Minnesota Shakes | A Tale of Twin Cities (MLB14)

[WaitTilNextYear]

Trade Season
The latest batch of July deals are being confirmed by multiple sources.

The Washington Nationals were in desperate need of a move after having coughed up a big lead in the NL East. The Nats are 47-44, 1.0 GB of the Phillies, after having lost 8 games in a row. The Nats addressed their pen in a move for Houston's Jesse Crain, who's been lights out for the Astros. The worst-in-baseball Stros (35-58) have no need for a bonafide closer and dealt Crain away for a pair of pitching prospects.

Nationals Receive
RHP Jesse Crain: 35.2 IP | 0.76 ERA | 1.71 DIPS | 0.90 WHIP | 10.85 K/9 | 15 SV

Astros Receive
23 y/o RHP Robert Benincasa: 24.1 IP | 2.59 ERA | 1.77 DIPS | 0.86 WHIP | 6.66 K/9 | 26 SV (AA)
25 y/o LHP Sammy Solis: 106.1 IP | 2.62 ERA | 3.73 DIPS | 1.30 WHIP | 6.26 K/9 (AA)


Meanwhile, the first place A's (49-42) were looking for offensive help after snatching up Jeff Samardzija and Jason Hammel earlier. They found some. Oakland responded to Seattle's recent trade by picking up 2B Daniel Murphy and AAAA player/bench bat Brandon Allen from the Mets (40-51, 8.0 GB) for a prospect duo. The upgrade should really help kick the A's offense (28th in batting average | 19th in runs scored | 23rd in OBP) up a couple of notches after relying on Eric Sogard and Alberto Callaspo at the keystone.

Athletics Receive
2B Daniel Murphy: .286/.334/.443 | 9 HR | 30 RBI | 11 SB | .377 BA w/RISP
1B: Brandon Allen: .325/.394/.535 | 4 HR | 22 RBI | 1 SB | .410 BA v/LHP (AAA)

Mets Receive
21 y/o RHP Raul Alcantara: 101 IP | 1.69 ERA | 2.39 DIPS | 1.07 WHIP | 7.31 K/9 (AA)
23 y/o 1B Max Muncy: .203/.276/.295 | 5 HR | 28 RBI (AA)


According to run differential, the Detroit Tigers should be comfortably on top of the AL Central by 4-5 games. As it stands, the Tigers are .500 (45-45) and tied with Cleveland for the division lead. Hoping to boost a surprisingly mediocre offense (16th in batting average | 18th in runs scored | 12th in OBP | 19th in total bases), the Tigers struck a deal with a last place Padres side (40-51, 12.0 GB). The Tigers shored up their INF and added some speed in liberating SS Everth Cabrera and OF Will Venable from Petco. Cabrera should give the Tigers another leadoff option and Venable will provide another LHB while rotating through corner OF spots along with Torii Hunter and Andy Dirks. The Tigers had to part with a trio of prospects to please [insert name of person running the Padres here] and the front office.

Tigers Receive
SS Everth Cabrera: .250/.327/.350 | 1 HR | 26 RBI | 20 SB
OF Will Venable: .213/.289/.360 | 7 HR | 31 RBI | 6 SB | .310 BA w/RISP

Padres Receive
22 y/o OF Steven Moya: .233/.298/.342 | 4 HR | 17 RBI | 2 SB (AAA)
22 y/o SS Eugenio Suarez: .271/.329/.387 | 4 HR | 20 RBI | 2 SB (AAA)
24 y/o RHP Wilsen Palacios: no stats

[CBMerling]

Very nice and realistic trades, I like it!

[xboxxerx]

Willingham looks like he is just stinking it up there in the middle of the line up for ya WTNY. Morales isn't doing much better as well.

[Cre8]

Loving this so far! I must say you are making me want to buy this game on my PS4.

I have a sneaking suspicion that the AL Central is going to come down to the last week of the season.

[WaitTilNextYear]

Quote: Originally Posted by CBMerling

Very nice and realistic trades, I like it!

Thanks

Quote: Originally Posted by xboxxerx

Willingham looks like he is just stinking it up there in the middle of the line up for ya WTNY. Morales isn't doing much better as well.

Willingham did ok, but he's in Seattle now. Morales has been a corpse basically.

Quote: Originally Posted by Cre8

Loving this so far! I must say you are making me want to buy this game on my PS4. I have a sneaking suspicion that the AL Central is going to come down to the last week of the season.

Glad to hear it. This game is good, so you should pick it up if money ain't no kind of thang.

Funny that you say that about the AL Central standings, because....

I HAVE BAD NEWS AND GOOD NEWS.

The BAD NEWS is that last night in the middle of a game against Seattle (let you off the hook King Felix, lol) my PS4 croaked, then restarted on its own and told me the PS4 could not turn on and I needed to get the 1.72 version of PS4 install from Playstation.com. So, I reinstalled and of course lost all of my data and franchise files etc..

THE GOOD NEWS is

Spoiler

I had a fairly recent cloud save from June 8th in my chise so I was able to reload my chise about a month short of where I had gotten to. So, I decided to sim to catch back up and was able to make sure that my record stayed what it should be (had to sim/restart/save quite a few times to do this) and that none of my players' stats got messed up af. So, all in all, I am pretty happy with being able to pick back up where I left off with pretty similar stats and the same record. The only drawback, I guess, is that the cpu teams had wildly different performances over that period of simmed games. For example instead of CLE and DET tied for the AL Central, both at .500, the Royals took off and are something like 15 games over .500. None of this affects the deals I already made, but I am going to have to tweak some of the other trades I had cooking to better reflect the new contenders/sellers.

Hence THIS THREAD AND CHISE LIVES ON...you can't merk my chise that easily Sony, lol. In the words of Tupac, my chise came from the gutter and it's still here.

[WaitTilNextYear]

Twins Lay Siege To King's Throne In Seattle


Music courtesy of Dilated Peoples. "Worst Comes to Worst." Expansion Team. Capitol Records, 2001.

With only 2 more series to be played before the All-Star Break and hosting the ASG at Target Field, the Twins flew into Seattle to do battle with a team they just did business with. It was a little weird to see Josh Willingham in M's gear, but after a freshly consummated deal, the Twins had to turn their back on him when they went between the white lines. The Mariners fans welcomed Willingham warmly and a fan only identified as "the Deuce" led a group of fans that spelled out W-I-L-L-I-N-G-H-A-M with large placards down the LF line.

Minnesota took 3 of 4 in Seattle and thumped on ace Felix Hernandez. The Twins held their former left fielder Willingham to no hits in 11 ABs and J-Will watched as Willie Bloomquist pinch hit for him in the 15th inning of Game 4 to salvage one game with a walk-off single.

Game 1 saw the Twins beat up on Seattle with Brian Dozier's homer and 4 hits from Oswaldo Arcia. It could have been much worse as Seattle mitigated Minnesota's 18 hits a bit by turning 4 double plays. Barry Zito even came on as the pitcher of record for the Twinkies. Josh Willingham was K'd twice, retired on a tapper, and sawed off with a broken bat weak grounder.

Game 2 featured Roenis Elias and Kyle Gibson trade quality starts, but Brian Dozier again brought reckoning to Seattle with a 9th inning, go ahead RBI double. Barry Zito picked up another win out of the pen and is settling in nicely against all the lefties on this Seattle squad.

In Game 3, both squads donned the throwbacks and the Twins then threw down on Felix Hernandez. Felix is a strong Cy Young contender, but was rocked for 6 earned in 3.2 IP. Kurt Suzuki and Kendrys Morales led the output with a 2-run homer a piece. Glen Perkins came on for a 1-pitch save after Anthony Swarzak got into some trouble with the bases loaded.

Seattle got off the schneid in the series finale in a 15 inning marathon. Neither starter factored in, but the Mariners bullpen was dominating. Tom Wilhelmsen, Danny Farquhar, and Joe Beimel combined for 8+ IP of scoreless relief before Minnesota finally broke through with a manufactured run in the top of the 15th. The problem for the Twins, and the delight of Seattle fans, was a fatigued Glen Perkins pitching in his 4th game of the series and already going into his 3rd inning or work. Perkins, with the help of an umpiring crew that was really atrocious all series long for both sides, allowed hits by Dustin Ackley and Nick Franklin to lead off the 15th. Then Brad Miller sacrificed and Robinson Cano was intentionally walked to load the bases with one out. The next batter, Willie Bloomquist, rapped a seeing eye single up the middle that 5-holed Perkins and brought in the winning run for the walk-off.

Game 89: Twins 8, Mariners 5









Game 90: Twins 3, Mariners 2









Game 91: Twins 8, Mariners 3









Game 92: Mariners 5, Twins 4

[Deuce2223]

Your not really help the M's in the playoff race when you take 3 of 4 games. Glad to see them stay at .500 at least, but from the lineups it looks like they could really use another offense bat besides Willingham. Not a single regular day player has a batting average over .270,

[WaitTilNextYear]

Quote: Originally Posted by Deuce2223

Your not really help the M's in the playoff race when you take 3 of 4 games. Glad to see them stay at .500 at least, but from the lineups it looks like they could really use another offense bat besides Willingham. Not a single regular day player has a batting average over .270,

haha. But it's a Twins franchise, not a Mariners one. I am not doing charity work here.

There may be another deal out there if the Ms can stay close to the wild card up to the end of July.

You did make an appearance in my chise as the Willingham fan club leader.