Day 1; The Coaches Clean Up

As commissioner, I will give my professional opinion on coach signings in this game: it has gone nuts!! I suppose we'll find out how well spent Los Angeles' $15 million per year is...

Here are today's coach signings:

Brooklyn: Minors Manager Sean Coursey, $550,000 per year, for 3 years.
Brooklyn: Hitting Coach Mitchell Pleasant, $600,000 per year, for 3 years.
Denver: Scout Darren Simpson, $360,000 per year, for 3 years.
Hickory: Pitching Coach Richard Limones, $900,000 per year, for 3 years.
Los Angeles: Pitching Coach Samuel Dibble, $5,000,000 per year, for 5 years.
Los Angeles: Minors Manager George Feldman, $3,000,000 per year, for 3 years.
Los Angeles: Minors Manager Keith Bickel, $4,000,000 per year, for 3 years.
Los Angeles: Minors Manager Roger Ku, $3,000,000 per year, for 3 years.
Saskatoon: Minors Manager Daniel Reedy, $700,000 per year, for 2 years.
Saskatoon: Hitting Coach Oscar Vandenbosch, $1,200,000 per year, for 3 years.
Seattle: Hitting Coach William Kroeker, $2,250,000 per year, for 5 years.

Day 2 bids are due by Monday Night

Just a quick note

Due to the holiday of Sukkot, I am going to be out of touch from tonight until Saturday night when I do the sim.

Zev

First Trade of 2011 Is A Washington-Only Affair

Seattle Monarchs Owner/GM Mack Shultz announced a trade with their Washington State brethren, the Walla Walla Federal Duck, kicking off the 2011 trading season. Seattle sent veteran reliever Mark Deschamp to Walla Walla in exchange for minor league reliever Allen Rueter.

"Mark has been a huge part of our success over the last two and a half seasons. He's generally been the key right-handed set-up guy and has been a rock we could always depend on," said Shultz. "We're going to miss his presence out there. But, we have a couple of young kids that we think are ready to pitch for us in an expanded role this season and we need to give them that opportunity."

Shultz was referring to Merlin Bohon, Wesley Elton, and Harry Johnson, all three of whom are considered good prospects. Bohon has pitched in the majors for parts of the last two seasons, compiling a 5.24 ERA. Elton posted a 3.72 ERA in limited action down the stretch last season. Johnson pitched an unimpressive 5.1 innings for Seattle in 2009 but spent all of 2010 in AAA Tacoma.

"We think that Rueter can be a part of our future," Shultz explained. "We really like his live arm and think he can be converted into a starter. We expect him to join the Tacoma rotation and be competing for a major league job in a year or two."

"I've liked my time in Seattle, but it will be good to get back to Walla Walla," said Deschamp, who was reached while on vacation in Barbados. "I really enjoyed my time there. Have you tasted those Walla Walla onions? They make a fantastic French Onion soup."

Deschamp, 35, has one year remaining on his contract. He was an original draftee of the Walla Walla franchise (then based in Kingston) and spent his career with them until a deadline deal in 2008 brought him to Seattle. He then re-signed with Seattle as a free agent in the 2009 offseason. Deschamp has a career 3.28 ERA, going 63-44 with 88 saves.

Welcome to 2011!!

Wow! I can't believe we're starting our tenth season!!

Please be sure to have your first day's coach offers in to me by Saturday night.

Just as a reminder, all the scouts are going to be set to "Average," so don't overspend on them.

Zev

Newbie alert! Any advice welcome.

Hi guys,

Michael Henderson, new owner of the Denver team here (is it possible to change the location?).

While i've grown into a big baseball fan in my 6+ years in the US, and can talk quite knowledgably about the game itself, one aspect of it that i've never followed very closely is the intricacies of the player market, such as trades, drafting, waivers, Rule 5, etc., etc. Each season, i basically ignore that aspect of MLB. I'm really looking forward to playing in the OOTP league, but i think it's going to be a steep learning curve for me.

I've been looking over my free agents and trying to decide who to keep, and hopefully i've made some decent decisions, but if anyone has any general advice i'd be happy to hear it. Especially regarding how to decide how much to offer each player. How does the bidding work on free agents, if more than one team is interested? And do i get preferential treatment in re-signing my own free agents, or is it a free-for-all in which i compete equally with everyone else?

Also, i'm not quite sure how the issue of money works in the game. I've installed OOTP 6.5 and have been looking around in the program (i don't yet have a password, so i can't actually change settings for my team), and it's not clear to me how i determine just how much money i have to spend on players.

Also, are all trades proposed and agreed to over email? Or is this also done within the program interface? And is there a general schedule of events (signing of free agents, draft, etc.)?

Sorry for all the questions, but i really want to get into this and do it properly, so if you can help me work this stuff out, i'd be most appreciative. And if there's a general rules page or something online, please point me in the right direction. Looking forward to playing.

cheers,
michael.

Apparently, there is a bug in the game's scoring...

Pinch runners don't get credited with a game played.

Zev

Traded Draft Picks for 2011

To the best of my knowledge, the only traded draft pick so far is the Saskatoon 2nd round pick, traded to Danville as part of the Ramsey for Satterlee deal.

If anyone is aware of any other traded draft picks, please let me know.

Zev