Nashville Sounds Expansion Franchise Pt. 2 | OOTP 20

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World Series vs. Atlanta Pt. 2

Game 3: Nashville, 5-3 (11 Innings) | NASHVILLE 3-0

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Game 4: Nashville, 7-2 | THE SOUNDS REPEAT AS WORLD CHAMPIONS!!!!!

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2022 Playoff Results

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MAJOR TRANSACTIONS DURING PLAYOFFS

October 19th: The New York Mets re-sign SP Vince Velasquez (2* ovr) to a 2 year, $1,700,000 contract extension

October 23rd: Texas re-signs LF Willie Calhoun (3* ovr) to a 4 year, $24,800,000 contract extension

October 26th: Houston re-signs RF Lonnie Chisenhall (2.5* ovr) to a 2 year, $3,700,000 contract extension

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Nashville MiLB Teams Season Recap

AAA: Orlando Maruaders: 90-46, .662, - GB - 1st | Lost to Louisville in International League Championship
AA: Knoxville Venom: 86-55, .610, - GB - 1st | Won the Southern League Championship
A+: Raleigh Daredevils: 88-41, .682, - GB - 1st | Lost to Down East in the Carolina League Championship
A: McAllen Colonials: 110-31, .780, - GB - 1st | Won the Texas League Championship
A-: Bridgeport Blizzard: 52-24, .684, - GB - 1st | Won the New York-Penn League Championship
R: Kiawah Waves: 49-13, .790, - GB - 1st | Won the Appalachian League Championship
R: Nashville (GCL) Sounds: 45-16, .738, 1 GB - 2nd | Lost to Pittsburgh (GCL) in the GCL Championship
R: Nashville (DSL) Sounds: 53-19, .736, - GB - 1st | Lost to Toronto (DSL) in the DSL Championship

Nashville's Top 30 Prospects | 2022 Season Stats

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November 6th, 2022

Sounds 'Lose' Three Relievers Just Days After Winning World Series

The Sounds barely even had time to celebrate their 2nd straight World Series title before roster moves for the upcoming 2023 season began taking place.

Just days after winning the World Series, MLB analyst Jeff Passan announced that Aroldis Chapman had declined his player option for 2023. It's rumored that Chapman will command at least $14,000,000 per year on the open market and the Sounds don't plan on paying him that much. So there's a good chance Chapman will not return to Nashville in 2023. Last season, Chapman had a 5-5 record with a 3.00 ERA and 41 saves. Statistically, it was his best season since 2019.

Later in the day, news broke that the Sounds declined their Team Option for RP Yuki Matsui. Matsui was slated to get $9,900,000 this upcoming season. But, the Sounds went ahead and paid the $2,000,000 buyout that was attached to his contract when he signed with St. Louis in December of 2019.

Nashville is not expected to offer Matsui in arbitration because he's projected to get at least $9,500,000. However, Matsui was absolutely lights out last year. He made his 2nd career All-Star game thanks to his stellar performance. He finished 2022 with a 6-4 record, 1 save, and a 2.06 ERA in 53 games. He struck out 90 batters in 74.1 innings.

Depending on what he demands on the open market, Matsui might be the only player listed in this article that returns to the team next season.

Finally, it was announced that the Sounds had traded former All-Star reliever Joe Jimenez and LHP prospect Logan Allen (2* pot) to the Washington Nationals for 2B prospect Trevor Hauver (3* pot) and RHP prospect Mason Denaburg (3* pot).

Jimenez was acquired last off-season due to his extremely solid 2021 season in Detroit. In 2021, Jimenez had a 4-4 record with 25 saves and a 2.57 ERA. Last season was more like his 2020 season in Detroit. In 2022, Jimenez struggled as he finished with a 5-4 record, 6 saves, and a 4.42 ERA in 51 games. In 53 Innings, he struck out 65 batters and allowed 26 runs. It said a lot about the organization's faith in Jimenez when he wasn't selected to the playoff roster.

And by trading Jimenez, the Sounds won't have to pay him the projected $9,200,000 he will likely receive in arbitration.

Thanks to these three moves, the Sounds will save about $29,100,000 in payroll in 2023. And expect some more moves as the organization will look to decrease their payroll even further heading into next season thanks to some stud prospects that will make their debuts.

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November 16, 2022

BREAKING: Nashville's Justin Williams Wins AL MVP Award

It's been an interesting professional journey for Justin Williams.

He was drafted by the Arizona Diamondbacks in the 2nd Round of the 2013 MLB First Year Player Draft. About a year and a half later he was traded to the Tampa Bay Rays. At the trade deadline in 2018, he was traded to the St. Louis Cardinals in the Tommy Pham deal that sent Pham to the Rays.

And before the start of the 2019 season, Nashville acquired him in the Kyle Schwarber trade. That trade changed Williams life.

He was then given an opportunity with an expansion franchise and was finally given a role on an MLB club. He took full advantage as he led the MLB with a .355 batting average while smacking 22 HR's and driving in 97 runs in 147 games. He made the 2019 AL All-Star team and came in 2nd in the American League Rookie of the Year race... As Blue Jays star 3B, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., won the award.

He went through a little bit of a Sophomore slump to start the 2020 campaign. But, eventually he turned his season around and still put up really solid numbers. He batted .315 with 36 HR's and 102 RBI's as he played in all 162 games.

In 2021 batted below .300 for the first time in what was a 3 year career. He hit .295 with 29 HR's and 93 RBI's in 158 games. However, he came through clutch in the post-season as the Sounds won their first World Series title. In fact, he was even named the ALCS MVP after an impressive showing.

Which brings us to his magical 2022 season. He started off the season winning the AL Batter of the Month after an incredible month of April. In May he hit his 100th career home run and also signed a massive 6 year, $150,000,000 contract extension, in which he'll get paid $32,000,000 in 2023. He then went on to make his 2nd career All-Star game. However, this time, he started in Right Field for the American League.

Fast forward to the end of the season. Williams became the first Nashville player to hit 50 HR's in a single season. He led the American League in 6 statistical categories and set even more Franchise records. In 2022, Williams hit .333 with 50 HR's and an American League leading/Nashville Franchise record 145 RBI's. He led the league in Runs (133), Doubles (60), SLG% (.655), OPS (1.055), and WAR (8.2).

Thanks to that unbelievable season, Williams became the first Nashville Sounds' player to win the American League MVP. He received all 30 1st place votes becoming a unanimous decision. And it was well deserved.

Along with the MVP Award, Williams was named an American League Silver Slugger Award Winner. But he wasn't the only Sounds' player who won the Award. Catcher Adley Rutschman was a Silver Slugger Award winner after he hit .312 with 24 HR's and 83 RBI's in 135 games. On top of that, Rutschman earned World Series MVP honors.

OF/DH Austin Hays also won Silver Slugger Award honors. In 2022, Hays hit .341 with 30 HR's, 109 RBI's and participated in his first All-Star Game.

On top of those three winning Silver Slugger Award honors, Manager Mike Matheny won his 2nd Straight AL Manager of the Year Award following the Sounds incredible 114 win season... Along with them putting up one of the most dominant team playoff performances in MLB history as they only lost 1 game the entire post-season.

Below is the full list of the 2022 Award Winners:

2022 MLB Award Winners
Award	Player	Pos	Team
AL Most Valuable Player	Justin Williams	RF	Nashville Sounds
AL Cy Young Award	Clarke Schmidt	SP	New York Yankees
AL Rookie of the Year	Anderson Alexander Tejada	SS	Texas Rangers
AL Rolaids Relief Award	D.J. Johnson	RP	Cleveland Indians
AL Manager of the Year Award	Mike Matheny		Nashville Sounds
NL Most Valuable Player	David Dahl	RF	Colorado Rockies
NL Cy Young Award	Chris Sale	SP	San Francisco Giants
NL Rookie of the Year	Franklin Rollin	RF	Cincinnati Reds
NL Rolaids Relief Award	Edwin Diaz	RP	New York Mets
NL Manager of the Year Award	Toby Borland		Atlanta Braves

2022 MLB Rawlings Gold Glove Award Winners
American League	Pos	National League
Yasmani Grandal (Houston Astros)	C	Francisco Mejia (San Diego Padres)
Yandy Diaz (Seattle Mariners)	1B	Drew Mendoza (Colorado Rockies)
Nicky Lopez (Oakland Athletics)	2B	Ozzie Albies (Atlanta Braves)
Matt Duffy (Texas Rangers)	3B	Nolan Arenado (Colorado Rockies)
Francisco Lindor (Cleveland Indians)	SS	Amed Rosario (Cincinnati Reds)
Raimel Tapia (Oakland Athletics)	OF	Ronald Acuna Jr. (Atlanta Braves)
Kevin Pillar (Toronto Blue Jays)	OF	Harrison Bader (St. Louis Cardinals)
Mitch Haniger (Seattle Mariners)	OF	Yasiel Puig (St. Louis Cardinals)
Luis Severino (New York Yankees)	P	Noah Syndergaard (New York Mets)

2022 MLB Silver Slugger Award Winners
American League	Pos	National League
Adley Rutschman (Nashville Sounds)	C	Keibert Ruiz (Los Angeles Dodgers)
Yordan Alvarez (Chicago White Sox)	1B	Joey Votto (Cincinnati Reds)
Scooter Gennett (Cleveland Indians)	2B	Nick Senzel (Cincinnati Reds)
Vlaidmir Guerrero Jr. (Toronto Blue Jays)	3B	Nolan Arenado (Milwaukee Brewers)
Francisco Lindor (Cleveland Indians)	SS	Nolan Gorman (St. Louis Cardinals)
Trevor Larnach (Minnesota Twins)	OF	Juan Soto (Washington Nationals)
Mike Trout (Los Angeles Angels)	OF	David Dahl (Colorado Rockies)
Justin Williams (Nashville Sounds)	OF	Mookie Betts (Chicago Cubs)
Austin Hays (Nashville Sounds)	DH	Kyle Schwarber (Atlanta Braves)

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Nashville Sounds | Free Agency Preview

Arbitration Hearing Results

1B, Rowdy Tellez to receive $14,000,000 (Team)
SP, A.J. Puk to receive $7,500,000 (Player)
LF, Austin Hays to receive $7,000,000 (Team)

Coaches Re-Signed

Nashville Pitching Coach: Doug Bochtler (Great reputation): 4 Years, $308,000 per year

Didn’t Re-Sign

CL, Aroldis Chapman (Declined Player Option)
RP, Yuki Matsui (Declined $9.9M Team Option for 2023)
RP prospect, Logan Sendelbach
RP prospect, Brady Aiken
RP prospect, Sam Pastrone
RP prospect, Ju-hyun Park
RP prospect, Daulton Jefferies
RP prospect, Austin Franklin
RP prospect, Erling Moreno
RP prospect, Josh Rogers

Released

SS, Ketel Marte (Will hold a cap hit of $2,000,000 this year)

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November 18, 2022

Sounds Trade Albert Abreu to Arizona For Jazz Chisholm

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In a surprising move, GM Danny Carmichael has traded SP Albert Abreu (4* ovr) to the Arizona Diamondbacks for 2B Jazz Chisholm (4* over) in a one-for-one swap.

Albert Abreu has been a solid fixture in the Sounds starting rotation over the last two season.

He was acquired in July of 2019 as the Yankees were desperate for starting pitching. He spent the rest of the 2019 in the minors and made his MLB debut in 2020. As a rookie in 2020, he appeared in 43 games (starting 18 of those games), and had a solid 11-6 record. He had a 4.17 ERA and struck out 137 batters in 136 innings.

2021 was his best season as a big leaguer to date. He had an 11-7 record with a stellar 2.94 ERA in 30 starts. He struck out 177 batters in 156 innings pitched. That's good for a 10.2 K/9 rate.

Last year, Abreu had an incredible 14-3 record with a 4.11 ERA in 32 starts. Again his K/9 rate was higher than 9.0 as he struck out 175 batters in 159.2 innings.

Abreu was expendable for two reasons. The first being the immensely talented pitchers waiting in the wings in the Nashville Farm system. The second reason being that his short starts would be detrimental to the Sounds over the course of 4-5 days at a time. By that, I mean he'd either get injured in the first two innings, making it to where the Sounds would have to deploy 4-5 relievers in one game (often losing) and then have to rely on those same relievers the next day. So the bullpen would have stamina issues over the course of a week or two due to the fact that even when healthy, Abreu averaged a little under 5 innings per start in 2022.

Now while that sounds bad, this was actually a good trade for both teams. Part of Abreu's problems when it came to short starts was the fact that Manager Mike Matheny pulled starters quickly if they got into any sort of trouble around the 5th inning. He'll surely get longer starts in Arizona and he slots in as the team's #1 starter. It also works as Arizona has promising 24 year old Will Holland ready to take over as the everyday 2B. 2B was the one position that Arizona had a lot of depth in it's Farm System.

Meanwhille, the Sounds' have numerous, young minor leaguers who could fill in the starting rotation. We could see anyone of Damon Green, Tanner Myatt, Johan Oviedo, MacKenzie Gore, Darwinzon Hernandez, Jordan Balazovic, Freicer Perez or even 4th year reliever Keegan Akin in the starting rotation next season. On top of that, Nashville will definitely find a large role for Jazz Chisholm in the Sounds 2023 lineup.

The 24 year old second baseman that the Sounds acquired saw huge statistical improvements across the board in his 2nd full MLB season. In 2021, Chisholm hit .259 with 17 HR's and 55 RBI's in 146 games. In 2022, all of those categories improved. Most notably, his batting average sky rocketed. He hit .300 this past season with 18 HR's and 67 RBI's in 15 less games.

Chisholm will add another lefty bat to the Sounds lineup and is under team control for the next 4 seasons. He can obviously hit for a high average. But what the Sounds front office like about his game is the fact that he adds dynamic base running ability to their lineup along with solid defense. He's very fast and extremely intelligent on the base paths.

This is an interesting deal considering the fact that the Sounds' middle infield has been solid as Gavin Lux mans shortstop and Tetsuto Yamada has been a solid, everyday second baseman. However, due to the Sounds being a small-average sized market, along with Justin Williams' large contract extension, Chisholm may have been acquired because they're looking to move on from Tetsuto Yamada.

This is the Nashville Sounds we're talking about. So it's going to be an interesting Off-Season.

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November 19, 2022

Sounds Trade Tetsuto Yamada to Detroit, Re-Acquire Josh Hader

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So this is what GM Danny Carmichael had up his sleeve when acquiring Jazz Chisholm just two days ago.

The Sounds have sent 2B Tetsuto Yamada (4.5* ovr), RHP prospect Luis Rijo (2.5* pot), and 2B prospect Juan Lechuga (2* pot) to Detroit for RP Josh Hader (4.5* ovr), RHP/RP prospect Juan Forteza (3.5* pot), and C prospect Hayden Jones (2.5* pot)

Yamada signed with the Sounds out of Japan in the 2020/2021 off-season. In Japan, he was an absolute monster. His last two seasons, he hit .300+ with 40+ HR's and 110+ RBI's. That same production has not translated, in any way, to Major League Baseball.

As an MLB rookie in 2021, Yamada hit .253 with 21 HR's and 64 RBI's. He was solid defensively and solid in the base paths. But the Sounds expected more from their first $20,000,000 man. This past season however, Yamada's stats improved across the board. He hit .279 with 22 HR's and 84 RBI's. Still, it wasn't enough to convince Carmichael to hold onto Yamada as he's set to make $21,000,000 in 2023.

Oddly enough, the main piece that the Sounds receive is former Milwaukee/Oakland/Nashville reliever, Josh Hader. Hader was acquired in July of 2021 after making his 2nd career All-Star appearance. However, he really struggled throughout the second half of the season for the Sounds. He had a 1-3 record with 12 saves and an extremely subpar 4.97 ERA. He allowed 14 runs in 25.1 innings and appeared in 25 games. In the 2021 post-season, he pitched better. He appeared in 11 games, pitched in 14 innings and really only allowed runs in the appearances where he was needed to pitch over an inning. He had a 3.86 ERA and struck out 21 batters while only walking 3.

Now despite the poor second half of the season in Nashville, Hader still had respectable numbers in 2021. His season totals, including his first half in Oakland, was: 3-6 record, 32 saves, 3.39 ERA in 58 games. He struck out 99 batters in 63.2 innings which is good for a stellar 14.0 K/9 rate.

Last off-season, Nashville traded him to Detroit in exchange for another reliever that failed to live up to expectations in Joe Jimenez. And this past season in Detroit, Hader really turned things around. He appeared in 56 games, had a 2-2 record with 31 saves and a 2.90 ERA. He struck out 94 batters in just 59 innings which is good for a 14.3 K/9 rate.

Nashville has been trying acquire talented relievers to solidify a reliable bullpen for the past 3 years. But each year, it seems like they're having to acquire relievers or call-up minor leaguers due to underwhelming results from the bullpen.

If Hader can just total his 2021 year long stats, he'd be a welcomed addition to the Sounds bullpen.

Detroit was so willing to part ways with Hader since he just went through his final year of arbitration and is said to want at least $11,000,000 per season in order to sign a contract extension with a team... And the Tigers weren't willing to do that. So instead, they acquired a talented 2B with 3 more years of team control as they still look to rebuild their team.