Sim run

Administrivia: 

• Zev asked me to run tonight's sim so I did. 
• I processed the London/Brick trade.
• The next sim will be (unless Zev overrides me) tomorrow night, Thursday the 1st.

Transactions:

• Brick signed LF Vicente Jiménez to a one year, $450k contract. He's a 16-year old 5-star prospect that my scout obviously never saw.
• London claimed 1B Ricardo Sánchez off waivers from Shackamaxon.
• London also signed a boatload of players to minor league contracts.
• Maui, Seattle, and Shackamaxon also signed a few guys to minor league contracts.

Injuries:

• Ohio MR William Warren will be out five-to-six months with a ruptured tricep tendon. Ouch!
• Shackamaxon OF Forrest Spracklin will be out two months with a torn thumb ligament.
• Maui CF Juan Salas will miss about five weeks with a partially torn labrum
• Brick 2B Yee Qui will be out three months with a ruptured tendon in his finger. No word on what finger it was.

The league file is up. The web pages have not been updated. Remember, the next sim is tomorrow night, so we can hopefully finish spring training on Saturday night and start the 2023 season some time next week.

Need catching help?

I'm interested in trading two of my three major league catchers. All are available very cheaply:

• Jorge Clemente - my starter the past two seasons. His career slash line is .282/.353/.792 and he offers passable defense. Salary is $3.3m for this year, with a $4.1m team option for next season.
• Douglas Stiger - generic journeyman backup catcher. Making just $800k this season. 
• Gerardo Herrera - former starter and star who rebuilt his career at AAA last season. Defensive whiz (former Slick Fielder award winner) who still has high ratings. Making just $700k this season, and can be your backup catcher and a pretty good pinch hitter.

As I said, all are very easy to acquire. Fringe prospects and spare draft picks are what I'm after.

Sim Pushed Back To Wednesday

At the request of one of the owners, I am pushing the sim back to Wednesday evening. 

Thanks,

Zev

Sim's Done

Game Date:  3/6/2023

Commissioner's Notes:  I processed the London/Seattle trade.  I did not process the London/Brick trade, as there was a discrepency in the trade terms between the blog post and the emails.  Once that's resolved, I'll process it in the next sim.

Significant Injuries:
Ohio's Leslie Bennett has a sprained ankle and will be out for two months.
Houston's Kyung-hwan Park is going to miss about seven weeks with back spasms.
Seattle's Roberto Perez was hit by a pitch and injured his thumb.  He's going to miss four weeks.

Next sim:  Tuesday night.

The  London and Brick teams announced a trade that both teams well benefit from the Dragon receive 2nd round pick Mark fields pitcher Joe Connor catcher triple A and Moreno center field for Padua starting pitcher and Lorent 3rd basemen. This well  allow the Dragon to add more young prospects to their farm system while allowing the  Barracuda to improve their starting rotation

Dragons send Talamantez to Monarchs for multiple prospects

Sources confirmed early Thursday morning that the London Dragons had agreed to trade Bruno Talamantez and cash to the Seattle Monarchs for four highly-touted prospects (SP Tian-Bai Chen, MR Felix Lopez, 3B Jesus Alvarez, and CF Pedro Munoz). The trade was expected to be confirmed by the commissioner's office later in the day.

The deal sends Talamantez and $9MN (just over 40% of his 2023 salary) to the Monarchs, who were likely looking to add some veteran depth at the front of their rotation behind Hernandez. The 26-year old Talamentez was at one time the #1 prospect in all of baseball, and he's proven to be durable (seven straight years of over 200 innings pitched) and has shown periods of brilliance (three Pitcher of the Month awards to his name). Critics, however, note that he's only had two years where he won more games than he lost, the last of which was in 2018, and his ERA and WHIP have been in the 3.90 / 1.35 range over the past three or four years. One scout noted that Talamantez has already pitched close to 2,000 innings in professional ball at the age of 26, which may help explain last year's 4.53 ERA and personal high in HRs allowed. "He had one good year, but essentially he's been a 4.00 pitcher that wins half his games", said the un-named scout. "He's solid, but not an ace, despite the ace-caliber salary'.

"We wish Talamentez all the best - he's been a cornerstone of our rotation for many years now, but the team is going in a different direction", said the new London GM. "We are very excited about the players we get in return; they were at the top of every prospects list we had, and we believe they will be ready to contribute faster than people think".

The prospects include two young 19yr old right-handers: Chen, from Taiwan, was rated one of the top ten prospects in SDMB last year, while Lopez, from Puerto Rico, was selected to the Single A All-Star game in 2022. Lopez had a short stint at Double-A near the end of the year. Dragons officials noted that Lopz would probably begin the year in Single A.

The Dragons also acquire two promising bats: 18yr old Jesus Alvarez has been injury prone in his short career, but scouts rave about his bat potential. In 380 at-bats across two years in single-A ball, Alvarez posted a slash line of .338/.427/.452, with 16 stolen bases. Pedro Munoz was the 11th overall pick in the 2023 draft; for his high school career he hit .417/.504/.668.

"This is a good deal for both clubs", said an un-named GM. "The Dragons are clearly in a rebuilding mode after losing almost 200 games the last two years, and they picked up four excellent prospects in return for an expensive pitcher that was going to eat up over $60Mn. The Monarchs, in return, solidify their starting rotation fairly cheaply, and they're set up extremely well for another run at the Cecil Cup".

... And... We're Back!

OK, everything is up and running again.  Scott has been set up with a new league file and updates have been pushed to the league site.  Scott's team has been renamed as the London Dragons and Fred's team has been renamed as the Brick Barracudas.

Please be sure to download the new updates either in-game or via the download league file link. 

I have discarded all previous updates sent by owners.  As such, if you uploaded changes before today, you will need to re-upload them. 

The next sim (the first week of Spring Training) will be run on Sunday, anytime after noon.

If anyone has any questions, feel free to ask.

Zev

(P.S. I'm aware that the lead news item is wrong -- it states that Fred Goldfarb took control of the London Dragons.  However, the game is correct -- Scott controls London while Fred controls Brick.)

The Road To Recovery

I got my computer back and am currently getting things up and running.  I expect to have the new league file updated by tonight.  Assuming I get that done tonight, we will run the first week of Spring Training on Sunday.

I'll keep you posted as matters progress.

Zev

Apologies in advance for yet another question. Can someone confirm what player rating/potential rating system is being used in the game (20-80 or 1-100)?

When It Rains....

I had hoped to have a new league file up by last night.  Unfortuantely, my computer, which has been having overheating problems of late, has gotten worse.  I'm going to take it in to have it looked at.  In all probability, the fan needs to be replaced.  So, it may be another day or two before I can get the league file up again.

Sorry about all this folks.  Please be patient.

Zev

Sorry for what might be a rather stupid question: How can I communicate with other team owners about possible trades etc?

Update 2: Oops!

It seems that I accidentally deleted all of the player history in the upload I created.

Hang tight, as Zev and I will get this hopefully sorted out.

Update: Zev will fix it later tonight. Hold on until then, and don't bother updating the league file or downloading anything until you hear from him. Sorry guys!

Update

I have added our new owner, Scott Urista, to the game as the owner of the former Moncks Corner Monks, now known as the London Dragons.

Additionally, Fred, who took over the Barstow franchise last season, has decided to move his team to New Jersey, and rename them the Brick Barracudas. Both teams are excited to be in their new homes in time for the 2023 season.

To facilitate this, I have created a new league file. If you are an existing owner you should be able to download within the game. The league date is still March 2, 2023, the first day of Spring Training.

If the game somehow misbehaves after downloading, please download and unzip the full league folder (found at https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2175531/SDMB.lg.zip) before letting me know of any problems.

Please re-do your team setup (7-day lineups, pitching rotation, etc.) and re-upload your changes. The next sim will be either Tuesday or Wednesday night, depending on when Scott is familiar enough with his team and ready to continue.

Any questions? Send 'em to Mack. :)

Delay

I'm having a family emergency right now, so there's going to be a bit of a delay.  We're going to hold off on the next sim, in order to give Scott a day or two to get acquainted.

Michael, can you create a game account for Scott and upload a copy of the game for him?  If not, I'll do it but it might be a day or so before I get to it.

Zev

London Calling!

The Monck's Corner Monks announced today that the team had been sold to a UK businessman. Terms of the sale were not disclosed.

At a press conference following the announcement, the new owners revealed that the team's name would be changed to the London Dragons, and that the team would be relocating to London in time for the start of the 2023 season.

"We are chuffed, absolutely chuffed", said new owner Dragon Ash. "Being able to bring a professional baseball team to London has been a life-long dream. London is home to thousands of  baseball fans that up until now have been forced to endure cricket - a sport so boring even the players just give up mid-match for tea and crumpets. The next Babe Ruth, the next Cy Young, might be playing in a backyard somewhere in London right now".

The London Dragons will be playing home games in Wembley Stadium for the foreseeable future. Mr. Ash said that they were in discussions with the city of London on the use of Olympic Park, the 80,000 capacity stadium that recently hosted the London 2012 Olympic Games.

One of the original members of the league when it was formed in 2002, the Monks have a long and storied history. Originally known as the River Cities Paddlewheelers and the River Cities Sternwheelers, the Monks are perhaps best known for meeting the Seattle Monarchs in the Cecil Cup finals four years running. The Monks won the first encounter in 2008, before losing the next three Cup Championships in a row.

Over the past 10 years, the Monks compiled an 852-769 record and made it to the play-offs four times, but insiders whisper that the club has been poorly managed in recent years. In fact, the team hasn't had a winning season since 2017, going 350-460 over the past five years. After attracting 3 million visitors a year for six straight years, attendance has dwindled steadily; last year attendance barely reached 1.5 million, even as the team has one of the highest payrolls in the league.

"Mr. Ash has his work cut out for him", said one scout. "the Monks have always hit, but that's probably the worst pitching staff in the league". The Monks last year were dead last in runs allowed, ERA, WHIP and home runs allowed. "Watching the Monks play last year was like watching the other team taking batting practice for nine innings" the scout said.

Mr. Ash said his first order of business before tackling the pitching staff was to order fish & chips and a pint of Guinness.

Welcome To Spring Training!

Game Date:  3/2/2023

Welcome to Spring Training as we begin our 22nd season of the Unofficial SDMB OOTP league.  When we started this journey back in 2002 (real time), I never thought that 10 1/2 years later, we'd still be playing.   Here's looking forward to more seasons of OOTP baseball!

As always, if anyone has any suggestions for ways to improve the league, I'm always open to new ideas!

Next sim (the first week of Spring Training) will be simmed on Saturday night. 

Ametuer Draft is Here!

Game Date:  3/1/2023

The amateur draft is here.  Please submit your draft lists through the game.  In addition, please review the traded draft pick list and make sure that any picks you traded for/away are accurate.


The draft will be held on Wednesday night, which will then take us right into Spring Training.

Zev

Sim's Done

Game Date:  2/27/2023

Signings:  None

Next sim:  Sunday night, which will bring us up to the amateur draft.

Sim's Done, Draft Pool Set

Game Date:  2/20/2023

Signings:
Atlanta signs RF Adrian Cisneros (no previous team), 3 yrs/$18.75m.
Barstow signs RF Jose Velasquez (no previous team), minor league contract.

The list of players available for the upcoming amateur draft is now available. 
Position Players
Pitchers

The draft order (ignoring traded draft picks) is as follows:

Hickory (57 wins)
Monck's Corner (60)
Atlanta (63)
Houston (68)
New York (70)
Antelope Valley (71)
Ohio (82)
Barstow (90)
Shackamaxon (91)
Brooklyn (96)
Seattle (Cecil Cup runner up)
Maui (Cecil Cup winner)

Next sim:  Thursday night

Need Battery Help? The Wolves have pitchers and a catcher available.

The Brooklyn Wolves are looking to make some changes and that means clearing out a few spare parts.

As it turns out, the two tradeable items that I have are starting pitching and a young, exciting catcher.

Let's start with the pitching:

First up, we have Antonio Cerda.  He can be used as a starter or in the bullpen.  He's 29, a southpaw and signed for this year at $1.8 and has one more arbitration year after this one.  Last year, he spent most of the year in the bullpen, putting together a record of 5-5, 3.77, 1.26 WHIP. 

We also have Sean Rice.  Rice is 26 and is making the league minimum.  He will be arbitration eligible after this season.  He was 13-4 last year, with a 5.52 ERA and 156 K.  He, too can be used in the rotation or in the bullpen (he came up as a reliever).

Another starter is Zhong Dee.  Dee is 28 and also pre-arbitration.  He's been in the bullpen the last two years, but that was only because of lack of room in the rotation. 

On the other end of the battery, we have Casimiro Lavasseur.  Lavasseur is 23, a first round selection in 2018.  A top prospect the last three years, Lavasseur has worked his way up the minor league ladder and is ready for the majors.  However, I have David Hamilton at the major league level and am prepared to stick with him (at least until Alexander Jones is ready for the majors). 

As for my needs  in return -- well, I could use prospects and draft picks. 

Feel free to send me an email. 

Zev

Sim's Done

Game Date:  2/13/2023

Signings:
Seattle signed P Osamu Ochi and P John Carlson ( both formerly of Monks Corner), minor league contracts.
Shackamaxon signed 2B John Lebouf (Houston), 1 yr/$750k.
Monks Corner re-signed OF Brian Frison, 1yr/$3.8m
Barstow signed RF Jose Velasquez (no previous team), minor league contract.

Next sim:  Wednesday evening.

Sim's Done... The Season Approaches

Game Date:  2/6/2023

Signings:
Ohio signed SS William Midkiff (Shackamaxon), 2 yrs/4m.
Hickory signed P Justin Fisher (Antelope Valley), minor league contract.
Shackamaxon signed 2B Uksem Majaliwa (Seattle), minor league contract.
Atlanta signed C Ramon Rivera (Shackamaxon), minor league contract.
Hickory signed P Dave Green (Barstow), minor league contract.
Ohio signed CF Liu-Chun Pi (Antelope Valley), 1 yr/$2.29m
Hickory signed P Myron Paine (Atlanta), minor league contract.
Atlanta signed C Duncan Reinhold (Barstow), minor league contract.
Shackamaxon signed C Henry Reid (Atlanta), minor league contract.

Next sim:  Monday, July 9.

Sim's Done

I could have *sworn* I updated the site after the last sim on Tuesday night, but apparently that wasn't the case.  I went to check the blog before I ran the next sim and noticed that my update wasn't there.  So, I didn't run a sim last night.  We'll go for Sunday.

Game Date:  1/30/2013

Signings (all to minor league contracts):
Shackamaxon signed P Andreas Manuel
Antelope Valley signed C Lloyd Rideout
Ohio signed P Thomas Demers
Houston signed 2B Huang Ning (previously with Seattle)

Next sim:  Sunday, July 7.