Sim Run

It's now January 27. 2025 in our imaginary world and we finally have our first major league contract signed this year. My team, in its attempt to throw every scrub pitcher out there in spring training to see if a decent staff can be assembled, has signed reliever Jeff King (formerly of Houston) to a one-year $540,000 contract.

Maui also extended starter Emilio Romero for three seasons. And... that's about it.

I'm off for a week (back on the 10th), so Zev will be taking back over the sims. I'm not sure what schedule he has in mind, so stay tuned for that.

The following  players are available Galvin /TAYLOR starting pitchers..Cabrales third base..would be interested in either prospects especially pitching but if not that is ok...if it takes a packages of 2 or 3 of these players  .....open to suggestions

Inauguration Day

I ran the sim bringing us to Monday January 20th, 2025. While the country stops to watch the 47th-ish President of the United States get inaugurated, the SDMB OOTP league is in the doldrums of the offseason.

Again, no major league contracts have been signed. Seattle signed a couple of relievers to minor league contracts, and Ohio signed an international amateur shortstop.

The league file has been uploaded, and the next sim by me will be on Thursday night.

Upcoming sim schedule

I'll be running the next two sims, which will take us close to the end of January 2025, and near the start of the pre-season (finally!).

The first of those sims will be tonight, and the second on Thursday night. Both sims will be run around 10pm EDT.

Also, please note that the 2025 amateur draft is currently not scheduled in the game. It's supposed to be on 3/1/2025, but it's not on the schedule yet. Zev will try to get that scheduled when the pre-season begins in early February.

Reports Updated!

I decided not to wait until the sim to update the league reports.

Signings:
Shackamaxon:  MR Jose Lopez (Ohio), 1 yr/$540k
Maui:  2B Fransisco Perez (London), 2 yrs/$1.6m

Also, with the turning of the calendar page, a number of former players have decided to hang 'em up for good.  Among those we say goodbye to are:

• SP Jefferey Brunton (2011-24) who retires with a record of 125-108 and an ERA of 4.18
• Los Angeles/Shackamaxon SP Elder Guzman (2015-23), who racked up 83 wins against 73 losses in his career.  Despite his low career win total, he did have two seasons with 15 or more victories.
• 2B Julian Arenas (2013-14, 18-23).  Career .241 hitter with Hickory, Seattle and Cleveland/Atlanta.
• CF Armando "Rimfire" Cedeno (2009-23).  One of the earliest "big prospects" in the league, he was selected in the first round (10th overall) by Seattle.  For a four year stretch, from 2013 to 2016, he was one of the most feared hitters in the league.  However, he declined quickly and, by age 25, his best years were behind him.  He last played in 2023, appearing in three games for London at the age of 32.  He retires with a career line of .291/.375/.461 and 258 home runs.
• SP Pio Ramirez (2013-24).  Ramirez played eleven seasons in the bigs with a record of 116-109.
• CF Joseph Bevers (2010-23).  Bevers spent ten of his fourteen seasons with the Brooklyn Wolves, where he was known as a good hitter with some speed and pop in his bat.  He retires with a career average of .260, 113 home runs and 142 stolen bases.
• RP  Merlin Bohon (2009-23).  Spent his career with Seattle, Saskatoon and New York.
• 2B Billy Crmeans (2015-23).  .256 hitter with Houston and Ohio.
• RP Dalton Davis (2008, 10-24).  827 games, 158 saves.  Spent most of his career with Seattle.
• SP Allen Rueter (2011-22).  118-104, 3.80.  Won 21 games with Brooklyn in 2019.
• SP Thomas Brasfield (2011-24).  111-142, 4.55.  Went 19-9 with Ohio in 2019.
• SP Dario Lopez (2010-23), 152-149, 4.12.  
• SP Joseph Sterner (2016-23).  59-93, 4.77.
• CF Wayne Frederick (2015-23).  .257 hitter with Cleveland/Atlanta.

Happy New Years!

Game Date:  1/6/2025

I didn't have a chance to post the league reports... I'll do that after the next sim, which will be Thursday night.

Zev

Sim Run

It's December 30, 2024 and the league is as quiet as the nights are dark. The sim has been run, and no major league contracts were signed.

Next sim, taking us into 2025, will be on Tuesday night.

Sim Run (and an important trade note)

I'm pinch-hitting for Zev and ran the sim that brought us to December 23, 2024.

I processed the Seattle/Maui trade, as well as the Brick/Shackamaxon trade(s)*. There were no major league contracts signed in the past week

The next sim, taking us closer to New Years Day 2025, will be on Monday night.

* A note about the trade Fred and I did in this sim: You may note that the Lenape player heading to Brick is pitcher Joshua Stoker, and not infielder Matt Stokes. This was due to a massive communication screw-up between Fred and myself. Even though he originally asked for "Stokes" in email to me, and we even negotiated this trade in person at a Phillies game last weekend, Fred intended all along to trade for Joshua Stoker, not Matt Stokes.

So, after the announced deal was completed, Fred realized his/our mistake, and we re-worked the deal. Stokes was replaced by Stoker, Miguel Flores was added, as was Brick's 1st round pick, and closer prospect Carlos Placeres replaced Bernardo Franco.

The net result of the deal:

Shackamaxon sent Joshua Stoker, Miguel Flores, and a sixth-round pick to Brick for AAA CL Carlos Placeres, AA 2B Angel Rodriguez, A 3B Tzu-hsia Wang, and a first-round pick.

Needless to say, between this deal and my marriage two weeks ago to his daughter, Fred and I are quite "Stoked" about how things are going.

Rain Delay

I'm sorry, but I just got home a short time ago and it's too late to run the sim.  We'll try it again on Saturday night.

Zev

Seattle/Maui Trade

Maui has acquired LF Jesus Robles from Seattle in exchange for Maui's first round draft pick in the next amateur draft.

Sim's Done

Game Date:  12/16/2024

Signings:
Atlanta:  MR Billie Pfeiffer (Shackamaxon), minor league contract
Atlanta:  MR Oscar Avendano (Houston), 2yrs/$1.6m
Atlanta:  MR Eden Torres (Antelope Valley), 2yrs/$2m.

Hickory:  LF Sherman Evanoff (Shackamaxon), 1 yr/$2.2m
Hickory:  SP Christopher Hester (long time Seattle starter), 1 yr/$650k
Hickory:  RF Ramiro Ramirez (Shackamaxon), 2 yrs/$2.7m

Antelope Valley:  2B Ronald Quijada (Maui), 2 yrs/$55m (!)


Next sim:  Thursday night.

Shackamaxon/Brick trade

EDIT: Ignore the below text. Due to a communication error, Fred and I reworked the deal and it was announced here.

Frequent trade partners, division rivals, and, now, family members Fred Goldfarb and Michael Weintraub have another trade to announce.

"We have agreed to do a three-for-one prospect swap with Brick," Weintraub, the GM of Shackamaxon announced. "Fred really wanted Matt Stokes back."

Stokes was originally acquired by the Lenape from Brick back in 2022 for Ignacio Lopez, and quickly rose through the Shackamaxon minor league system, getting a chance to start for the big league team during the playoff chase last season. It was that experience that caused Goldfarb to give up three prospects in exchange for Stokes.

"We had minor league depth to deal," Goldfarb explains.

The Lenape receive three prospects in exchange for Stokes and a 6th round pick: AA closer Bernardo Franco, AA infielder Angel Rodriguez, and A infielder Tzu-Hsia Wang.

"We needed infield depth in the low minors, and Franco will be our closer at AAA Arizona Bay," Weintraub explained. "We had hoped Stokes would be our third baseman of the future, but now we're hoping that Wang can rise through the minors and give us more power from the corner infield position."

New Version

There is a new version of OOTP available.  Please upgrade to the new version (15.4.19) before the next sim.  If you've already sent in your update, I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to resend it after the update.

In order to give everyone some time, I'm going to push the next sim off until Tuesday evening.

Zev

Sim's Done

I ran the sim last night, but the report upload didn't finish until late.

Next sim:  Sunday night.

Trade: Seattle and Ohio

In a trade that involved a few moving parts, things turned out to be surprisingly simple in the end.

The Ohio Buckeyes have acquired AA 3B Tae-sang Pak and ML CL Robert Riddick from Seattle in exchange for ML 1B Masahide Ueda and recent first pick in the Rule 5 Draft SP Brian Harrington.

With the Buckeyes boasting the league's worst bullpen last year, rumor has it that Riddick will have no problem keeping the closer job for the foreseeable future. "I'm pretty sure his arm would have to literally fall off for him to lose the job" said one disgruntled (but now slightly more excited) fan. Pak will be slotted in at 3B for the Ohio AA affiliate, with the hopes of boosting the major league infield in a couple of years

Ueda heads to Seattle to become the best pinch hitter and backup 1B in the league. His desire to be in the starting lineup will likely now be outweighed by a realistic chance at a ring (which he was never going to find in Ohio). Harrington, a former Monarch, managed to fly thousands of miles to New York and then, by magic (maybe he followed the sun?), found his way back home to Seattle.

Rule V Draft Completed

Game Date:  Dec 2, 2024

I would like to offer my heartiest congratulations to both Michael and Fred on the marriage of Michael to Fred's daughter, Jen.  May the bride and groom have many happy years together. 

In other news, the Rule 5 Draft has been completed.  The results were:

Ohio:  SP Bryan Harrington (New York), RF Ed Weber (London)
Atlanta:  3B Mike Brown (Brick)
Hickory:  2B Alberto Andres (Seattle)
Shackamaxon SS Robert Roberts (Brooklyn)
Brooklyn:  SP Timothy Conroy (Atlanta) -- I'd be surprised if this isn't the oldest RVD pick in league history.

Next sim:  Thursday evening.

Shackamaxon/Brick deal

The Shackamaxon Lenape and Brick Barracudas have an unusual deal to announce:

In exchange for their fifteenth round pick in the upcoming amateur draft, the Lenape, and in particular its GM, Michael Weintraub, are pleased to acquire Brick's GM Fred Goldfarb's daughter, Jennifer (and $1 cash).

Jennifer will immediately join the Shackamaxon Lenape family and given the title of GM's Wife, overseeing the day-to-day aspects of the Weintraub family.

Ohio Trading Block

I managed to deal one of of my 3 starting-caliber 1Bs last year, so here's hoping I can work my way down to 1 before the end of this offseason. Since I seriously doubt that anyone will take Travis Sparrow and the $50MM+ left on his contract over the next 3 years, that leaves Masahide Ueda and his 1 year/$7.5MM contract on the block

After averaging almost 6 WAR per season in his first 4 seasons, Ueda was benched for the since-traded Luis Rodriguez in 2023 and had a down year off the bench. He returned to the starting lineup in 2024 and bounced back, but was hurt by a BABIP 50 points below his career average (.283 last year, .332 over his career). With a return to the mean, he should again be among the leaders in nearly every offensive category to go along with Gold Glove defense (2 in the last 3 years).

If you're looking for an upgrade or just need to bridge the gap until a top prospect is ready, drop me a line. All trade offers will be considered.

Sim's Done: Rule 5 Draft Is Here!

Game Date:  Dec 1, 2024

The Rule 5 draft is upon us.  Please upload your draft selections (or email them to Michael AND myself if you're unsure/unable to do so).

The draft will be held on Tuesday.  This will give people enough time to research some draft picks and give Michael a chance to not have to check the game over this weekend.  :)

Zev

Next Sim

As Michael noted, the Rule 5 draft is coming up.  Please make sure to add any players you want to protect to your 40 man roster.

The next sim will be on Thursday night and will take us up to the Rule 5 draft.

Zev