R	80	Normal	7	6	5	2	2	2	1	2	$9,500,000	Hard	High
RF	J. Galliher	18	L	L	80	Normal	7	7	6	2	2	2	1	2	$9,000,000	Normal	High
CF	J. Skaggs	19	L	L	80	Normal	8	7	5	2	2	2	1	2	$8,500,000	Extremely Hard	Very High
SS	K. Jensen	21	R	R	75	Normal	8	6	5	2	2	2	1	2	$4,600,000	Hard	High
SP	T. Knight	17	S	R	75	Durable	3	3	3	8	5	5	4	6	$8,000,000	Extremely Hard	High
CF	J. Ferland	18	L	R	70	Normal	6	7	6	2	2	2	1	2	$950,000	Hard	Very High
CF	E. Hurd	        18	R	R	70	Normal	7	6	5	2	2	2	1	2	$6,500,000	Extremely Hard	Very High

SS Ken Jensen immediately jumps out at me as he's got the 8 hit tool with 6 power and a decent eye, but he also has great range on defense. He's going to be a 2B or 3B though, so that dings his value a bit for me.

CF Jim Skaggs is a similar case - 8 hit tool, 7 power, but will have to move to a corner OF spot (but to be fair, he'd be a good corner OF - no risk of him needing to be a DH or something).

3B Steve Bell wants the most money and looks good across the board offensively, but the defense is pretty average.

And then there's the pitcher - he's 17 and throws sidearm. Probably too high of a risk of him becoming a reliever. The stuff is lights out and he does have the potential for four great pitches, but the arm slot is going to lead so some big splits against LHP that may not be sustainable in the rotation.

Georgia goes with OF Jeremy Galliher with the first pick, and Philadelphia follows with 1B Wyatt Pratt, who our scout wasn't so high on (55 Pot). That leaves one of those bats for us. Skaggs goes at #3, and Jensen and Bell remain for us.

Jensen hits the ball on the ground a lot. As much as I like his tools, I feel like that may hold him back a bit. We have the money to go with Bell, and the defense will play at the hot corner. He's a high-school bat that will have plenty of time to develop. We take him at #5.

When the second round comes, OF Jim Ferland, a power hitter with very little speed and below-average defense is still available. But we end up going with CF Chris Miller, who may have to move to a corner, but he's got decent speed to go along with a great hit tool and power. Additionally, it looks like he's got a great hard-working personality to go along with the tools.

OF Jim Ferland is still available in the third round, so we trust our scout and go with him here. We finish up the draft, mostly targeting hitting early and pitching late. Here's a rundown of the newest members of the organization:

POS	Name	        Age	Round	Pick	POT	GAP P	POW P	EYE P	STU P	MOV P	CON P	C ABI	IF RNG	OF RNG	DrTm
3B	S. Bell	        18	1	5	80	6	6	5	2	2	2	2	5	3	New Orleans
CF	C. Miller	17	2	5	65	7	6	5	2	2	2	2	5	6	New Orleans
CF	J. Ferland	18	3	5	70	6	7	6	2	2	2	2	4	5	New Orleans
CF	C. Webb	        21	4	5	50	7	4	5	2	2	2	2	4	7	New Orleans
RP	C. Strunk	19	5	5	65	3	3	3	8	4	6	2	2	3	New Orleans
3B	P. Evans	18	6	5	55	4	6	4	2	2	2	2	5	4	New Orleans
CL	D. Rozier	17	7	5	60	3	3	2	6	7	5	2	3	2	New Orleans
SS	O. Carrillo	18	8	5	50	4	5	8	2	2	2	2	5	4	New Orleans
C	J. Martinez	18	9	5	45	4	6	5	2	2	2	5	3	3	New Orleans
C	B. Stanton	22	10	5	45	5	5	5	2	2	2	6	4	3	New Orleans
C	R. Warner	17	11	5	35	3	5	5	2	2	2	6	3	3	New Orleans
SS	J. McDonald	20	12	5	40	4	3	6	2	2	2	2	7	5	New Orleans
2B	E. Estes	18	13	5	45	4	3	4	2	2	2	2	6	4	New Orleans
SP	G. Gaytan	18	14	5	20	3	4	2	4	6	4	2	4	4	New Orleans
SP	M. Randa	18	15	5	20	3	3	2	3	6	7	2	3	5	New Orleans
SP	J. McAree	21	16	5	20	3	3	3	4	3	4	2	3	3	New Orleans
SP	A. Edey	        18	17	5	20	4	3	2	4	2	3	2	3	4	New Orleans
SP	F. Miranda	18	18	5	20	3	3	3	4	3	4	2	4	3	New Orleans
SP	A. Guerra	22	19	5	20	3	4	3	3	3	4	2	3	4	New Orleans
RP	C. Miller	21	20	5	20	3	3	2	5	3	2	2	3	3	New Orleans

We move forward and get to the All-Star break. We won't take long here - we're 35-51, in last place and 14GB of the Pittsburgh Arsenal. As we get closer to the deadline, we start looking at some potential options to unload older guys or players on expiring contracts. We have two allowed trades, but I think we're going to end up using just one for now and roll over the other into next season.

RP Jeff Bullock is 36 - we picked him up with our one allowed FA acquisition. While we grabbed him thinking he'd be a starter, he ended up only making one start but has appeared in 36 games and has been great with a SIERA of 3.16, striking out just under 24% batters faced and walking just 5%.

We send him to the Philadelphia Patriots in return for OF Mario Aragon, the #51 prospect in the league (remember though, there's only 14 teams). He's decent in the OF but could play a corner spot in the infield in a pinch, which is nice. While he's struggling so far over 133 PA in the majors, he's been crushing AAA, slashing .351/.430/.564.

The baseball gods have mercy on us and we finally make it to the end of the year. We finish 68-94, with a -167 run differential. We did finish with the least amount of strikeouts on the offensive side, but also the fewest walks and home runs, by far. Run prevention wasn't terrible, as we finished 2nd in our league in strikeouts, and 1st in Zone Rating. The bullpen really helped us though, as our starters ERA was worst in the league.

POS	Name	         Inf	Age	T	POT	STU P	MOV P	CON P	STM	G/F	G	GS	IP	BABIP	K%	BB%	SIERA
SP	R. Carpenter		28	R	40	5	6	5	5	GB	31	2	171.0	.307	16.4	7.5	4.43
SP	J. Garcia		25	L	45	8	6	4	4	NEU	29	25	137.1	.283	31.7	10.6	2.73
SP	M. Gilbraith		32	R	45	7	3	5	6	NEU	12	12	61.0	.262	29.3	7.4	2.60
SP	N. Martinez		27	R	55	7	6	4	5	NEU	34	34	183.1	.303	23.3	11.3	3.88
SP	T. Prior		33	L	45	4	7	6	6	EX GB	29	29	145.0	.340	11.1	5.7	4.98
RP	S. Antill		34	L	65	6	6	6	5	GB	60	0	67.2	.296	20.0	7.9	3.96
RP	F. Berrios		24	R	50	5	6	5	4	GB	20	0	25.1	.291	17.1	5.7	4.11
RP	M. Casas		31	L	40	4	7	5	3	EX GB	7	0	10.2	.270	10.9	8.7	5.34
RP	E. Dank		        27	R	40	7	4	4	6	NEU	46	7	96.1	.272	24.2	12.9	3.95
RP	J. Davis		27	L	40	4	7	6	4	EX GB	61	0	94.1	.262	12.7	6.8	4.87
RP	L. Gonzalez		25	R	40	5	7	4	4	GB	54	27	72.1	.294	17.2	13.6	5.03
RP	C. Jeon		        31	R	40	5	5	5	5	NEU	39	10	79.1	.328	15.8	8.0	4.59
RP	B. Nelson		29	R	50	5	5	5	7	NEU	34	10	90.0	.285	21.0	6.6	3.68
CL	L. Tucker		30	R	65	7	4	5	6	FB	57	0	72.0	.240	27.0	8.0	2.95

POS	Name	        Inf	Age	B	POT	CON P	POW P	EYE P	C ABI	IF RNG	OF RNG	PA	2B	3B	HR	SB	BB%	SO%	wRC+	WAR
C	K. Batty		27	R	45	5	6	5	4	4	2	215	7	0	7	0	8.4	23.3	93	-0.0
C	T. Spektor		23	R	50	5	5	4	6	3	4	531	19	1	5	0	5.1	11.7	70	0.8
1B	M. Murillo		27	L	45	5	5	5	2	5	2	528	24	0	7	2	5.7	18.9	71	-1.4
2B	J. Alexander		28	R	45	4	3	5	2	5	3	86	4	2	0	1	4.7	20.9	61	-0.1
2B	B. Potratz		30	L	50	4	3	5	2	6	2	555	28	7	3	10	8.3	19.6	82	1.2
3B	M. Cooper		29	S	40	5	4	4	2	5	3	448	17	1	5	0	6.7	17.0	70	0.2
SS	M. Clark		33	R	55	5	4	5	2	7	4	434	23	0	5	1	6.2	18.4	85	1.0
SS	C. Ortiz		25	L	50	5	5	5	2	6	5	564	24	2	15	2	7.3	10.8	85	-0.0
LF	M. Aragon		25	R	55	6	5	5	2	4	6	250	20	2	1	2	2.0	21.6	59	-0.9
LF	A. Bolen		29	S	45	5	4	3	2	2	5	479	26	1	3	2	2.3	14.4	70	-0.1
CF	E. Carty		24	S	55	6	4	4	2	4	7	718	32	11	2	23	4.7	11.3	83	2.1
CF	D. Garza		35	R	40	4	4	5	2	4	6	77	1	2	1	2	3.9	13.0	84	-0.2
RF	D. Harter		31	R	50	5	5	4	2	2	4	506	33	5	11	2	4.7	19.2	101	0.5
RF	E. Wank		        28	R	50	6	3	4	2	4	6	678	38	14	2	13	4.1	15.5	116	4.7

Yuck. We desperately need some offense. Only two players in double-digit homers is not good, and just two players above league average based on wRC+...

By my initial look, 1B, 3B, C are all major needs. Our future 3B is years away so we're going to have to get creative and/or suffer for a few more seasons.

Final standings for 1912:

COLUMBIA LEAGUE

Team	                W	L	PCT	GB	Pyt.Rec	Diff	Home	Away	XInn	1Run	M#	Streak	Last10
Baltimore Atlantics	106	56	.654	-	98-64	8	54-27	52-29	15-6	26-13	        L1	6-4
Montreal Canadiens	98	64	.605	8	98-64	0	53-28	45-36	6-5	25-18		L2	6-4
Brooklyn Originals	97	65	.599	9	99-63	-2	54-27	43-38	8-12	20-22		W2	7-3
Chicago Packers	        89	73	.549	17	93-69	-4	54-27	35-46	9-5	24-28		W5	6-4
Kansas City Monarchs	66	96	.407	40	62-100	4	38-43	28-53	5-15	21-25		L3	2-8
Cleveland Buckeyes	65	97	.401	41	64-98	1	38-43	27-54	4-7	20-26		W4	5-5
Georgia Peaches	        62	100	.383	44	64-98	-2	30-51	32-49	6-6	14-18		L4	2-8

FEDERAL LEAGUE

Team	                W	L	PCT	GB	Pyt.Rec	Diff	Home	Away	XInn	1Run	M#	Streak	Last10
St. Louis Lions	        95	67	.586	-	96-66	-1	54-27	41-40	9-6	25-19	        W6	9-1
Pittsburgh Arsenal	93	69	.574	2	96-66	-3	48-33	45-36	9-11	23-21		W3	7-3
Washington Wasps	79	83	.488	16	75-87	4	43-38	36-45	10-7	22-20		W2	2-8
Boston Shamrocks	75	87	.463	20	75-87	0	39-42	36-45	8-7	26-26		W1	7-3
New York Knights	73	89	.451	22	77-85	-4	46-35	27-54	5-7	17-23		L5	5-5
Philadelphia Patriots	68	94	.420	27	73-89	-5	40-41	28-53	5-9	14-20		L2	4-6
New Orleans Kingfish	68	94	.420	27	63-99	5	35-46	33-48	10-6	18-16		L4	3-7

The St. Louis Lions are your World Series champs, defeating Baltimore four games to one.

See you in the offseason.

[JetsIn06]

We carry over one trade "allowance" from last year that we didn't use (rules refresher - we can only carry over one, even if there's more than one left. In this case, there was just one left) but let's take a look at what kind of RNG luck we have for this season:

Hint: the luck is not with us. We "roll" a 1 and a 0. That means we'll head into this offseason with one free agent signing of a 45+ rated player allowed, and one trade (from the one we carried over).

That's...not great. We could really use a few free agents to start building up the major league talent. But it's what we've got.

Obviously...let me say it again...obviously, we really need help on offense, so I think this free agent signing is going to have to be a bat of some kind. Maybe we can find a 1B who can mash in the bargain bin. The only real place of "depth" we have is in the bullpen, and I don't think that's going to net us back a hitter worth too much.

We officially enter the offseason and I'll add one quick note here as another rule I think I forgot to mention. If we re-sign any of our pre-arb or arb players to a multi-year deal, that counts against our free agent allowance. Same thing for any pending free agents, for now. Agreeing to a deal to avoid arbitration does not count against us.

Speaking of arbitration, we have eight players eligible. I won't go too in-depth here yet as my whole team is basically going to be a revolving door for a couple years, but we avoid arbitration with our three of our four position players, all outfielders, and non-tender the other. I'd like to find a power hitter who can be our 4th or 5th outfielder, maybe even one who's relatively low-rated that doesn't count against our allowance.

SP Juan Garcia, who is in first year of arbitration eligibility, actually had a fantastic year. I said this about him when we took him:

I go back-to-back SP with our next pick, adding Juan Garcia, 24. He's a side-arming lefty that may end up in the pen but has four great pitches and elite stuff that'll just get better in the pen. We'll let him have his shot in a starting role to kick things off, and he's under team control for four years.

He ended up starting 25 games, and finished with a 2.82 ERA. As expected the walk numbers were a little high, but he struck out over 31% of hitters. We agree with him and the other three pitchers, as well.

There's a potential trade I'm considering to add some juice to our lineup but it does come with some caveats. RP Steve Antill had a great year in our bullpen (2.79 ERA) but his SIERA makes me think he's due for some regression. K% was a little light as well, and he's 34 with $10M owed to him in '13.

There's a bat available from the Philadelphia Patriots, 1B David Casey, who is 29 and just finished a 35 HR campaign. The walk rate is light but all-in-all he had a 114 wRC+ and I feel like that would be very helpful for us. The downside? He's due $31M per year for the next four years.

We do some negotiating and end up making this deal. Philly will eat 10% of the salary moving forward and we added a throw-in all-defense SS to seal the deal.

New allowances:

1 FA
0 Trades

Our owner wants to see about $20M in profit this year. Right now to achieve that it looks like we only have about $8M to work with. We can flex up a bit if we can get the right player, but I don't want to give the owner a reason to fire me.

3B is our ideal target - 3B Matt Cooper's 70 wRC+ is the real weak link as far as full-time players go and there's nothing internal that's any more exciting.

I will take this opportunity to highlight an available free agent, 3B Brad Linderman. This guy is 38 years old, slashed .326/.406/.488 last season and had 75 stolen bases to go with it! He's looking for a 5-year, $182M deal. At that age I'm curious if teams will go for it, and also wondering if they don't, how low the price will go if we wait it out?

The next best 3B available is 37 years old himself, and coming off a labrum surgery.

We decide to slow play the market and see if anything shakes out with Linderman, but the New York Knights swoop in and offer him a higher AAV over two years - $30.5M per year, with a "games played" vesting option for the third year. Good for you, old man.

Taking a deeper look, the guy we picked up at the deadline last year, OF Mario Aragon, is certainly better as a corner OF but could play 3B if we went out used our free agent signing on an OF...hmmm.

Our outfield is pretty RHB heavy, so we go out on the market and look for a LHB OF. We find a guy we like, OF Alex Toler, a lefty bat who destroyed RHP, but he gets signed by Baltimore as we waited for his price to come down a bit.

We do have a back up plan in OF Cortez Moralez. He's not quite the power threat that Toler was, but did have 18 HR in the prior season. His calling card is his eye, and has the highest grade in that area from our scout.

We make him an offer of $25M over three years, the final of which is a team option. He signs in the middle of January, and that's all we're allowed to do. No more transactions (outside of 40 or below rated players) this year. Yikes. International FA starts now as well (need to get used to that) and we miss out and most of the high-end targets. We add some lower-level depth and one decent OF, but nothing worth mentioning, really.

But then some good news - we ended up with the #1 pick in the draft lottery. Just taking a very quick look at the draft pool, there's a very solid-looking college SP, Danny Gonzales, available. He's a groundball pitcher who generates weak contact with 7 movement, but is also a 6 stuff and control to go with it. A lefty, as well, so I am definitely thinking about him for the top spot.

Additionally, there's CF Tom Moore, a high-school bat that'll need to move to a corner but has 6's across the board and speed to go with it.

1B Mark Parent looks like a future slugger, with 7 contact and 7 power, but the swing and miss is an issue (rated 3 in Avoid K's) and the personality is a little concerning.

3B Gordie Warren and 3B Andy Stoner, a college and high-school bat, respectively, are also available. But our pick of 3B Steve Bell makes me at least hesitate to take another corner infielder. That said, Bell does have the risk of needing to move to 1B, and Warren looks like more of a definitive 3B.

Finally, last but not least, OF Chris Shaker could stay in CF but would be an absolutely elite corner OF. The eye is a 4 so there's something to be desired there, but a 7 contact and 6 power could easily make up for the lack of discipline.

That wraps up our off-season. We get through spring training with an 8-17 record and cut down to 26 with relative ease.

[JetsIn06]

We're off to a tough start. We go 8-13 in April and follow it up with a 10-17 performance in May. We lose the first four in June as well and we get to the draft with an 18-34 record.

BUT - remember we have the first overall pick. Let's take a look at what we said when the pool was announced:

But then some good news - we ended up with the #1 pick in the draft lottery. Just taking a very quick look at the draft pool, there's a very solid-looking college SP, Danny Gonzales, available. He's a groundball pitcher who generates weak contact with 7 movement, but is also a 6 stuff and control to go with it. A lefty, as well, so I am definitely thinking about him for the top spot.

Additionally, there's CF Tom Moore, a high-school bat that'll need to move to a corner but has 6's across the board and speed to go with it.

1B Mark Parent looks like a future slugger, with 7 contact and 7 power, but the swing and miss is an issue (rated 3 in Avoid K's) and the personality is a little concerning.

3B Gordie Warren and 3B Andy Stoner, a college and high-school bat, respectively, are also available. But our pick of 3B Steve Bell makes me at least hesitate to take another corner infielder. That said, Bell does have the risk of needing to move to 1B, and Warren looks like more of a definitive 3B.

Finally, last but not least, OF Chris Shaker could stay in CF but would be an absolutely elite corner OF. The eye is a 4 so there's something to be desired there, but a 7 contact and 6 power could easily make up for the lack of discipline.

My preference is to go high-school bat. At this point in the organization's build process, an older player almost seems like we'd be wasting three years of his control on a terrible team. I'd like to build up with some young talent and then add some college talent through the draft in a few seasons.

OF Chris Shaker is looking more and more like the right option for us. He can play elite defense, has elite contact and power skills, along with terrific speed.

We pick him at #1, and follow him up with a couple pitchers, SP Mike Steers, a 7-movement sinkerballer, and Phil Williams - 6's across the board but some personality risk. After that it's a crapshoot:

POS	Name	        Age	Round ▾	Pick	POT	GAP P	POW P	EYE P	STU P	MOV P	CON P	C ABI	IF RNG	OF RNG	DrTm
RF	C. Shaker	18	1	1	75	7	6	4	2	2	2	2	3	7	New Orleans
SP	M. Steers	18	2	4	50	3	4	2	5	7	5	2	3	3	New Orleans
SP	P. Williams	18	3	4	55	3	3	3	6	6	6	2	3	3	New Orleans
CF	J. Brown	18	4	4	50	4	6	5	2	2	2	2	3	6	New Orleans
3B	R. Alires	20	5	4	45	4	5	5	2	2	2	2	6	4	New Orleans
CL	G. Alarcon	18	6	4	40	4	3	2	5	8	4	2	3	3	New Orleans
SS	F. Hernandez	18	7	4	50	4	4	5	2	2	2	2	7	6	New Orleans
SS	L. Valentin	21	8	4	35	5	3	5	2	2	2	2	7	7	New Orleans
SS	L. Matchell	21	9	4	40	4	3	4	2	2	2	2	7	7	New Orleans
SP	R. DeBose	18	10	4	20	3	3	2	5	4	5	2	3	3	New Orleans
SP	J. Hall	        18	11	4	20	3	4	4	5	3	4	2	3	2	New Orleans
SP	A. Landsmann	18	12	4	20	3	3	3	5	3	4	2	3	2	New Orleans
SP	J. DeYoung	19	13	4	20	4	3	2	4	4	4	2	3	4	New Orleans
SP	J. Downing	18	14	4	20	4	3	2	4	3	4	2	3	3	New Orleans
3B	J. Love	        18	15	4	40	4	5	4	2	2	2	2	5	4	New Orleans
C	R. Mills	21	16	4	25	4	4	5	2	2	2	6	4	4	New Orleans
C	A. Litle	19	17	4	35	3	5	5	2	2	2	5	3	4	New Orleans
SP	M. Derryberry	20	18	4	20	4	3	2	4	3	5	2	4	5	New Orleans
C	D. Place	18	19	4	35	3	3	4	2	2	2	5	4	6	New Orleans
SP	C. Minor	21	20	4	20	3	3	2	3	3	4	2	3	4	New Orleans

With no trades available to us at the deadline, it's a relative snooze-fest throughout the rest of the season. 59 wins is the final tally, down from 68 last year, and based on those results, we unsurprisingly ended up scoring fewer runs and allowing more runs than last season.

1B David Casey, who was our major investment in the off-season via trade, has been a major bust, going from a 114 wRC+ in 1912 to just 80 this season, his first with the Kingfish. However, free agent signing OF Cortez Moralez worked out incredibly well, going from a 92 wRC+ to 124 with our team after coming over from Washington.

OF Mario Aragon who we picked up in a trade, also had a great year. Here's what we said when we picked him up:

We send him to the Philadelphia Patriots in return for OF Mario Aragon, the #51 prospect in the league (remember though, there's only 14 teams). He's decent in the OF but could play a corner spot in the infield in a pinch, which is nice. While he's struggling so far over 133 PA in the majors, he's been crushing AAA, slashing .351/.430/.564.

And now he is delivering on that potential. In 557 PA he slashed .298/.362/.442, good for a team-leading 125 wRC+.

The standout arm was SP Juan Garcia, who we said this about:

I go back-to-back SP with our next pick, adding Juan Garcia, 24. He's a side-arming lefty that may end up in the pen but has four great pitches and elite stuff that'll just get better in the pen. We'll let him have his shot in a starting role to kick things off, and he's under team control for four years.

He's now 26 and the stuff is still electric. He does have a pretty severe split, as I expected, but he's striking out enough guys to sort of make it work. Still, he's top of the staff in WAR (2.2) but on a good team, this is probably an elite reliever we're talking about.

Anyway - outside of our closer and a couple relief arms/scrubs, we're not losing anyone important, so let's leave it here and we can take a look at the squad and the prospects on their way when we come back for the off-season.

The World Series goes a full seven, and this year, the Brooklyn Originals are the 1913 World Series champs.

[JetsIn06]

Apologies for the delay. Have some real life stuff going on but we're back for the 1914 season.

First, we need to figure out what our transaction limits are. Nothing is rolled over from last year, so we're starting with zero. I head over to random.org to get my numbers, and this year we get some luck:

3 FA
3 Trades

Now we're talking. This gives us some flexibility as we can trade two for one across categories, if needed. And we may do that, as I don't see us making a big splash in FA yet, but let's take a look at our financial situation:

There's just over $90M on the books for next year, giving us around $30M or so to play with.

We've got a lot of holes on the team, and aren't really good at anything other than not striking out on offense, and we've done okay generating strikeouts. Other than that, we need everything. 3B still is a massive black hole and looks to be the biggest area of opportunity on offense. A SP would be great as well.

There's some money to be saved in arbitration, too. SP Ryan Carpenter, who was used in the bulk role for most of the year, was nothing special and did not strike out enough guys (13.5 K%). He's also in his final season of control. Non-tendering him saves us $4.8M.

Interestingly, there is a guy available in a trade, 3B Roberto Gonzalez, who Cleveland who send us for Carpenter. However, Gonzalez is set to make over $70M over the next three seasons and has no power. He has 62 extra-base hits, but just 4 HR. He also had 31 SB. With the young 3B on their way up, I don't make this move due to the cost.

We also cut 3B Matt Cooper, which saves another $1M.

SS Mike Clark, who we picked up in the original "expansion" draft, is now a free agent, which gets me to thinking - I'm curious what our team chemistry looks like. I thought Clark might be a captain, but no. We have a couple leaders, but no captain and no sparkplug. We might have to consider looking at that.

One bright spot - CF Ed Carty won a Gold Glove Award for his work in center and also won the Golden Bat Award as the best offensive CF in the league. He's got a great hit tool but very little power, but used it to slash .304/.340/.396. I'd obviously some to see some more pop but good to see him get some awards.

We get to free agency and we'll stop here...more to come!

[Izulde]

Just a note I'm following along

[Young Drachma]

Love the concept and the house rules.