NT MLB Redraft Thread: May standings posted!

アミーゴ アミーゴ is on the clock until 3:23 PM ET.

Jewbacca reminded me about add/drop of players. I'll leave that open until next Friday as well. Just try not to be a pain in the *** and send me all your info and then decide you wanna switch it all up by adding/dropping a bunch of players. I mean, I'll still do it but I'll just be a **** about it :lol
 
I think he called kdawg a trolling mod, which is funny because I think everyone in ST has said something worse about ska or AT :lol
Title aside, @DarthSka brings the heat with WNBA. One of the lesser appreciated facets of professional sports.

I know many disagree with@Animal Thug's NBA opinions, but I can only vouch for him on the strength of his major help with food and drink recommendations when I visited the city of Cleveland in August.
 
Corey Kluber SP Age 28
Garrett Richards SP Age 26
Jake Arrieta SP Age 28
Kris Bryant 3B Age 22
Andrelton Simmons SS Age 24
Joey Gallo 1B Age 20
Jackie Bradley Jr. RF Age 24
Juan Lagares CF Age 25
Henry Owens SP Age 22
Carlos Rodon SP Age 21
Scooter Gennett 2B Age 24
Miguel Sano DH Age 21
Rene Rivera C Age 31 (freakin old dude)
Ender Inciarte LF Age 23
Jonathan Gray RP Age 22
Neil Ramirez RP Age 25
Zack Cozart SS/2B Age 29
Eduardo Escobar 2B/SS/3B Age 25
Will Smith RP Age 25
Yonder Alonso LF/1B Age 27
Christian Bethancourt C Age 23
Justin Grimm RP Age 26
Brian Matusz RP Age 27
Brad Brach RP Age 28
Jake Smolinski OF Age 25

Very easy to see my team, and see what I was doing. Even picking at 18, I was able to do EXACTLY what I wanted, even tho I did miss out on a couple pieces I wanted to include. But that’s understandable, as you guys are drafting too of course.

My intent, clear. Pitching and defense. And I amassed the best of both.

Kluber, Richards, Arrieta is the best 1-2-3 in the redraft. All 3 had tremendous seasons this year, and would have been even better if Richards didn’t hurt his knee. :{

And as for defense well, :lol I cleaned up there. Plus defenders at C, SS, 3B, CF, RF, and LF, with another top 5 defender on my bench, who I would switch to 2B late in games to really lock down the diamond. Without including Bryant, who will appear next year, I have 6 of the top 20 defenders in all of baseball, all on one team. Including 4 of the top 12.

I literally combined dominant pitchers, with dominant defenders. Guys that aren’t used to having elite defenses behind them, now will.

As for offense, again, real clear what I sought out. Power/balance/youth. Bryant/Gallo/Sano combined for 120 home runs in their last minor league seasons. Top power hitters in the minors. Minor League player of the year in Bryant, and Gallo was right behind him. In front of them, I put a .300 hitting guy in Gennett, also part of the balance.

My theoretical lineup would look like so….

Lagares R
Gennett L
Bryant R
Gallo L
Sano R
Inciarte L
Rivera R
Bradley Jr L
Simmons R

Righty/lefty throughout the entire lineup. Even with having to play a little small ball at the end of the lineup, I’d at least be able to keep bullpens honest with matchups. I could manufacture enough to get a bloop and a blast and squeeze out another run or so to get 3-4 runs a night. With my staff, and my defense, gonna be hard to get 5 runs against me per night. More often than not, I’ll come out ahead.

And that’s just safe projections. If Bryant, Gallo, Sano, Bradley, Inciarte, Simmons all improve just a little, my lineup gets that much stronger than it looks.

Bryant has 52 homers and 142 RBI in 174 Minor League games.
Gallo has 104 Homeruns in 2.5 Minor League seasons. 246 RBI in 296 games.
Sano has 90 Homeruns and 291 RBI in 379 Minor League games, starting as a 17 year old.

Totaled for the 3 of them, that’s 246 homers, 679 RBI, in just 849 Games.

Bullpen is a lot like my lineup. Balanced, power. Ramirez, Smith, Grimm, Matusz, Brach, Gray, R, L, R, L, R, R power arms. With the same elite defenders behind them. None older than 28. Four of them younger than 26. Fresh arms. Gray could eventually move into the starting rotation or handle long relief/spots starts when needed.

I handled everything. Top end pitching. Defense. Power. Bullpen. Balanced lineup and pen. Long relief. Youth. Depth.

The one thing I truly lacked was overall basepaths speed, which leads me to who I missed. I had wanted to nab Billy Hamilton to secure a leadoff/stolen base threat, while also playing solid defense. I would have nabbed him over Bradley Jr in right.
I also wanted Soler for an additional power bat + youth + arm to put in LF.
I had targeted Weiters as my Catcher, with him being injured, I was just about to pull the trigger. Also a switcher hitter, and a gold glover to keep with my balance and defense theme.
Jon Lester. I wanted Kluber/Lester to form a dominant Righty/Lefty 1-2 punch, when he came off, I went Richards, nabbed Arrieta as my 3, and then went with two young Lefties to balance out my starting 5. Ownens and Rodon are as safe as they come, and will be ready in 2015. Their improvement or even just showing who they can be in time, would give me the best starting staff in this re-draft.

Those 4, Hamilton, Soler, Weiters, and Lester are really the only players I missed out on that I had targeted. At 18, I of course had no shot at Kershaw, Trout, Felix, etc. Still, getting Kluber at 18 who had the second best WAR in the majors is pretty damn great.

Kluber 34 GS, 235.2 Inn, 207 H, 64 ER, 14 HR, 51 BB, 269 K’s, 2.44 ERA, 2.35 FIP, 1.09 WHIP, 18-9 7.3 WAR
Richards 26 GS, 168.2 Inn, 124 H, 49 ER, 5 HR, 51 BB, 164 K’s, 2.61 ERA, 2.60 FIP, 1.03 WHIP, 13-4 4.4 WAR
Arrieta 25 GS, 156.2 Inn, 114 H, 44 ER, 5 HR, 41 BB, 167 K’s, 2.53 ERA, 2.26, 0.99 WHIP, 10-5 4.9 WAR

Ramirez 50 G, 43.2 Inn, 29 H, 7 ER, 2 HR, 17 BB, 53 K’s, 1.44 ERA, 2.61 FIP, 1.05 WHIP, 3-3 3 SV, 0.8 WAR (closer)

Defensive Rankings on the year
Simmons #1 22.4
Lagares #3 20.4
Cozart #6 19.5
Bradley Jr #12 17.5
Inciarte #18 14.9
Rivera #20 14.8
Bryant (Minors)

Pro, late in games, I would move Cozart to 2B for Gennett to max my late inning defense. Other than that, no real changes needed defensively.

Basically, in any series, 3 games, 5 games, or 7 games, I have the Aces to match anybody. I can hold any lineup with my staff. Add to that the best defensive team in this redraft, and scoring runs on me will not be easy. Note, my main 3 guys have better FIPs than actual ERA’s, now give them the best defense in baseball, it could get even better. My staff can pitch to contact and let the defense operate, or they can handle it themselves with strikeouts, plenty of them. Also note, 24 home runs allowed in 561 innings. That’s one home run allowed every 23 innings, or roughly, one every three games. In a 5 game series, they might allow one home run. 2 in a 7 game series, just on average. I’m not positive, but I’m willing to bet that’s the best ration in this redraft. Owens and Rodon are basically to balance my staff, so it’s not too righty dependent. Owens especially is ready to go, he might have come up if the Red Sox were in better position this year, but like Bryant with the Cubs, no need to start their clocks early.

I’m pretty sure I’ll get docked for the youth on my roster, but Owens, Rodon, Gray, Bryant, Gallo, Sano are top of the food chain players. As in best of the best in the Minor Leagues. My starting staff, bullpen, and defense would already keep me in any series, this collection of young studs is merely the future and upper ceiling I would need to push over the edge and complete the mission that would be winning the World Series. In a sense, I took Theo’s approach he is incorporating in Chicago, and tweaked it my way. Theo has gone bat heavy first, building up plus defenders, and then will build a staff. I built the staff, plus defenders, and then added the young bats last. And as any baseball fan knows, starting pitching, bullpen, and defense will keep you in ANY series to begin, as my bats develop, that’s when you will see the jump in my overall team. Check the rating scales for these 6. Bryant and Sano have 75 Power. Gallo 80. Gray has an 80 fastball. Rodon has a 70 Slider. Owens is a 6-6 Lefty, and dominated at Triple A this year. He’s the LOWEST of these players, and is currently ranked 24th of all prospects in baseball. He’s my “worst” one. The highest rated prospect right now is Buxton, who is a 75. Bryant is a 70, Gallo a 65, Sano a 65, Gray a 65, Rodon and Owens are 60’s. All of em are big kids. Bryant is 6-5, Gallo is 6-5, Sano 6-4, Gray is 6-4, Owens 6-6 and Rodon is the little guy at 6-3. Youth, and power. All of em. (tho Owens is a little more crafty than powerful)

Best collection of pitching.
Best collection of defense.
Best collection of youth/elite minor league system to infuse into the team.

My biggest weakness is a true basestealing threat which is why my biggest miss is probably Billy Hamilton. I would have loved to have him batting first, switch hitter, plus defender in right, but, it should be noted, he doesn’t even have a .300 OBP, so while dangerous on the bases, he doesn’t exactly get on the bases at will either. The player I use instead, Juan Lagares, is just a year older than Hamilton, does have 13 steals, has a higher batting average, higher OBP, and a higher OPS+ and a higher WAR. So while I “missed” out on him, I didn’t exactly fail finding a suitable replacement who could still develop in his own right, tho not the pure base threat Billy is.

Cub bias.
I expect to get knocked for “too many” Cubs. Well, take a look at the 3 prominent ones I grabbed. Arrieta, who took 4 or 5 no hitters into the 7th inning this year. A dominant Ace type, who is my #3 starter. Kris Bryant, the unanimous Minor League player of the year, and the crown jewel of all the Cub prospects. And Neil Ramirez, who will be my closer. Take a look at his year. He gave up 1 ER thru May. 2 ER in June. 0 in July. 1 in August. He had a 0.94 ERA on September 5th, before he gave up 3 ER’s the rest of September to “raise” his ERA to 1.44. He gave up 2 Home Runs on the year, in 44 innings, yet another arm that falls in line with my 3 starters only allowing one home run every 23 innings, Ramirez would be 1 every 22.

Justin Grimm is the 4th Cub I took, a middle reliever, power arm, 70 K’s in 69 innings, but he was a late bloomer that the Cubs figured out late in the year. Early he struggled in long relief, etc, once they settled the pen, Grimm started to throw great. He gave up 5 ER in his final 26 innings. His ERA dropped over a full run. He had 28 K’s and 3 walks in that span. His overall season numbers don’t look good, but once the first year manager learned all his pieces and got them in position, Grimm started to SHINE. I took him as a 7th inning guy, which is where he started to flourish. No one can blame me for Arrieta, Bryant, or Ramirez, if you want to knock me for Grimm, that’s fine.

Soler is the only Cub I missed out on that I truly wanted. And Pro knows, I thought about Castillo as a Catcher, but did not like his pitch framing stats, so I went away from him, even tho I took the oldest player on my roster in Rivera. So I was not here to just collect Cubs. I took the ones that mattered.


So while not all may agree my team is the best, I am willing to hear anyone suggest that my staff and defense would not keep me in each and every series I would be in. And that my prospects, while still prospects, are not the best of the bunch, and would infuse a great deal of talent to my roster in 2015 and beyond. Add it all up, my biggest "weakness" may be the youth of my lineup. But those same owners still need to hit the ball against me, and my team just won't allow much of that, so......

My bench, Cozart can back up 2B/SS and is a top 5 defender in baseball, Escobar can cover the middle spots as well as 3B. Alonso I can use as a corner OFer, or 1B. Bethancourt is a premier defensive catcher that can spell the older Rivera. And Smolinski is a 5th OFer and decent bat so far in his first taste of the bigs. Escobar and Alonso can bat from the left side, with the other 3 from the right side, with Escobar being a switch hitter. As with everything, fleibility, versatility, youth, and balance. And even 2 of these 5 are premier defenders. :hat

That said, tip of the cap to Proshares, and to the other 28 owners, this was awesome, and job well done by everybody. Hope we can keep the sims movin for the next year or two as we all watch our teams/players grow and compete. :Nthat

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Good write up CP :hat

Looking back at my squad I approached this thing all wrong knowing how I like to place a high priority on pitching. At 19 my staff could've been way better than this :lol :{ Tried to make up for it with the pen with some innings eaters.

Probably a bottom 3rd team. Salute to the GMs this was pretty good.
 
Was hoping to get my final pick today but I'll have to wait till tomorrow.....taking off to pound a few and watch the games.

Thanks once again P proshares for setting this up and maintaining it :Nthat

Honorable mentions to the homies @CaptainSneakerhead23 & do work son do work son for picking up those teams on the fly and running with them :Nthat

Let's get this sim started!!
 
Trying to decide between utility infielders for this last pick is about the hardest decision I have had to make in this thing. :lol

Deciding on Daniel Descalso.
 
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