MLB The Show 18 Franchise Discussion Thread

[alston4659]

Re: MLB The Show 18 Franchise Discussion Thread

I'm a Phillies fan and just entered my second season in that franchise and I'm actually looking to switch things up and potentially start a NEW franchise with of all teams the Toronto Blue Jays. I've always wanted to use an American League team, I wanted to use a team that I can start a true rebuild with and I like the prospects that they have so far. I feel like I can shed some salary, move some of the guys I think other teams might need in return for more prospects and potentially sign some guys during that off season that may speed up the process if I can overachieve some how this first season. The good thing is I have no attachments to any of the major leaguers so all deals are on the table.

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[BigOscar]

Re: MLB The Show 18 Franchise Discussion Thread

After a terrible 2018 in which we finished dead last in the majors, the Rays prepare to rebound in 2019. We have a crop of fantastic young players, just about ready to hit the majors and this should be the year that they start to get integrated. But until then we will have some place holders waiting for the arrival of McKay, Bauers, Adames, Jesus Sanchez, Florial and Luis Robert.

The shock retirement of 4th outfielder Johnny Field took the team by surprise and lead to us offering Carlos Gomes another one year deal to cover. The major free agent hire for us was manageing to get versatile but injury prone AJ Pollock on a 3 year deal. Beyond that it was a relatively inexpensive off season with the addition of Korean veterans Jung-Ho Kang and Byung-Ho Park to play the corners, former number one draft pick Jurickson Profar to keep Adames seet warm at short and veteran catcher Jarrod Saltalamachia drafted in to share time with Jesus Sucre. Former Padres speedster Travis Jankowski signed on a 2 year deal to offer a bit of cover in the outfield, while reliever Tony Zych was picked up on the Rule 5 draft.

So to start 2019 our lineup looks like this

SP- Archer, Faria, Snell, Chirinos, Honeywell
RP- De Leon, Venters, Zych, Yarborough, Roe, Schultz and Alvarado

C- Salty, Sucre
1B/DH- Cron, Park
2B/utlity- M. Johnson, Wendle, Robertson
3B- Kang
SS-Profar
oF- M. Smith, Jankowski, Pollock, C. Gomez

At least on paper, we look a marginally better team than last year, but the real excitement should be the arrival of the prospects, along with the performance of the rotation. After sim/quick managing the first year it's now time to start playing every day

[smcamp3]

Re: MLB The Show 18 Franchise Discussion Thread

Well, in my Reds franchise I’ve decided to start the youth movement. I have moved Adam Duvall and Scooter Gennett for B prospects (a SP, LF and SS) to stash in the minors. Called up Nick Senzel and Taylor Trammell. Excited to start playing with my young guys!


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[ktd1976]

Re: MLB The Show 18 Franchise Discussion Thread

Updated my Tigers Franchise page.

http://www.dynastynationnetwork.com/dynasty.php?s=mlb&u=kdutch98

Just took 2 of 3 from the East leading Red Sox to improve to 50-14, 7 games ahead of the Indians, who just won't go away. Huge 3 game set with the Indians up next.

I just had an incredibly unbelievable draft. I had the first overall pick, and landed a stud catcher. Followed that up with 4 more A prospects, and one B prospect.

1st Round: Archie Fraser, C. 94 POT, 73 OVR
2nd Round: Alexis Gomez, 2B. 94 POT, 65 OVR
3rd Round: Danny Goldman, LF. 90 POT, 53 OVR
4th Round: Kevin Gonzalez, SP. 91 POT, 52 OVR
5th Round: Doug Batson, SP. 87 POT, 65 OVR
6th Round: Eric Ortiz, SP. 91 POT, 57 OVR

Fraser should be ready to contribute early next year. Batson could possibly be ready to contribute in 2020. If nothing else, I have some pretty good trade chips for next season.

[countryboy]

Re: MLB The Show 18 Franchise Discussion Thread

The Zach Britton era in St.Louis may be coming to an abrupt halt. After starting out hot in the first few weeks of the season, his last few outings:

4 games
3 1/3 IP
12 ER
2 K's
7 Walks

While I know that I shouldn't make knee jerk reactions because they often come back to haunt you, we have depth in the minors (Kevin Siegrist and John Brebbia are both currently down there) that we can bring up and pitch in his place. With Sam Freeman pitching well and Dean Kiekhefer continuing to amaze, I may be forced to make a decision as Britton is out of options and trying to pass him through waivers isn't an option as he will easily be claimed.

The life of a GM...

[DarthRambo]

Re: MLB The Show 18 Franchise Discussion Thread

Indians sweep the hated rival Detroit Tigers has we improved to now 6-1 on the 10 game home stand to start the season!

I played game three of the four game series and what a game it was. I took the early 2-0 lead in the 1st inning. Carrasco was great, striking out 10 in 7ip, however he did walk 5.

In the 8th Tigers Castellanos belted a 2 run homer off of Nick Goody that gave them a late 3-2 lead. Bottom of the 8th I lead off the inning by drawing a walk with Kipnis. Fly out with Ramirez, steal 2nd with pinch runner Rajai Davis.

And up comes AL RBI leading Encarnacion. He blasts a 3-2 fastball to deep left and gives us a 4-3 lead! His 8th honerun of the early season and rbis 21 and 22.. He is off to a crazy good start! Leads the majors in HR and RBI. Historically we know he typically starts slow so this is something new for Edwin and I couldn't be happier.

Bummer that Carrasco got a no decision though with a great quality start.

Up next is a three game series vs Toronto to finish our 10 game home stand (I will play game 3).

The Rockies begin a 4 game series at home vs the Nationals (I will play game 2 of that series).


Here are the box scores and pitching stats for the game I just played:

20180422_081655.jpg20180422_081729.jpg

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[DJ]

Re: MLB The Show 18 Franchise Discussion Thread

The Zach Britton era in St.Louis may be coming to an abrupt halt. After starting out hot in the first few weeks of the season, his last few outings:

4 games
3 1/3 IP
12 ER
2 K's
7 Walks

While I know that I shouldn't make knee jerk reactions because they often come back to haunt you, we have depth in the minors (Kevin Siegrist and John Brebbia are both currently down there) that we can bring up and pitch in his place. With Sam Freeman pitching well and Dean Kiekhefer continuing to amaze, I may be forced to make a decision as Britton is out of options and trying to pass him through waivers isn't an option as he will easily be claimed.

The life of a GM...

Do you have him as your closer? Sometimes moving a guy like that back to a middle relief or setup role can get him back on track.

[CHIBHAWKSRULE]

Re: MLB The Show 18 Franchise Discussion Thread

After July the 2018 Red Sox have completely ran away with the division to a 78-32 record and a 20.5 game lead over the Rays... And no I am not playing on Rookie...Dynamic hitting up to All-Star+ and Pitching on Hall of Fame. Probably crank up hitting to Hall Of Fame and hopefully lose some more games.

The already hot bat of J.D. Martinez got even hotter in July. Now crushing the ball to a .329 average, 42 Homers and 104 RBI's on the season. Which puts him 2nd in Avg and 1st in Homers and RBI's in the AL. Bringing in a 23 game hitting streak into August.

Chris Sale leading the pitching staff with a 14-5 Record, 1.60 ERA and 185 K's. Puts him 1st in ERA and K's in the AL.

The All-Stars on the club were Sale, Price, Bogaerts, Martinez and Betts. All started except for Price.

[bravo2208]

Re: MLB The Show 18 Franchise Discussion Thread

Well, in my Reds franchise I’ve decided to start the youth movement. I have moved Adam Duvall and Scooter Gennett for B prospects (a SP, LF and SS) to stash in the minors. Called up Nick Senzel and Taylor Trammell. Excited to start playing with my young guys!

Youth movement all the way! I'm the Reds as well. My first move was to trade Votto to the Yanks for A/B pitching prospects, then I moved Suarez to first and brought up Senzel to play 3rd. Trammell is leading the Majors in batting average through 25 games and we're 13-12. I'm liking this team a lot.

[countryboy]

Re: MLB The Show 18 Franchise Discussion Thread

Do you have him as your closer? Sometimes moving a guy like that back to a middle relief or setup role can get him back on track.

No he’s our setup man. Trevor Rosenthal is still our closer.

Not going to do anything immediately but am looking at potential trade partners and pieces


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[UTAllTheWay]

Re: MLB The Show 18 Franchise Discussion Thread

2019 Tampa Bay Rays

Well the 2019 Spring Training is over for the Rays, where they finished with a 15-14 record. After an abysmal 2018 campaign, the Rays decided to get rid of some the veterans they felt weren't helping this team push forward enough and they decided to give their young guys a shot. And during the spring, it seems to have worked.

Some bright spots; Willy Adames looked like the best hitter on the team hitting .362, with 3 HRs, and 8 RBIs. Mallex Smith was a very solid leadoff man for the team, hitting .325 with 3 HRs and 5 RBIs. The Rays put the 1st base spot up for grabs this spring, and two names rose to the occasion. Tommy Joseph (a rule 5 draft pick) hit .276 with 5 HRs and 12 RBIs, but the guy who really turned heads was Jake Bauers, who hit .316 and tied for the lead in HRs with 6.

Pitching wise, Chris Archer and Jake Faria struggled a little bit, but one name that everyone was talking about was Blake Snell. After a season that saw him moving up and down from the minors constantly, during the spring he looked very consistent and he'll start off in the rotation when the regular season begins.

DEPTH CHART

<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8"><link href="http://dynasties.operationsports.com/css/depth_chart.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"></head><body><div id="depthchart"><div class="teamheader" style="background:#012741;">Tampa Bay Rays Depth Chart - 2019</div><div class="depthchart"><div id="catcher"><ul><li class="title">Catcher</li><li class="odd"><b>Austin Barnes</b></li><li class="even">Jesus Sucre</li></ul></div><div id="first_base"><ul><li class="title">First Base</li><li class="odd"><b>Jake Bauers</b></li><li class="even">Tommy Joseph</li><li class="odd">(Rob Refsnyder)</li></ul></div><div id="second_base"><ul><li class="title">Second Base</li><li class="odd"><b>Adeiny Hechavarria</b></li><li class="even">Rob Refsnyder</li><li class="odd">(Tommy La Stella)</li></ul></div><div id="third_base"><ul><li class="title">Third Base</li><li class="odd"><b>Tommy La Stella</b></li><li class="even">Kelvin Gutierrez</li></ul></div><div id="shortstop"><ul><li class="title">Shortstop</li><li class="odd"><b>Willy Adames</b></li><li class="even">(Adeiny Hechavarria)</li></ul></div><div id="left_field"><ul><li class="title">Left Field</li><li class="odd"><b>Mallex Smith</b></li><li class="even">Jon Jay</li><li class="odd">(Ron Refsnyder)</li></ul></div><div id="center_field"><ul><li class="title">Center Field</li><li class="odd"><b>Kevin Kiermaier</b></li><li class="even">Jon Jay</li></ul></div><div id="right_field"><ul><li class="title">Right Field</li><li class="odd"><b>Denard Span</b></li><li class="even">Jon Jay</li><li class="odd">(Ron Refsnyder)</li></ul></div><div id="rightcol"><ul style="margin-bottom:5px;"><li class="title">Starting Pitcher</li><li class="odd"><b>Chris Archer</b></li><li class="even">Jake Faria</li><li class="odd">Lance Lynn</li><li class="even">Blake Snell</li><li class="odd">Matt Andriese</li></ul><ul style="margin-bottom:5px;"><li class="title">Relief Pitcher</li><li class="odd"><b>Yonny Chirinos</b></li><li class="even">Vidal Nuno</li><li class="odd">Jose Alvarado</li><li class="even">Austin Pruitt</li><li class="odd">Trevor Rosenthal</li><li class="even">Jonny Venters</li></ul><ul><li class="title">Closer</li><li class="odd"><b>Alex Colome</b></li></ul></div><div id="leftcol"><ul style="margin-bottom:5px;"><li class="title">Designated Hitter</li><li class="odd"><b>Tommy Joseph</b></li><li class="even">(Denard Span)</li></ul><ul style="margin-bottom:5px;"><li class="title">Disabled List</li><li class="odd">Ryan Weber (60 Day) - Broken Forearm</li></ul></div></div></div></body></html>

Willy Adames and Jake Bauers get their first Opening Day starts of their careers. Hechavarria makes a smooth transition to second base, which actually gives us an outstanding defensive middle infield. La Stella isn't a bad third baseman either defensively. Kiermaier and Smith are faces we have seen many times before in the outfield, but Denard Span figures to get more playing time on the field this year, and Jon Jay is a very serviceable 4th outfielder.

Pitching wise, Rosenthal and Lance Lynn are the biggest additions. Lynn figures to be a steady face in the rotation that can log a lot of innings, while Trevor Rosenthal is a hard throwing righty that will be used in the 8th inning of games to set up for Alex Colome.

Top Prospects

RHP - Jose De Leon - AAA - 26 years old - 69 overall - A potential
RHP - Brent Honeywell (#44 in top 50) - AAA - 23 years old - 69 overall - A potential
LHP - Anthony Banda - AAA - 25 years old - 68 overall - B potential
RHP - Pedro German - AA - 22 years old - 65 overall - B potential
LHP - J.J. DuBois - AA - 20 years old - 64 overall - B potential
1B - Brendan McKay (#29 in top 50) - AAA - 23 years old - 71 overall - A potential
3B - Christian Arroyo - AAA - 23 years old - 65 overall - A potential
LF - Kevin Johnson (#30 in top 50) - AA - 19 years old - 68 overall - A potential
CF - Fernando Gonzalez - AA - 22 years old - 72 overall - C potential
RF - Justin Williams - AAA - 23 years old - 66 overall - B potential

Bold - Denotes the prospect is in the top 50 prospects

Our season begins with a home series against the Boston Red Sox. I could not possibly be more excited to get it started!

[Rocket32]

Re: MLB The Show 18 Franchise Discussion Thread

A lot has happened since I last updated, now at July 23rd in my Yankees franchise. The team is at 67-32, good for a 4 game lead over the 64-37 Red Sox in the division. Everyone else is over 15 games out. Currently have the best record in baseball Cubs are the closest at 65-34. Judge and Sanchez are still crushing the ball. Judge has 29 HR’s with a 312 BA. Stanton has cooled average wise, just a 258 BA though he has 36 HR’s, the most in all of baseball. Sanchez is hitting 309 with 35 HR’s, crazy.

Stanton won the HR Derby. NL beat the AL. Chapman was the closer for the All Star Game. Sanchez was the starting catcher for the AL. Stanton was the starting LF. Judge started in RF. Sanchez leads the MVP race. Guess who’s behind him? Stanton and Judge. Amazing. Sanchez is leading the Hank Aaron Award race as well.

The guys we drafted are: SP Raul Irizarry age 20, 88 potential. 60 OVR.
LF Harold Erbe age 20, 78 potential, 67 OVR.
1B Oliver Perez age 21, 73 potential, 57 OVR.
2B Damian Waddell age 18, 78 potential, 52 OVR.
SP Manuel Castro age 18, 85 potential, 66 OVR.
C Edmundo Garcia age 20, 72 potential, 73 OVR.
Love the 2 pitching prospects, the rest of the draft class is meh. Signed them all though.

Made my deadline moves a bit early, at July 23rd. Several deals were made. First one:
Acquired Matt Harvey from the Mets for Chasen Shreve. Harvey gives us rotation depth. Shreve was expendable. Minor swap.

Second: Bartolo Colon aka Big Sexy from the Rangers for Trevor Rosenthal and SP James Reeves. Texas is out of it and Colon is having a nice season. 2.99 ERA. The Rosenthal experiment is over, had a 6.97 ERA. Rosenthal wasn’t the answer. Colon will either hopefully give us better innings out of the bullpen or replace CC in the rotation and CC will do that from the pen. Whichever. Obvious rental.

Saved the best 2 for last: Acquired 1B Jose Abreu from the White Sox for Bird and RP Domingo German. White Sox are out of it. Thought about Bour but he was a bit to pricey prospect wise. Abreu is an obvious win now move at 31 years old. Needed more from 1B then what Austin and Bird were providing.

Now the blockbuster: Acquired Manny Machado from Baltimore for Clint Frazier and Chance Adams. Orioles are out of it. Machado is having a down year hitting just 235 with 24 HR’s but I’m hoping plugging him into such a deep lineup with so much protection can jumpstart him to what he’s capable of. A Frazier fan irl but didn’t see him having a future here. Adams stings a bit but still hung onto the top guy, Sheffield. All trades except the Colon one were taken from the OS Trade Spreadsheet/thread.

This lineup is truly scary now. New lineup: Gardner/Ellsbury
Judge RF
Stanton LF
Sanchez C
Machado SS
Abreu 1B
Didi 2B
Drury 3B
Gardner/Ellsbury. Try getting through that lineup. Really no great arms available, wasn’t gonna pay an outrageous prospect price for Archer, so loaded up on more bats instead to go for it. Didi moves to 2B, Walker to the bench. Harvey to AAA. Wade to AAA. Austin to AAA. Team is locked and loaded now.

Interesting notes from around the MLB: Giolito having a brilliant season for the White Sox. 2.25 ERA.
JDM out for 1-2 months.
Angels lead Houston in the West by 5 games.
Arizona only 3.5 games behind the Dodgers.

[smcamp3]

Re: MLB The Show 18 Franchise Discussion Thread

Youth movement all the way! I'm the Reds as well. My first move was to trade Votto to the Yanks for A/B pitching prospects, then I moved Suarez to first and brought up Senzel to play 3rd. Trammell is leading the Majors in batting average through 25 games and we're 13-12. I'm liking this team a lot.

I’m playing really well with Trammell too, I am holding on to Votto for now but he could be on the way out. I’m struggling badly with him


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[countryboy]

Re: MLB The Show 18 Franchise Discussion Thread

We snapped our 3 game losing streak by beating the Reds 4-1 in our last game. Tyler Lyons was amazing working 4 innings of relief striking out 7 of the 12 batters that he faced. Our offense was paced by solo homeruns from Patrick Wisdom and Paul DeJong. After blowing the lead in the last game, I gave Rosenthal a chance and he did not disappoint by closing out the game in the 9th, although he did walk a batter.

We finish our 4 game series with the Reds before heading to play 3 in Wrigley as we meet the Cubs for the first time.

Currently tied for 1st with the Brewers. The Reds are just 1/2 game out and the Cubs are 1 full game out. The Pirates are in last at 4 1/2 back as we approach Mother's Day.

[countryboy]

Re: MLB The Show 18 Franchise Discussion Thread

Sitting at work and thinking about my roster and I have a logjam in the outfield.

Our outfield consists of:

Randal Grichuk
Magnerius Sierra (Currently on 60 Day DL with Broken Arm)
Stephen Piscotty
Tommy Pham
Jon Jay
Oscar Mercado
Harrison Bader
Jeremy Hazelbaker
Nick Martini

All of these guys are MLB ready. This doesn't consist of Jose Adolis Garcia, Corey Ray, and Juan Fabregas who are on the cusp and Nick Plummer who is about a year away from being ready.

I think it may be time to look at moving a couple of these pieces for other positions that we need help/depth (2nd Base and 3rd Base primarily)

Question now is who do we move? I'm thinking Jon Jay is the best candidate at this point due to his age and the fact that Jeremy Hazelbaker will probably be the first on the list to bring up and both are left handed hitters. Also, Hazelbaker is the better defender. However, Jon Jay has been a welcomed pinch hitter off the bench. He's only hitting around .250-.260 but he has great at-bats and has come up with a few timely hits.

I thought about Tommy Pham, but he's still relatively young and while in my franchise he may not be equipped to be a center fielder, he does have the ability to be a solid defensive left fielder. Only issue wit that is that Grichuk is the everyday left fielder (locked in for another year after this year) and is our cleanup hitter due to his ability to drive in runs. Couple that with the fact that Harrison Bader fits nicely into left field and is ready to make the move up to the big leagues, if not this year, definitely next year.

On the flip side with the starting 3 spots being tied up by young players (Grichuk, Sierra, and Piscotty) I may deal away one of our younger prospects that is on the cusp, Martini or Bader, or even a guy like Hazelbaker that has major league experience, although I doubt I deal him instead of Jay since they are essentially the same type of player, with Hazelbaker being the better overall between the two.

The life of a GM...