Relievers. Who are they? What do they do? Until one bright spring day in 1993, nobody knew the answers to these simple questions. Then, MLB scientists made a breakthrough in their labs in the bowels of the Astrodome, and Mariano Rivera sprung forth from his mother’s womb fully formed and sawed off Jason Giambi. But the question they couldn’t answer is ‘what is the best season ever by a reliever?’. At the time, the technology was simply not expansive enough to begin delving into this question. Now, thanks to huge leaps in science, we can finally answer something that has plagued the minds of man since the dawn of humanity.
Now, clearly, the answer is Francisco Rodriguez, since he’s the single season save leader and that’s the best stat to measure relievers by. But let’s ignore that.
You can just look up which reliever has the most WAR in a single season, which is 1975 Goose Gossage by bWAR (8.2!?!?!) or 1977 Bruce Sutter by fWAR (5.2). The reason for this difference is because BaseballReference uses runs allowed to calculate bWAR, and FanGraphs uses FIP to calculate fWAR. Since relievers pitch such small sample sizes, there’s often a large gap between their FIP and their runs allowed (RA). Since we’re looking at the best season, and not the best player, I’m going to use bWAR (and thus RA) for this exercise.
(If you don’t know what FIP is, it stands for Fielding Independent Pitching, which looks at only the outcomes of at-bats which are solely between the pitcher and the batter - home runs, walks, and strikeouts. These stats are thrown together and then given a normalizing factor so that the average league FIP matches the average league ERA. FIP is a wonderful predictive tool, to the point where it is more predictive of a pitcher’s ERA next year than a pitcher’s ERA is. I’d rather not use it here because it doesn’t look at the actual results - if I was trying to find the best reliever, and not the best season, then I’d use FIP.)
Using a simple value added stat is incredibly biased towards 1970’s middle relievers who would throw 100+ innings in a year, though. WAR is a counting stat, so the more they pitch, the more they rack up. What about bWAIP? One BBRef search later, and I have this table.

Player	bWAR	bWA100IP	IP	Year	Tm
Ted Abernathy	6.2	5.84	106.1	1967	CIN
Steve Mingori	3.3	5.87	56.2	1971	CLE
Michael Jackson	3.8	5.94	64.0	1998	CLE
Bruce Sutter	6.5	6.07	107.1	1977	CHC
Jose Mesa	3.9	6.09	64.0	1995	CLE
Zack Britton	4.1	6.11	67.0	2016	BAL
Mariano Rivera	4.3	6.13	70.2	2008	NYY
John Hiller	7.9	6.31	125.1	1973	DET
Terry Fox	3.7	6.38	58.0	1962	DET
Jonathan Papelbon	5.0	7.34	68.1	2006	BOS

This is the top 10 relief seasons by bWA100IP, minimum 45 IP. This is a fairly tight pack all the way up until the final entry, where Papelbon’s 2006 leads by near 1bWA100IP. This seems like a good candidate for the best relief year ever.
(Interestingly enough, Bill James’ list of the 100 best reliever seasons ever, written in 2007, doesn’t include Jonathan Papelbon’s 2006 season. Joe Nathan’s 2006, where Nathan pitched the same number of innings and had a much worse ERA, made the list at #27. This is a reminder that Bill James is a fallible human being.)
So, if your criteria for best year by a reliever is bWA100IP, then the best option, by far, is Jonathan Papelbon. But before we look at the other options, here’s why Papelbon’s season was the best.
There have been nine reliever seasons (min. 40 IP) with a lower ERA than Papelbon’s 2006 0.92. Why aren’t they higher in bWAIP?

Player	WAR	IP	ERA	Year	Tm	R	ER
Zack Britton	4.1	67.0	0.54	2016	BAL	7	4
Joey Devine	1.9	45.2	0.59	2008	OAK	7	3
Fernando Rodney	3.7	74.2	0.60	2012	TBR	9	5
Dennis Eckersley	3.3	73.1	0.61	1990	OAK	9	5
Rob Murphy	2.5	50.1	0.72	1986	CIN	4	4
Rich Gossage	2.3	46.2	0.77	1981	NYY	6	4
Blake Treinen	4.1	80.1	0.78	2018	OAK	12	7
Bill Henry	2.5	52.0	0.87	1964	CIN	9	5
Dennys Reyes	2.2	50.2	0.89	2006	MIN	8	5
Jonathan Papelbon	5.0	68.1	0.92	2006	BOS	8	7

To begin with, bWAR uses RA for its calculations, which uses both earned and unearned runs. Dennys Reyes, Bill Henry, Blake Treinen, Rich Gossage, Fernando Rodney, Dennis Eckersley, and Joey Devine all had more RA/IP in their respective seasons. (The difference between their ERA and their bWAIP isn’t solely explained by this, but it’s good enough for now. We’ll get to that in a moment). This leaves 1986 Rob Murphy and 2016 Zach Britton. Why don’t they stack up?
The answer is a little thing I’d like to call ‘run environment’, which is encapsulated by BaseballReference’s stat RA9Avg. It takes what an average pitcher’s run allowed/9 innings (RA/9) was that year, and then adjusts it for park factors, for the defense, and for who that specific pitcher faced. If a pitcher had a relatively high run environment, it means he would be pitching in batter’s parks, faced tough opponents, had a bad defense behind him, etc. For a perfectly average pitcher, their RA/9 will match their run environment.
For Murphy, his run environment was 4.11. For Britton, it was 4.32. For Papelbon, it was a whopping 5.00. This makes a huge difference - Papelbon may have gotten slightly worse results, but he was starting from a much more difficult positions.
For another good way to illuminate the differences run environments can cause, I can bring up one of my favorite WAR comparisons! In 1965, Jim Maloney equalled Sandy Koufax in bWAR (and surpassed him if you count batting WAR) despite throwing 80 fewer innings with an ERA 0.50 higher. How did he do this? Simple. Sandy Koufax played in cavernous Dodger Stadium with a strong Dodger defense behind him, and so had a run environment of 3.49 RA/9. Jim Maloney, pitching at batter-friendly Crosley Stadium with a poor Reds defense behind him, had a run environment of 4.34, 0.85 more than Koufax. Since Maloney is expected to give up far more runs than Koufax and only gives up somewhat more runs, he has a large bWAIP lead.
Run environment is 99% of the explanation behind ‘why does WAR give this weird result?’ questions.
Most of the best reliever seasons by ERA have relatively a low run environment - after all, good defense and a friendly park factor really helps a reliever keep the runs down. Fernando Rodney had a run environment of 3.72 in his 0.60 ERA season, because he pitched at the Tropicana and had the Rays defense behind him. Mariano Rivera consistently had a high run environment (career average of 4.72) due to pitching in Yankee Stadium with horrible, horrible, horrible Yankees defenses behind him going against tough AL East opponents. He never had that ‘lucky’ season with a sub-1 ERA, which would likely have put him on this list. He has to live with the stigma of simply being the greatest reliever of all time, unfortunately. Papelbon had an incredible season in a run environment that was incredibly ill-suited for having an incredible season, so his bWAIP is leaps and bounds ahead of anyone else.
So is Jonathan Papelbon’s 2006 the greatest single season by a reliever ever? Well, maybe. Pound-for-pound, it certainly is. But some relievers can pound more often than others, even if they're not pounding quite as hard. Should 70’s and 80’s relievers be penalized for being slightly worse in twice as many innings as Papelbon? John Hiller’s 1973 is a good candidate if you prefer quantity over quality - 7.9 bWAR in 125 innings in relief. Of course, you can flip it around - why penalize Papelbon for pitching less when relievers of that era were expected to pitch less? With the bWAIP, it’s safe to say Papelbon was more dominant in his role than Hiller was in his.
Are there arguments for other pitchers and other seasons? Absolutely. Perhaps you prefer FIP for some reason - then you can probably give the nod to 2003 Eric Gagne, with 4.7 fWAR in 82 innings. I don’t think FIP works well for this type of analysis, because it doesn’t deal with actual results, but you do you. Perhaps you want to dive into BABIP and pick a season that wasn't as lucky - this seems like a fool's errand, since the best reliever seasons are all lucky ones.
Of course, if you believe the best ability is availability, the nod goes to Mike Marshall, who appeared in 106 (!?!) games for the 1974 Dodgers. His 2.42 ERA is tarnished somewhat by the 3.33 run environment at Dodger Stadium at the time, however. Marshall apparently still has very interesting ideas on training to be able to pitch that many innings, but no MLB training staff will let him near their pitchers for some reason.
Now, I know we’d all like someone else to have the best relief season ever in baseball - someone who didn’t attack teammates, someone who didn’t watch porn in the clubhouse, someone who doesn’t hit Manny Macha - ok, I’m fine with that one. But why couldn’t it have been someone like Eric Gagne, or Robb Nen, or Heathcliff Slocumb? I don’t think I’ve ever heard anything negative about those guys. Maybe it’s just time to move on, and let bygones be bygones.
As I understand, Papelbon is just 24 hours from picking a new team, so it’ll be exciting to see him back in the league. Hopefully, he doesn’t choke his comeback.

The report of this series’ death was an exaggeration. When will it stop? When I say. Which is not now. Anyway, If you don't know what this is, basically a bunch of players qualify for the Hall of Fame ballot (10 years in the MLB), but only a few make it on. This is thanks to a Screening Committee who screen who gets on by committee (wow who woulda guessed). Here we take a look at the people who got cut. I've done a couple more of these that you can check out at the bottom. On with the show.

Jason Marquis

Bill James Hall of Fame Monitor: 10
Career bWAR (15 years): 6.8 (4.3 w/o batting)
Stats: 124-118, 4.61 ERA, 93 ERA+, 377 G, 318 GS, 1968.1, 1174 K, 769 BB, 1.447 WHIP
League Leading Stats: Losses (16, 2006), Earned Runs (130, 2006), Home Runs Allowed (35, 2006)
Awards: All-Star (2009), Silver Slugger (2005), World Series Ring (2006)
Teams Played For: Braves (2000-03), Cardinals (2004-06), Cubs (2007-08), Rockies (2009), Nationals (2010-11), Diamondbacks (2011), Twins (2012), Padres (2013), Reds (2015)
Jason Marquis has one of the more intriguing Major League careers I've ever come across. In most cases, having 6.8 bWAR across your entire time in the league doesn't mean you regularly started MLB games for 15 years. But it appears Marquis, in addition to garnering staying power, got Luquis. Nope, didn't work. While he would have bad years, many times he’d have a good one or two right after. Thanks to an interestingly distributed amount of high highs and low lows, his overall career trajectory doesn’t resemble the normal gradual ascent and decline of a curve, but bears more similarities with an outline of a mountain range. Since he wasn’t on the ballot, we can take a look at all the stuff that happened. Did he deserve all the chances he got?
Marquis's career technically started after he got drafted, but I would be remiss if I ignored the time he pitched a no-hitter in the Little League World Series against Team Canada to secure third place. Anyway, Jason Marquis's career started after he got drafted. His 35th overall selection was by the Atlanta Braves, and a signing bonus of $600,000 led to him reneging his letter of intent to play college ball at Miami. It's fine, they made the College World Series for three straight years anyway. Marquis was touted as the best high school prospect out of his hometown of NYC since Manny Ramirez. The year before, Ramirez had been an All-Star, won a Silver Slugger, and finished 12th in MVP voting at the age of 23. No pressure kid. Oh, it's three years later and you haven't finished a season with an ERA below 4? Sounds like a bust to me. And at only 20 years old. Wait, you just started 6 games in high-A and allowed exactly 1 earned run while striking out 41? Okay maybe we spoke too soon. You can go to double-A. Marquis would only need one more year after that to prove his first three seasons were just tune-up years, even the one when he went 2-12. After a nice showing at AA at the beginning of 2000, the 89th-ranked prospect in all of baseball got called up to Atlanta in June to help in the bullpen. The call-up was courtesy of John Rocker threatening a reporter and the Braves telling him "no, you can't do that" by demoting him, so thanks John Rocker! Probably the first time that phrase has been said in a while. Marquis had been drafted as a starting pitcher, but the Braves of the 90s and early 2000s weren't exactly lacking in that department. His first appearance was in relief of Tom Glavine after a start against the Blue Jays got away from him, and it ended after one inning with Marquis delivering his first Major League strikeout against Shannon Stewart. The rest of his year would go rather sloppily, with a 6-run outing in late July punching his ticket to triple-A, and the September call-up that followed only really happening thanks to his prospect status. Thankfully, he did well enough the next spring training that it left no question as to where he'd start the season: on the Opening Day roster.
Marquis's 2001 season started when he was named the 92nd best prospect, slightly below where he was a year ago. Still, he was ready to go out and prove he could be better than whoever was 91st. What was their name, anyway? Some scrub no one remembers named Miguel Cabrera? Oh. Moving on, Marquis spent roughly half the year in the bullpen, with his first start came in May. Even with it being a spot start, you wouldn’t have known that after he hung up six innings of shutout pitching against the LA Dodgers, allowing just two hits and striking out five. What’s that? He was facing Kevin Brown who matched him blow for blow and finished the game with eight innings of nine strikeout greatness and the Braves lost on a walkoff Gary Sheffield home run? We can just ignore that bit. Marquis would finish the year as a member of the rotation, starting 16 games, the best of which was an 8-inning showing versus the Brewers where he struck out 13. Even showed up as a relief arm in the playoffs, finishing two NLCS games and allowing no earned runs. Four unearned ones, though. Braves lost that series to a five-year-old franchise from the desert, but they had hope for the future even as their pitching core was aging. Glavine, Maddux, and Smoltz were all over 35, though you wouldn't know it to look at their stats. Even so, Father Time is undefeated, so Atlanta had to find people to replace them. And in 2002, it seemed they had begun to do just that. Kevin Millwood, the 28-year-old established arm, would form a core of the future with the 25-year-old surprise named Damian Moss and the hotshot young gun, Jason Marquis. Or Glavine and Maddux could carry the rotation once again with ERAs under 3, Smoltz turned in a fantastic season in relief, Moss and Millwood could play third and fourth fiddle on the staff, and Marquis could put up an ERA of 5.04 and get demoted to AAA a couple times. Braves still made the playoffs again, but this time Marquis stayed home. Thankfully Atlanta still believed in him enough to keep him around, even after acquiring not one, not two, but three new rotation arms in Mike Hampton, Russ Ortiz, and Shane Reynolds. Unfortunately for Marquis, a move to the bullpen turned out to do the exact opposite of what it did for Smoltz. A 5.54 ERA, 18 walks to 19 strikeouts in 40.2 innings, and extended stays in triple-A was not what anybody wanted for him. Furthermore, after the "Chipper Jones in Left Field" experiment returned less-than-stellar results, his move back to third necessitated a new outfielder. When GM John Schuerholz learned former uber-prospect J.D. Drew was available from the Cardinals, he pounced, sending a package in return that consisted of relief pitcher Ray King, a guy no one remembers named Adam Wainwright, and the struggling, but promising, Jason Marquis. Little did Schuerholz know, Marquis had just hit the nadir of his Major League career's first valley, and a trade provided him with some climbing gear.
The 2004 Cardinals were very good. Very very good. On a scale from 1 to Good, they were, like, super good. When the heart of your lineup is Albert Pujols, Scott Rolen, and Jim Edmonds, all of whom had OPSes north of 1.000 and over 100 RBIs a piece, your team is really good. And thanks to an offseason move, the team had also found its new ace starting pitcher. Even if his 2002 and 2003 years left a lot to be desired, there was no question this was a guy who’d anchor the rotation for years to come. I am, of course, talking about Chris Carpenter. Jason Marquis was pretty good too. In his age-25 season, he put together a fantastic year, especially considering where his career had begun stats-wise. 15-7, 3.71 ERA, and 138 strikeouts slotted him as a serviceable enough number-2 starter. Even got a start in the NLDS, a start in the NLCS, and a start in the World Series. Sure he might have allowed 9 runs across those three starts but... let’s move on. One notable stat about Marquis takes the form of a slashline: .292/.297/.375. If you guessed that was his batting average allowed in some weird situation, you’d be wrong. Those mediocre hitting numbers were his. As a pitcher, Marquis’s rate stats were, across the board, better than Mike Matheny, his catcher. Thanks to a 21-for-72 year at the plate, Marquis added 0.7 oWAR to his year, and was actually more valuable by bWAR (3.1 with batting) than Chris Carpenter (2.8). Even as the Cardinals got swept in the World Series by the Red Hot Red Sox, St. Louis was clearly in a spot to compete for a while. A trade for Athletics starter Mark Mulder seemed to solidify that fact, and with a rotation consisting of Carpenter, Mulder, Marquis, Jeff Suppan, and Matt Morris, the Cardinals looked nice on the pitching front. Remind me how that offense was doing again? And they added Larry Walker to it at last season’s deadline did they? Heaven help the National League.
Even with a midseason injury to Scott Rolen, the Cardinals' 2005 offense still produced 805 runs on the year. Their starting pitching staff responded in kind, statrting all but two games, with the worst ERA among them being 4.13. It’s no wonder the team won 100 games. Speaking of starting pitchers, guess who had that 4.13 ERA? None other than Jason Marquis. He did lower his WHIP, but a 13-14 record and just 100 strikeouts in over 200 innings got him relegated to a bullpen role in the playoffs. But nobody cares about that. Everyone wants to know is how he did as a batter. Brace yourselves. In 2005, Jason Marquis batted .319/.326/.460 with a 103 OPS+. He accrued 1.1 oWAR off 27 hits, 10 for extra bases, including a home run off Wandy Rodriguez. Also, because Tony La Russa is an absolute madman, Marquis actually pinch-hit a couple times. He did so on not one, not two, but nine occasions, three of which ended in hits because nothing makes sense. Across 91 plate appearances, he only struck out eleven times. Guess who won the Silver Slugger that year. Close, it was Marquis. Oh his fellow Cardinals starter Chris Carpenter won the Cy Young? Absolutely nobody gives a hoot. Clearly, Marquis was destined for greatness in 2006, where he’d inevitably bat over .400 and hit 10 home runs. Or… maybe not. 14-for-78, enough for .179/.210/.256. Ouch. At least he made up for it with his pitching, right? Oh no. An ERA of 6.02, career high 75 walks given up, and the league leader in losses (16), home runs allowed (35), and earned runs allowed (130). Yeah, I don’t blame the team for leaving you off their playoff roster. At least you have those other two years to fall back on for arbit… that was your contract year? Well that sucks. And just like that, Jason Marquis was unemployed. However, once he got an offer, his career’s terrain would prove to be rising once again.
When it came to 2007 free agent signings, Marquis’s was not marquis. That’s a joke ladies and gentlemen. Due to his recent struggles, MLB Trade Rumors didn't mention his name in the top 50 free agents. Nevertheless, in mid-December, he accepted a 3-year, $21 million deal with the Chicago Cubs. Maybe they saw that outside two really bad starts that he suffered because of a tired bullpen, his ERA was actually 5.13. I still wouldn’t pay a starter with that ERA 7 mil a year, but hey what do I know. His next two seasons were remarkably pedestrian, going a whelming 23-18 with a cromulent ERA of 4.57 for an astoundingly regular ERA+ of 101. He even found time to strike out the incredibly middle-of-the-road total of 200 batters while walking a radically mediocre number of 146 batters. For you see, we’re experiencing a flat plain in his mountain range. Thanks to his gargantuan propensity for average performance on the mound, Marquis looked attractive to a team where ordinary pitching numbers were viewed as much more extraordinary: the Colorado Rockies. Appropriate. In January of 2009, the Cubs traded him there for relief pitcher Luis Vizcaino. Perhaps in Denver he’d experience a resurgence in his bat as well, since apart from three home runs, his .168/.193/.282 over the past two years was another perfectly average performance from a pitcher. Sadly, he’d only go 11-for-64, with a paltry 3 doubles accounting for all his extra base hits. Though that would remain the same, he experienced a resurgence in pracitcally everything else. In 2009, Marquis tied his best win total with a 15-13 record, assembled the second best ERA he’d had as a full-time starter at 4.04, got voted to the All-Star team for the first time in his career, and threw his hat in the ring for best pitcher on a Rockies staff that surprised many people. Add on the most recent Maddux by a Colorado Rockie (Rocky?), and you got yourself a real nice ascension to a peak. See Jason? That’s how you do a contract year. His 3.5 bWAR was the second highest total on a Colorado team that went to the playoffs, though they were quickly brushed aside in the NLDS by the defending champ Phillies. While Marquis would return to unemployment, he would do so with his head held much higher than last time. After all, he had just tied Sandy Koufax for the most consecutive seasons with at least 10 wins by a Jewish pitcher (6). By the way, Marquis is Jewish, and this is the first and last time I will mention that fact because if I talked about it anymore it would only be in the context of horrible jokes on account of me being a terrible person.
So whe he hit fre agency after 2006, Marquis didn't make MLB Trade Rumors' top 50. After this season, though? All the way up to… wait let me scroll down… number 30! Improvement baby! And yet, when the Nationals signed him to a two-year, $15 million deal, they apparently forgot what happens after a peak in a mountain range. The 2010 season saw Marquis get knocked out for close to four months with bone chips in his elbow. That or the diagnosis for “elbow shingles” got autocorrected to “elbow Pringles” and the doctors extrapolated. Even when he didn’t have Kellogg's-sponsored joint pain, Marquis was not effective on the mound. In 13 starts, he went 2-9 and allowed 43 earned runs while walking 24 in only 58.2 innings pitched. It also marked the first time he was on a team that didn’t finish the season in the playoffs. However, rather than releasing him and cutting their losses, the Nationals appeared to have some insight as to how he worked. Marquis was kept in the rotation for 2011, and rewarded Washington with 20 games started, an 8-5 record, and a 3.95 ERA. Even Madduxed Tim Lincecum and the Giants for good measure. He did so well the Nationals decided to trade him at the deadline to the surprisingly competitive Arizona Diamondbacks. 3 starts and 16 runs allowed later, a comebacker broke his leg and he was done for the season. With his range's recent dip below sea level, he was once again left off the top 50 free agents list, and a seven-start stint with the Twins that ended in late May of 2012 after an 8.47 ERA did him no favors. At this point, the only chance Marquis had would probably be a team that had nothing to lose picking him up. So, naturally, the day after he got let go in Minnesota, he accepted an offer from the San Diego Padres. A 6-7 record was fine, and a 4.04 ERA was much less impressive here than it was in Colorado, but that was enough of a climb from his previous valley for the Padres to bring him back. Not that it mattered, cuz, you know, 2012 Padres. What came back in a major way, though, was his hitting. Marquis’s 2012 season ended with him going .281/.303/.375 at the dish. All were his highest by far since he won the Silver Slugger. Pitching-wise, His next season wasn’t half bad either, finishing the year 9-5 in 20 starts. When it came to his other stats, talk about a plateau. His ERA went from 4.04 in 2012 to 4.05 in 2013. His strikeout total was 79 in 2012 and 72 in 2013. What did take a dip this time was, tragically, his bat. Just 5 hits in 43 plate appearances, a .119 batting average. He might have been able to improve it had he not elected to undergo Tommy John surgery that July. And unfortunately, that decision would more or less mark the end of Marquis’s landscape painting of a career, because it was all downhill from there. A minor league offer from the Phillies was accepted once he came back, but only 8 triple-A starts later he was gone again. The famously awful 2015 Reds gave him a shot, but after 34 earned runs in just 9 starts and 47.1 innings, even they saw the valley he was headed for, and bid him farewell. While he never officially retired, nobody’s offered him a contract for five years, so it’s relatively easy to say that his last mountaineering trip was to Old Man’s End Of A Baseball Career Gulch.
Jason Marquis is an anomaly. Practically nothing about his career was predictable. With a good long Major League experience like he’s had, it’s amazing all the stuff he’s packed in. Starting games for 9 different teams, getting a World Series ring after an awful season, finding out just how high and low his career can go, and so much more. Truly a fascinating ball player. Thing is, fascinating players don’t get on the ballot if they haven’t been consistently good. Nothing was consistent about Jason Marquis, so that’s not where he belonged. And who knows, maybe he comes back for one last hurrah, since from what I can tell, his retirement papers haven’t ever been officially submitted. Maybe he couldn’t find them after his vision was obscured by his massive schnoz. (There were gonna be a lot more big nose jokes before I found out he was Jewish, so to limit my cancelability I’m only doing one)
Jason Marquis would visit the Hall of Fame in a Cardinals hat for his 42-37 record, 334 strikeouts, and World Series Ring with the team. Preferably in a Rockies jersey and hiking boots to symbolize just how up-and-down his career was.
Hey remember all these guys? No? Well you can read about em anyway.
#1: Randy Choate
#2: Kevin Gregg
#3: Dan Uggla
#4: Josh Hamilton
#5: Delmon Young
#6: Willie Bloomquist
#7: Grady Sizemore
#8: Kevin Correia
#9: David DeJesus
#10: Rafael Betancourt
#11: Clint Barmes
#12: Adam LaRoche
#13: Grant Balfour
#14: Randy Wolf
#15: Rafael Soriano
#16: Chris Denorfia
#17: Bruce Chen
#18: Cody Ross
#19: Scott Baker
#20: Jeff Francis
#21: Aaron Harang
#22: Corey Hart

If you'd like to catch up on previous installments, you can do so here: Initial Setup, 2020 Season Report, 2021 Season Report, 2022 Season Report, 2023 Season Report
Let's take a look at the award winners from 2023 to wrap that year up and then get into the moves made and the season recap for 2024!

2023 Offseason News

League News:

• Scott Oberg wins the AL Reliever of the Year award, Detroit's Drew Carlton received votes. In the NL, Miami's Thomas Burrows wins the award.
• 1B Diego Maicon powers his way to the AL Rookie of the Year with 43 homeruns while SS Nasim Nunez's 30 stolen bases helps him take the NL trophy.
• Detroit's Casey Mize takes home the AL Cy Young Award, receiving all 32 first place votes. San Diego's Luis Patino was the NL's best offering and wins the award.
• Houston's Kyle Tucker unseats Mike Trout as the AL MVP with a stellar season for the Astros. In the NL, Cody Bellinger wins his third straight MVP and 4th in the last 5 years.

Detroit Achievements:

• Ke'Bryan Hayes wins his first Gold Glove at 2B.
• SP Casey Mize wins the AL Cy Young Award!

Offseason Transactions

Owner gave us a $4,000,000 budget increase, but we have some solid players coming off of minimums, so our scouting and development budgets will be going down from their max.
League News:

• 1B Matt Olson signs with the San Francisco Giants for $212,600,000 over 7 years.
• Reliever of the Year Scott Oberg, along with SP Carmen Mlodzinksi and $2,000,000 in cash are dealt to the Rockies for CF Garret Mitchell.
• The Chicago Cubs and White Sox complete a cross-town deal with RF Nomar Mazara going to the Cubs and SP Will Mercer and 2B Ryan Bliss going to the White Sox.
• Chicago Cubs sign SP Jose Quintana for $72,000,000 over 4 years.
• SP Luke Weaver is sent to the Rockies for a package of 3 prospects.
• Chicago Cubs sign SP Kyle Hendricks for $82,000,000 over 5 years.
• NPB star SS Hayato Sakamoto signs with the Texas Rangers for 4 years, $52,400,000.
• SP Noah Syndergaard is sent to the Cincinnati Reds for a package of 3 prospects.
• SP Blake Snell nets $18,800,000 a year for the next 5 seasons with the Boston Red Sox.
• 1B Max Muncy gets $82,000,000 over 4 years to head cross-town to the Angels.
• 3B Miguel Andujar signs with the Marlins for $10,000,000 a year for 4 years.
• The Giants pay SP Carlos Martinez $16,500,000 a year for the next 4 seasons.
• Kyle Schwarber nets $19,142,857 a year for the next 7 years with the Houston Astros.
• Cleveland Indians sign SP Dinelson Lamet to a 2 year deal worth $53,400,000.
• Max Kepler is signed by the Washington Nationals for 5 years at $92,900,000.
• No one is elected to the Hall of Fame. Gary Sheffield (40.1%/10th year) is removed from the ballot.

Detroit Departures:

• RP Bryan Garcia
• CF Albert Almora Jr.

Detroit Trades:
Trade #1 Detroit receives: 2B Marcus Chiu, RP Jack Little Los Angeles receives: RP Junior Fernandez, RP Brendan White
Fernandez didn't seem like he was going to make it back to the majors and was available as an auto-renew for 1M+, so I moved him for another reliever that I can take a chance on and a 2B prospect that looks ready for AAA and gives me some infield depth.
Trade #2 Detroit receives: RF Ismael Mena, 2B Jordy Barley, $750,000 San Diego receives: SS Vidal Brujan
Brujan wasn't very good for us last year and was super pissed about not being an everyday starter. I can't offer him that, but the Padres were willing to part with a decent middle infielder who will play in AAA and a RF prospect that I'm really excited to be adding to the team in Mena, with great personality traits.
Trade #3 Detroit receives: 3B Jordan Diaz Oakland receives: RP Blake Taylor
Taylor wasn't going to stick with the team after a down season and some regression, but Diaz looks like a solid piece for the future. He's 23, cost-controlled and already has a nice hitting profile. He'll start in AAA likely.
Detroit Additions:
OF Jairo Pomares - He was on the waiver wire to end the season and looks like a more than capable hitter. He's young and on a minimum, so I figured I'd take a flier on him.

Spring Training

We have $17,600,000 available for free agents/trades for the season, $12,000,000 set aside for the draft and $5,400,000 set aside for international amateurs. We're spending the maximum allowed on development again this year.
We used the spring to have Castro play 2B and Gold Glover Ke'Bryan Hayes play SS.
Detroits News:

• SP Matt Manning tore a back muscle and will miss four months.
• RP David McKay tears his rotator cuff and will miss 6 months.

Regular Season

First Half
We take an Opening Day win behind a nice outing from Casey Mize and hope to continue that momentum. We're projected to win 99 games and have three top pitchers, but I have my doubts - especially with Manning missing significant time. I normally don't note much about the second game, but it was Kumar Rocker's first start and he was stellar - 8 and a third innings, 1 run and 7 strikeouts - a good look for the rookie.
As we roll into May we sit at 18-14, five games back of the unstoppable Cleveland Indians. We started 5-0, but we've had some down stops as well. At 32-28 on June 1st, the team is now seven games back of the Indians and three games back of the wild card. We need some help. Sandy Alcantara goes back into the rotation, replacing a struggling Justin Dunn, while bullpen roles get shifted as well. Ke'Bryan Hayes has been incredibly unlucky at the plate with a .222 BABIP, resulting in a .187 batting average. We'll give him another month to sort it out, but we move Evan White to CF and bring Riley Greene into the starting lineup to spell a struggling Parker Meadows. We bring up Jonathan Bowlan and David Parkinson, sending down Alex Lange and Drew Carlton to AAA.
2024 Draft
Another low pick for us, this year we spend the 27th on SP Doug Wade in the 1st round. We double-down on pitching in the 2nd with Kevin Abbs. We grab a SS that looks like a future gold glover in the third in Jeff Allemand. Left fielder Mike Gode is next on the merit of his bat. In the fifth it's center fielder Jim Longchamps with a stellar combo of speed and defense. We like the next picks of SS Ben Barilla, CF Mike Voytko and CF Kevin Devaney as well.
We limped into the All-Star break with a record of 38-37. Matt Manning returns from injury though, and hopefully it's a much-needed shot in the arm. It seems to work as the team goes on a winning streak to finish June, landing 1st in the Wild Card at 46-40 (yet still 9 back of the surging Indians).
July would prove to be a turning point for us as we secured series wins against the Mariners, Rays (swept), White Sox (swept), Rangers, Blue Jays (swept) and Angels en route to a showdown with the Indians to close the month. That showing put us 3 games up on the wild card, but still 7 back of Cleveland. We take one from them, but they prove to be too much, winning two to end the month.
Second Half
August is a new month though, and we kick it off with series wins against the Athletics and Twins, but then get swept by the Yankees. We sweep the Royals and win a series against the Steelhounds to sandwich a series loss to the Orioles and head into roster expansion. We send down David Parkinson and bring up RP Ethan DeCaster, CF Jairo Pomares and 1B Bryant Packard.
We roll into September, securing wins against a number of top teams. On September 14th we lose RP Jack Little for four months, but also clinch a playoff spot. We sit three games back of Cleveland with a chance at a division title and a series against them. We take game one handily, but draw their ace in game two against our back-half and fall by one. Mize carries us to a 2-1 win in game three though to win the series and put us just two games back three games left, giving us an outside shot. We take a game against the Athletics and the Indians drop one to the Angels to move us one game back. Another huge win against the Athletics, coupled with a Cleveland loss and we sit tied heading into game 162. We control our destiny and can force a tiebreaker!
Unfortunately, there are no last game heroics - the Athletics steal one from us and the Indians prevail, we'll take the top wild card spot.

Playoffs

We've secured a wild card berth one again, this time against the Athletics - who put us there with a win in Game 162. We have Casey Mize on the mound and it's a game we should win - we were probably the third best team in the AL, but the Indians control our division.
Wild Card - Game 1 - Tigers defeat Athletics, 9-5 We've finally advanced past the wild card round in my tenure! Mize gets hit later in the game, but we pretty much control this one wire to wire and now must face the Rays, a team we were 8-4 against during the regular season.
Division Series - Game 1 - Rays defeat Tigers, 7-6 We jump to a 6-0 lead and then crumble the rest of the way. The bullpen really didn't do too bad, just couldn't get another run on offense. If we score six, we should be winning.
Division Series - Game 2 - Tigers defeat Rays, 6-5 So I guess we're having only close games. This time it's us that had to battle back throughout the game to score, but we did it. We need better outings from the rotation.
Division Series - Game 3 - Rays defeat Tigers, 7-4 Well, we aren't getting good outings from our good pitching staff, which is irritating. The Rays blast us for 7 runs in the first three innings and we can't recover. We're on the ropes now, let's see what we're made of.
Division Series - Game 4 - Tigers defeat Rays, 4-1 Finally we get an elite performance. Mize showed up, holding them to one run over nearly 8 innings and the bullpen shut the door for us. We've got Rocker on the mound in Game 5 against Glasnow, their ace, so it'll be a high pressure situation for the rookie.
Division Series - Game 5 - Tigers defeat Rays, 6-4 We pulled it off! Rocker gave us 6 innings of quality work, only allowing 2 runs. Zach Hess got rocked in relief, but De Geus and Short shut it down after that. We got on Glasnow early and chased him before he could complete 5 innings and maintained he lead all the way! Willy Adames of the Rays was named series MVP.
The bad news for us is that the Indians swept the Angels in their series and they'll be our opponent in the League Championship Series. We were 5-7 against them during the season. Their lineup is strong, particularly the Lindor-Ramirez-Aquino-Casas gauntlet that sits from #2-#5 in the order. Their pitching is even better though, with the league's lowest FIP and best bullpen ERA, which helped them to the second fewest runs against. Shane Bieber had a down year, but he's still Shane Bieber - but Daniel Espino and Dinelson Lamet give them a fearsome three-headed monster. This will be tough to unseat the defending champs.
League Championship Series - Game 1 - Tigers defeat Indians, 3-2 A HUGE road win against Bieber off of Castro's two-run dinger in the 8th inning. Bieber was stellar, but we happened to get ahold of Edwin Diaz, which is also surprising. Manning was decent and our bullpen was stellar. I'm pumped to steal one in Cleveland.
League Championship Series - Game 2 - Indians defeat Tigers, 6-5 This was about as close as it can get throughout - we kept answering each other at the plate until we finally failed to do so. It's a shame to chase Espino so early and still lose with Mize on the mound, but I'm still glad to have one win already.
League Championship Series - Game 3 - Indians defeat Tigers, 4-1 Yeah, Lamet held us in check and their bullpen was stellar. Skubal was unfortunate, giving up three runs with only one of them being earned. It particularly hurts because the error was by Ke'Bryan Hayes, last season's gold glove winner. We need to bounce back in Game 4.
League Championship Series - Game 4 - Indians defeat Tigers, 7-6 (13) Well, that hurts. We got a serviceable outing from Rocker and got on Plesac early - we got some runs on Edwin Diaz again too, but the rest of their bullpen was untouchable. Ours, on the other hand, all gave up runs except for Zach Hess. Tough. We battled, but this road is now an incredibly uphill one.
League Championship Series - Game 5 - Indians defeat Tigers, 4-2 Manning got blown up and Bieber continues having a strong postseason - he seems to have caught fire at the right time for them. We have a lot to take from this series and feel good about going forward, but I'm starting to really dislike Cleveland. Their reign needs to end.
World Series Well, the Giants draw the appearance for the National League and get off to a 3-0 start. But Cleveland, they aren't killable are they? No, no they are not. They came back. They won the dang thing. The Cleveland Indians repeat as MLB Champions.
Detroit Achievements

• SP Casey Mize is named an All-Star
• 2B Willi Castro is named an All-Star starter
• 3B Isaac Paredes is named an All-Star
• RF Yaya Chentouf is named an All-Star
• SP Justin Powell, C Dale Burton and SS Trevor Haskins are named to the All-Prospects Game - Haskins wins MVP.

Season Recap

My division nemesis wins the World Series after sending us home. I dislike this. We had a great season though with our best win total of my tenure and had he most cost efficient team per wins, runs scored and WAR in the league. We became a top 10 team in attendance and our player's popularity is growing. Our owner wants us to upgrade at short stop - so I guess he doesn't like the Castro/Hayes swap - so we make take a look at that once again. Spoiler alert - we got a budget increase, so maybe we'll spend it. Who knows.

Hitters

Starting Lineup
CF Parker Meadows
Meadows ended up going to the bench instead of an everyday starter as his bat just wasn't there like it was last year. He's a quality fielder and baserunner and makes the minimum, so he'll be back - but he may not have a clear role on the team in the future.
DH Kyle Isbel
Isbel ended up much lower in the order during the season and his bat just wasn't good enough for a DH role. My scout thinks he should be better than he is, but I have two seasons of data that say he isn't. He's also listed as fragile, which I'm not sure if I just missed that before or if it's new, but I may try to move him this offseason.
2B Willi Castro
Willi just keeps getting better. He was a 2.5 WAR player as a rookie, gave me two seasons of 5 WAR and now nearly 8 this season - the move to 2B seems to have worked well for him and he was a plus defender. He led the league in runs, had his best season yet at the plate and was a 20/20 player. His arbitration estimate is $15,000,000 - which is a lot, but I don't see how I can let him walk while I have contract control. He's given me four full seasons without any injury issues, is a fan favorite and one of my best players. I'd love to sign him longer term if it's reasonable.
RF Yaya Chentouf
Yaya made his first all-star team, led the league in walks and was a dominant hitter for us this season. He's come a long way since he was a struggling reliever in my minors, now giving us nearly 6 WAR in RF. He's on a minimum deal and was incredible, he's obviously returning. His jump from 25 to 51 homeruns helped us accomplish our goal of improving on our homerun total that our owner set as well. Yaya has also become extremely popular at a national level - he's quickly become one of my favorites.
1B Ryan Mountcastle
Mountcastle continues to be a steady performer for me - he's not an all-star and he's not going to win any awards, but he's reliable and dependable. He bounced back from his 1.4 WAR season to give us nearly 3 this year, hit well and played good defense. His arbitration estimate is cheap, so he'll return.
LF Evan White
White was a bit disappointing again. He was the hottest player on the team two years ago and gave us 5 WAR, now he's struggling to hit 2. The bat has cooled off considerably, though, much like Isbel, my scout thinks he should be better than he has been. He doesn't appear to be having any bad BABIP luck either, so maybe he's just not as good as I had hoped, but still serviceable. He's still locked up long-term with Seattle footing 40% of the bill, so that's good. Defensively, I prefer him in left than center, but center field continues to elude me. It might be worth considering if I need both him and Mountcastle, or if I should move White to 1B or move him out.
3B Isaac Paredes
Well now, here is a pleasant surprise. Paredes wasn't someone who had a big BABIP jump, but his bat was much improved this year - going from below league average to one of the best in the league. He gave us 4.3 WAR despite missing a few weeks with injury as well, so a solid season all-around. His arbitration estimate isn't too bad, so I'll definitely be keeping him around. His personality concerns me, but if he keeps up the performance from this season he'll be hard to move on from.
SS Ke'Bryan Hayes
I had hopes that swapping Hayes and Castro would empower them both to have better seasons defensively and thus provide more value. While Hayes was a plus defender at short, it wasn't by much and I've seen four seasons of his bat not being that good. Yes, he was unlucky this season, but I'm not sure he's going to give me much even if he wasn't. If I can find a better defensive option, I may just do that.
C Christian Vazquez
My catcher position has never been one worth going crazy about. Vazquez continues to be a bad hitter for me, despite that one great season, but his defensive value is so hard to gauge. Our pitching staff was the league's best and it's tough to not credit Christian with a lot of that. I'm going to let him hit free agency and try to get him cheaper there.
Bench/Replacements
C Jake Rogers
Rogers was a better backup this year than last year, despite less appearances. I'll probably bring him back, but I might give more time to Drew Romo next year and see what he brings. Rogers looks like a solid backup with no real intentions of being a starter.
3B Jordan Diaz
Diaz was brought in to maybe replace Paredes if he struggled and I think he pushed Isaac to a career year. Diaz was decent enough as a bench player and he'll either be back with us or in AAA next year to see if he fills out some more.
RF Riley Greene
Greene pretty quickly became the everyday starter in left field, forcing my hand with his play as a fourth outfielder. Well, he was pretty dang good as a rookie, giving us 3.4 WAR in 118 starts. He was a great hitter and brought some extra pop to the lineup as well. My scout thinks his discipline will come along as well, and I hope it does because he'll be deadly if so.
OF Jairo Pomares
Pomares was tearing it up in AAA, came up at the end of the year and had a decent, albeit brief, appearance. He may be a full-time fourth outfielder next year.

Pitchers

Rotation
SP Casey Mize
Mize casually came out and improved upon his Cy Young campaign from last season, giving us a league leading 6.2 WAR and a 61 FIP-. He was pretty solid I'd say, obviously. All of that was despite a higher BABIP against him, so I like what Mize gave us. Will he repeat as Cy Young? I'm not sure, but he should be in contention.
SP Kumar Rocker
What can you expect from a rookie starting pitcher? Well, how about 4.2 WAR, a 130 ERA+ and a 73 FIP-? I will take that every single day of the week. Wow. Rocker was outstanding and my scout says this guy might get better - that is exciting. He struck out a lot of players, kept walks reasonable and overall was deserving of the #2 role in my rotation with Manning out.
SP Franklin Perez
"Fragile" Franklin finally gets his shot - and, well, he was... okay? He had four different injuries, big surprise, and was kind of rough as a starter. However, when I moved him to the bullpen, he was pretty good when healthy. I may try to capitalize on some team thinking he can be a full-time starter and move him out, but I've been saying that for awhile.
SP Justin Dunn
Dunn was worse in the rotation this year then he was last year, so he ended up being sent back to AAA to clear room for other arms. Similar to Perez, maybe I should try to move him - he has yet to perform in the majors.
SP Tarik Skubal
Tarik surprised me. He was decent enough the last two seasons, but was demoted to the pen last year. I didn't think he'd be in the rotation, but injuries said otherwise and his performance said it was a good call. He gave us 2.5 WAR as our fifth starter, which I'll definitely take. His arbitration estimate is 3M, which is probably doable.
Bullpen
SP Matt Manning
Matt missed four months with injury, which is alarming - but he came back strong and gave us 1.4 WAR in 19 starts. I suppose it was his worst stretch since his rookie year, but he was still an above average arm. The arbitration estimate is just over five million, so he'll likely be back.
RP Brett De Geus
My bullpen has yet to have a consistent leader. This year it was Brett de Geus, who gave us 2.1 WAR in 81 IP in his 63 appearances. He was downright dominant with a 58 FIP-, striking out 32% of the opposition. He'll be back on a minimum.
RP Gerson Moreno
Moreno was another new face who was surprisingly solid for us. He gave us almost 1 WAR over his league-leading 71 games and 24 holds. He was pretty solid and will be back on a minimum.
RP Zack Hess
Hess was as productive as Moreno in half as many appearances, so he was pretty great for us. He'll get more opportunities next year in the pen.
RP Kyle Dohy
Dohy was another 1 WAR reliever who was better than league average. He's also on a minimum and will be back - the high stuff, no control guys do well with Vazquez. He struck out nearly 40% of the opposition.
RP Jack Little
Little was decent enough before he got injured and missed the playoffs. He logged a lot of innings for us and gave us a solid 1 WAR. However, I think we have better arms and he won't be as relied upon next year.
RP Genesis Cabrera
Genesis was far better in the bullpen role this year than he was last year - giving us 1 WAR and a solid 149 ERA+ and 79 FIP-. He filled in for a recovering Alcantara at the end of the year too in the rotation. His estimate is less than a million, so he should return.
RP Drew Carlton
Here is the reason I was complaining about bullpen volatility - Carlton gave us 2 WAR last year and was so bad this year that I sent him down after 19 games and never looked back. I will not be picking up his arbitration.
RP Sandy Alcantara
Sandy was better than I expected despite his ratings falling a bit. He was mostly used in the pen, filled in as a starter later on, and was good at both. However, he wants eight million dollars to extend soooo good luck elsewhere!
RP Jonathan Bowlan
Jonathan got called up a couple of times, was serviceable when he was up, but will be back in AAA or gone next season.
RP Alex Lange
Keeping it short - Lange wasn't good when he was up and got sent down, where he'll stay.
RP David Parkinson
Even shorter - he was awful.

Prospect Watch

SP Justin Powell - Powell wasn't even listed last year because he struggled in rookie ball. I let him repeat, which I normally don't do, because he had just been drafted. Well, he had quite the development tour this year and is now ranked as not only my top prospect, but as the 2nd best prospect in baseball. The bad news is that he wasn't good in rookie ball again, but he'll go to A-.
SP Doug Wade - Wade was our top pick this year and was good enough in A- to go to A, where I hope he'll improve.
SS Trevor Haskins - Haskins was solid in A and will go to AA. I like his defensive profile and he's a solid baserunner. The bat tool needs some work still but I have high hopes.
C Dale Burton - Burton is, of course, still fragile, which isn't great. He was fine enough in A- to go to A though, but I don't know if he's a long-term option.
CF Petey Halpin - Petey will go to AAA next year. Maybe he's the future CF option, I don't know. Maybe he's just a fourth outfielder.
RF Ismael Mena - Mena was great in AA and will go to AAA. If he fills out the hitting tool, he doesn't have a weakness. He's a phenomenal runner and solid in the outfield. Hopefully he keeps progressing.
C Drew Romo - Romo's hitting never developed, not like it looked like it would way back in 2020. But, the defense is there and he might be the Vazquez replacement due to that alone. It's not like Vazquez has hit either.

Future Outlook

Arbitration is going to hit hard for some folks this year. Willi Castro and Casey Mize in particular. We're going to have to be more financially selective moving forward as we start to lose the cheap and controlled deals we've been accustomed to.

Welcome back to year seventeen of the Alabama Slammers Franchise Report! Here are the links to the previous versions if you want to catch up (2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025, 2026, 2027, 2028, 2029, 2030, 2031,2032, 2033, 2034, 2035, 2036).
Previous Season Highlights:
Andy Schaffer wins Cy Young
20-year-old Marco Vazquez leads the league in batting average, hits, doubles, and triples
Edgar Sanchez wins seventh straight gold glove
6 players make all-star team
106-win regular season
Lost in NLCS 4-2
Start of Offseason:
As with the previous versions, I’ll list the moves I made, the rationale behind those moves, the season results, and the future outlook.
Here are the salaries heading into the offseason.
\Unless stated otherwise, all players were re-signed to their one-year arbitration estimate*
Departures (non-trades):
Ernesto Bernal
Bernal was discovered by my scout in 2022 and spent fifteen years with the organization. He’s the franchise’s all-time leader in games, at-bats, WAR, runs, hits, total bases, singles, doubles, triples, RBIs, and stolen bases. He’s the greatest player in franchise history and it really hurt to part ways with him, but all good things must come to an end.
He signed a 5/$84m deal with the Rangers, which seems reasonable, and had a solid year. I received a supplemental first-round pick upon his signing.
Drew Romo
Romo looked to be on his way out, so I let him walk as a free agent. He didn’t sign with a team and retired at the end of the season. He played his entire 12-year major league career with the Slammers and was a huge reason we had six Cy Young award winners during his tenure.
Eric Lawrence
Lawrence struggled last year in the majors, so I gave him a season in AAA to work things out. He looks ready for the big leagues again and will be an opening day starter or get traded.
Jeff Hopper
Hopper was excellent during his six years with us, highlighted by his 2035 campaign when he finished third in the MVP voting. He wanted 8/$232m to re-sign, which was too expensive for my tastes, and ended up getting 6/$156m from the Jazz, which is still too expensive for me. I don’t see this contract ending well.
Move #1:
Hired a new trainer.
I heavily prioritize prevention and this guy is good at preventing all types of injuries. Here’s my old trainer.
Move #2:
Slammers Receive: Edwin de la Torre
Diamondbacks Receive: Alex Rivera, Luis Arguello, Mike Dooner, Harold Coppola, Bryn Hill
De la Torre is my third baseman fantasy. He has elite batting potential, above average fielding ability, excellent baserunning, great character, durable injury proneness, and bats from the left side of the plate. I gave the Diamondbacks an assortment of young and talented players, but I would’ve gladly given them twice as much. Guys like de la Torre just don’t exist.
Move #3:
Slammers Receive: Jonathan Hubbard
Padres Receive: Eric Clark
Hubbard might not be anything special to the Padres, but he’s beautiful to me. He’s a right-handed hitter, has elite defensive ratings, doesn’t expect to start, is durable, and has the sparkplug personality trait. I needed a very specific player and Hubbard met all of my criteria. He’ll start against lefties and play a decent amount against righties in an attempt to keep Steve Flores healthy for the playoffs.
Move #4:
Signed Andy Schaffer to a 5/$105m extension.
Schaffer is 26 and just won a Cy Young, this seems like a pretty safe deal.
Move #5:
Signed free agent Tommy Noonan to a 3/$30m deal.
After looking through the available in-house, trade, and free agent replacement options, I decided the best course of action was to roll the dice on Noonan. I’ve seen players bounce back from the Guru before, so hopefully Noonan does just that. If he falls off a cliff, I’ll only owe him $15m after this year.
Move #6:
Added a Dominican Rookie League team.
We haven’t gotten much out of our scouting discoveries, and I think it might be partially due to them spending so much time in the international complex, so we’re adding a Dominican Rookie League team for them to develop in – The Kiev Blue Claws. Don’t ask me why the team is in Ukraine, it’s just what the owner wanted.
I promoted every player from the international complex, and I’ll continue to promote new players as they’re discovered. I’m interested to see how this works out.
Move #7:
Slammers Receive: Chris Joiner
Mets Receive: Joe Poffenberger
Poffenberger was given strong consideration for the starting catcher job this year, but I decided to go with Gutierrez instead. There was no need to keep Poffenberger around in the minors, so I swapped him for a guy that can provide some depth in a year or two.
In-House Moves (Preseason):
Sean Vahey remains on the major league roster after joining during roster expansion last season. He will be a member of the bullpen.
Jose Gutierrez promoted from AA. Will be the primary starter at catcher vs. RHPs.
Bobby McCallum promoted from AA. Will start at first base.
Seung-hwa Kim promoted from AA. Will start in left field.
Bob Banks will slide to DH with the promotion of Kim.
Final Financial Situation:
We have about $34m in available budget room to start the year, so shouldn’t need to make any trades for cash, and we might even complete the owner goal of ending the year with a balance of +$23m. He’s been hounding me about that one for a while.
Here are the salaries heading into the season.
Move #8 (Part 1, Part 2):
Slammers Receive: $14m
Slammers Lose: Chris Dearborn, Nate Holston
Turns out we needed some more cash. Holston is a career minor leaguer, but Dearborn might have a real MLB future. I’ve seen too many players with his profile flame out though, so I’m willing to take the risk he doesn’t amount to anything.
Season Outlook:
This is the most excited I’ve been about a season in a while. It’s always fun to cruise to 100-win seasons with established teams, but we’re going with the youth movement this year. Our five through eight hitters have a combined zero days of major league service, so I’m really trusting my scout that these rookies are ready to perform. The pitching should remain elite, so if the young guys come through, we should roll to another division title.
Batters:
Primary Lineup vs. RHP and vs. LHP when Healthy (\DH enabled in both leagues, lineup vs. RHP shown below)*
RF – Marco Vazquez
Vazquez cooled off a bit at the plate as compared to last season but upped his defense to boost his overall value. He made his second all-star team and won his first gold glove.
CF – Wil Mireles
Mireles had another excellent season but will be leaving as a free agent. He wants 8/$256m to re-sign, which is too much for me.
2B – Edgar Sanchez
Sanchez continued his march towards the hall of fame with another great year. He made his third all-star team and won his eighth gold glove.
DH – Bob Banks
Banks moved to DH this year, which should be the least taxing position, but missed about a month to injury. When healthy, he performed below his usual standard. Hopefully, he gets back on track next year.
LF – Seung-Hwa Kim
Kim had a solid rookie year and will be back for a sophomore campaign. He’s 26-years-old but still looks to have a lot of untapped potential.
3B – Edwin de la Torre
De la Torre had a monster rookie season, winning rookie of the month in September and taking rookie of the year honors. He’s 21-years-old, so should be around for a long time.
1B – Bobby McCallum
McCallum started off the year on a crazy hot streak. He won rookie of the month in April and June and was on pace for 65 home runs and 167 RBIs. He cooled off tremendously as the season progressed but was still good enough to finish third in the rookie of the year voting.
C – Jose Gutierrez
I feel pretty good about my decision to go with Gutierrez at catcher. He played great defense and was league average at the plate, which is all I could ever ask for. As an added bonus, his personality trait was revealed as sparkplug.
SS – Steve Flores
Flores came back from a year-long injury and played great. I would love to keep his defense around forever but it’s probably better to go ahead and move him before he gets injured again. I have a solid replacement in Eric Lawrence.
Bench
C – Danny Wells
Wells has been pretty much the same player since he debuted in 2032 but I’m ok with that. As long as he continues to play excellent defense, he’ll stick around.
IF – Justus Evans
Evans had a pretty good five-year run for a guy that used to be a pitcher. I have plenty of in-house replacements though, so he’ll leave as a free agent.
IF – Jonathan Hubbard
I brought in Hubbard to replace the fragile backup, so of course he got injured. He missed a month with a separated shoulder but did what was asked of him when healthy.
OF – Andy Vera
Vera is overqualified to be a bench player, but I have an excess of outfield talent and he’s the worst of the bunch. He might get a shot to start in center field next year with Mireles departing.
Replacements
IF – Chris McClain
It’s a good thing I kept the fragile backup middle infielder around. He filled in for Hubbard for a month and didn’t kill us.
OF – Mike Honeycutt
Honeycutt filled in for Banks and was pretty good in his limited opportunities. Depending on the rest of the roster, he might get a backup role next year.
Pitchers:
Pitching Staff when Healthy
SP – Corey MacDonald
I took the pitch count off MacDonald since his injury proneness was upgraded to iron man and he continued to stay healthy. He played well and made his seventh all-star game.
SP – Gilles Palacios
Palacios had one of his best seasons yet, winning the pitching triple crown and collecting his fourth Cy Young award. He wants 7/$245m to re-sign, but I’m going to try to find a way to bring him back. More than likely, I’ll have to sign him in free agency.
SP – Andy Schaffer
Schaffer decided to take it easy after winning a Cy Young last year and getting a contract extension. Hopefully, he goes back to his Cy Young ways next season.
SP – Eddie Copping
I had strongly considered a long-term extension for Copping in the offseason but I’m glad I held off. He struggled this year, posting his worst season yet. I think he’ll be fine going forward, but I’m much less worried about his performance without a long-term deal.
SP – Bobby Butler
Butler might not be done as a major league starting pitcher, but he’s done with the Slammers. He suffered a partially torn UCL in spring training, then suffered an eight-month setback in August. Hopefully, he still has some trade value when he returns.
RP – Alan McCarter
McCarter has been getting worse the last two seasons, but I’ve kept him around for his prankster personality trait. I’ll try to find someone in the offseason that’s also good at baseball.
RP – Tommy Noonan
Noonan isn’t the world beater he used to be but he’s still a really good reliever. I’m glad I brought him back.
RP – Jose Macias
Macias was solid for the second straight season and will be back next year.
RP – Sean Vahey
Vahey had a tough start to the season but established himself as one of the best relievers in the game by the end of the year. He’ll probably be around for his remaining five years of team control.
RP – Jose Aguilar
Aguilar once again performed like one of the best relievers in baseball, making his fifth all-star game. He has two more team friendly years on his contract, so will definitely be back.
RP – Mike Bentley
I was browsing through player profiles about halfway through the season and did a double take when I got to Bentley. All of a sudden, he had an 80-grade changeup and wanted to be a starter, which definitely wasn’t the case last year. I kept him in the bullpen until rosters expanded, then let him work as the sixth starter the rest of the season. He did well in his five starts and will be a member of the rotation next year. Hopefully, I can still sign him to a cheap extension.
Oh yeah, he also won reliever of the year.
RP – Steve Hixson
Hixson wasn’t as good as last year but he’s cheap and durable, so I’ll probably bring him back.
RP – Jonathan Kelsey
It’s always nice to have an iron man reliever that’s capable of competently starting 31 games. He moved to the rotation when Butler was injured and gave us 190.1 solid innings. Unfortunately, he’s an upcoming free agent, so probably won’t return.
Replacements
RP – Chris Larkin
Larkin was called up and given Kelsey’s bullpen role when Butler was injured. He wants to be a starter, but I don’t feel comfortable with his movement, so he’ll remain in the bullpen or get traded next season.
RP – Joe Cope
A 32nd round pick in 2032, it took Cope a while to figure things out in the minors, but once he did, he rose quickly through the system. He was called up when rosters expanded and struggled in limited appearances, but I think he’ll be one of the best relievers in the game in a year or two.
RP – Mike Blake
Blake was also called up when rosters expanded, and he pitched well in his three appearances. He looks like he could be a solid starting pitcher, but I have better options ahead of him, so he’ll have to take a bullpen role in the majors.
Season Results:
We didn’t do our usual raping and pillaging during the regular season but still won 104 games and took our eighth straight division crown. The Cardinals actually took the lead from us at game 130, but we took it back thirteen games later and pulled away late. The pitching continued to be dominant and the offense was amongst the league best. Other than Butler, we’re fully healthy going into the playoffs and will go with a playoff rotation of Palacios, MacDonald, Schaffer, and Bentley. Copping and Kelsey will move to the bullpen.
Our first-round opponent is the 94-68 Rockies. Their 3-5 hitters (Eric Zuniga, Noe Renteria, Robby Teeter) are terrifying, but they don’t have much pitching. We should be able to take this one.
Divisional Series Game 1, Rockies Win 5-3 – We played well overall but couldn’t overcome Renteria’s four RBI performance. Three players had solo home runs in the loss.
Divisional Series Game 2, Slammers Win 5-4 – MacDonald gave up four runs but the bullpen provided 3.2 scoreless innings to hold on for the win. We had fourteen hits in the contest and Sanchez led the way with two RBIs.
Divisional Series Game 3, Slammers Win 6-4 – New starter Mike Bentley had a great outing, striking out eight while giving up two runs over six innings. Banks led the way on offense with three RBIs.
Divisional Series Game 4, Slammers Win 8-1 – Schaffer pitched a gem, going seven scoreless innings and striking out nine. Everyone chipped in on offense en route to fourteen hits and eight runs.
Divisional Series Game 5, Slammers Win 12-8 – We knocked out their starter in the first and continued to pile on in the 12-8 victory. Kim led the way with two homers and three RBIs, winning series MVP.
Next up is the 101-61 Cardinals, led by young ace Eddie Salinas. They have a deep and balanced roster, so I could see this going either way. The winner should take the World Series.
NLCS Game 1, Slammers Win 6-4 – The rookie McCallum put the team on his back with a three-home run, five RBI performance. MacDonald gave up four runs in his second straight appearance, but Aguilar and Noonan closed out the game with 3.1 scoreless innings.
NLCS Game 2, Slammers Win 10-3 – It was Banks putting on his superman cape this time, with a four RBI performance. Bentley gave up two runs over 5.1 innings.
NLCS Game 3, Slammers Win 3-2 (12) – This one was close throughout, but a bases load walk by Kim in the top of the twelfth provided the game deciding run. Schaffer, Aguilar, Noonan, and Macias combined to allow two runs over twelve innings.
NLCS Game 4, Slammers Win 2-1 – Palacios came out on top in a pitcher’s duel and we swept the series. McCallum was named MVP, mostly off of his game one performance.
We’re once again facing off against the Red Sox in the World Series, and this should just be a victory lap. They have a very good rotation (Jorge Morones, Bobby Dibble, Rob McDowell, Josh Sheppard) but no one worth mentioning on offense. It’ll be a major upset if we lose this one.
World Series Game 1, Slammers Win 8-2 – We started off the series with a bang, getting home runs from McCallum, Banks, and de la Torre. MacDonald gave up two runs over 6.2 innings and Aguilar closed out the rest.
World Series Game 2, Slammers Win 7-4 – The Rookie Kim led the way with a pair of two-run homers. Then Bentley struck out eleven and gave up two runs over six innings.
World Series Game 3, Red Sox Win 3-1 – Red Sox ace Morones shut us down in the loss, but we can win the series without seeing him again if we win two of the next three.
World Series Game 4, Red Sox Win 9-7 – We were on track to win this one before a complete meltdown by Macias and Noonan in the eighth. They gave up a combined five runs in the inning and the offense couldn’t bail them out in the ninth.
World Series Game 5, Slammers Win 6-2 – We really needed this win. MacDonald and Vahey combined to hold them to two runs over nine innings and Banks led the way on offense with three RBIs. We’ll head back home and look to close out the series.
World Series Game 6, Slammers Win 14-5 – This one was close until a nine run explosion in the fourth inning put the game away. Every starter other than Kim had at least one RBI. The Red Sox first baseman won series MVP in the loss, but we’d much rather have the title than an individual award.
We’re really starting to roll now, as that’s our third title in six seasons! The young guys came through when it mattered and will hopefully lead us to many more titles in the future.
Here are the rest of the playoff results and MLB standings.
Top Prospects:
The top prospects list continues to be in flux, as we promoted three players and traded another three from last year’s edition, but we still have a lot of good players.
1.) Hector Ruiz
Ruiz was an honorable mention the last two years because I don’t trust international amateur free agent signings, but I’m ready to buy the hype now. If he can stay healthy and reach his full potential, he’s a 10 WAR player. He’ll begin next season at AA.
2.) Victor Lacayo
I’m starting to get some serious mileage from these international amateur free agent signings, as that’s how the top two players on the list were acquired. Lacayo has monster hitting potential for a middle infielder and could be elite defensively if he gets a slight bump to his range. Worst case, he’ll a great bench player. He’ll begin next year in A.
3.) Jake Maddox
Maddox continued his steady climb through the system and looks just about ready for the majors. Depending on what his ratings look like at the start of next year, he might make the opening day roster.
4.) Chris Joiner
I had a trio of guys last year that I thought were in line to take Justus Evans spot, but the acquisition of Joiner probably ended their major league chances. He plays above average defense at three positions, has the potential to be an elite hitter, and has excellent baserunning skills. He’ll begin next season on the opening day roster.
5.) Felix Lopez
Lopez could probably fill the role Joiner will take next year, but he’s still young, so I’ll give him a year in AAA to round out his skills. I like everything about him but his range, so hopefully that improves next year.
6.) Chris Overcash
Overcash looks ready for the majors but I don’t have a place for him, so he’ll start next season in AAA. I’ll get him some experience in left field, and he’ll be first in line as an injury replacement.
7.) Gabe Depass
If Depass had durable injury proneness, he’d be top two on the list. He’s a great talent but you can never put too much faith in a pitcher with normal injury proneness. He’ll start next season at A.
8.) Brad Cole
Cole is a very interesting player. Other than his outfield error, he has everything you’d want in an outfield prospect, so I’m hoping that improves next year in A. I was able to scoop him up in the sixth round since he was listed as a pitcher coming out of the draft.
9.) Nate Bianco
Bianco’s movement still hasn’t improved, so I’m starting to cool on him a bit. He performed well in A- though and will begin next season in A+.
10.) Chris Brown
Rest in peace Chris Brown. If he makes it back from his torn UCL, he’ll be restricted to bullpen duty.
Honorable mentions:
Andy West, Bob Larson
I usually don’t include players like this on the list, but these two curiosities have very interesting ratings profiles and dominated the competition in A. They’ll both begin next season in AA and I’m hoping their ratings catch up to their production.
Eric Whittington, Israel Lopez
Both of these guys were listed as starters coming out of the draft, but I’ve put them in their proper roles as relievers. Between the two of them, I’m sure one will make the majors.
Sam Leintz
Leintz can’t stay healthy, so he’ll probably get traded. Too bad, since I used a first-round pick on him last year.
Promoted to MLB:
Bobby McCallum, Seung-Hwa Kim, Jose Gutierrez
Future Outlook:
We have some tough decisions this offseason with Palacios’s upcoming free agency and logjams in the infield and outfield. Eric Lawrence deserves to start, as do a number of minor league outfielders, but we also have a lot young entrenched starters in the majors. I’m not sure yet how I’ll build the roster, but these are good problems to have. It’s not a question of how we win, but how do we win the most. Hopefully, we can push towards 120 wins next year.
Here is the budget and salaries heading into the offseason.

Born in Georgia to parents Carmen and Dennis, Ramone Russell followed baseball greats Ty Cobb and breaker-of-color-barrier Jackie Robinson out of his state and onto the national spotlight of America's Pastime.
Whispers of a local kid's talent began to make news on the radar of MLB scouts after his freshman year of high school, and fifteen-year old Russell was thrust into the national spotlight after an Atlanta-based chicken chain featured him on a nationwide commercial in which Russell, an employee, commits an egregious, blooper-worthy stumble, but saves the milkshake in his hand from spilling. A young Russell can be seen on video receiving a round of applause, to which he turns to the camera and replies, "my pleasure."
Drafted and signed by the Los Angeles Dodgers out of high school in 2001, Russell began his first season in Advanced-A ball at Vero Beach. Within 40 games, the slippery switch hitter quickly developed a habit for getting on base, then stealing the next one, and by the end of the year had gotten the call to AA.
2002 promised to be a year of growth for Russell, who received an invite to the Dodgers' spring camp. However, after just fourteen at bats, one of which featured a plate appearance that ended abruptly when Dodgers infielder Eric Karros unsuccessfully tried to resuscitate an eagle that had been struck by a Russell foul ball, Russell was assigned to the AA Jacksonville Suns, where he had a modest .277 batting average on the season.
After a blazing start the 2003 season in Jacksonville, Russell was involved in a trade that sent him and two others to the Yankees for infielder Robin Ventura. On August 18th, Russell was called up from AA to backup catcher Jorge Posada. In his first start, Russell went deep in his first three at bats, then dropped a beautiful sac bunt to lead the team to a walkoff win in the 13th. In just 39 plate appearances for the Yankees that year, Russell had 17 home runs and 10 doubles, but was caught stealing 14 times. Despite hitting for power and average, Russell began 2004 in AAA to work on his stealing. By mid-April, his bat was making too much noise for the front office to ignore, and he was called up permanently. However, one problem still existed: three-time All-star Jorge Posada was the Yankee anchor behind the dish. So where would Russell play?
Insert baseball legend and Hall of Fame manager Joe Torre. His answer: every other position on the field! One rumor (that Torre still denies to this day) suggests that Torre would text his wife every day while filling out his lineup and ask for a number, three through nine. Whatever she responded was the position Russell would play that night. Legend of the assignment of Russell's position grew, and he was given the nickname Mr. Utilitorre. And it didn't matter where, Russell's glove shined while his bat murdered baseballs.
In July, Russell was voted to the All-star Game in Houston, where he played all nine positions, and robbed a home run in each of the three outfield spots, including a robbery of Sammy Sosa in the third inning SO acrobatic that some Cubs fans still dub him "The Crawford Box Bandit."
By the next morning, Russell's game made him an overnight celebrity. In the weeks that followed, paparazzi spotted the talented rookie partying with the likes of Paris Hilton, Christina Aguilera, Dan Aykroyd, and Ted Nugent. Sluggish play followed after weeks of partying, and rumors of a nasty fling with New York-based singer Alicia Keys made headlines. By September, a tumbling batting average was met with a suspension after Russell was found passed out in his hotel room after a dreadful 0 for 13 series against Baltimore, a half-eaten Quiznos sandwich beside him, and a fresh tattoo that featured the words "Love, Laugh, Live" on an Uno Reverse card.
A fresh and focused Russell showed up after his suspension, slugging a ridiculous 2.433 over the final 14 games to lead the Yankees to another playoff berth. Cruising to the ALCS, Russell helped the Yankees to a 3-0 series lead against the rival Boston Red Sox. After a Game 3 win, Russell received an unexpected phone call. In his now infamous interview with Barbara Walters, Russell describes answering the phone to a female voice. The voice of a Grammy winner.
"Alicia had reached out to me to congratulate me on reaching the World Series" Russell said with his hand on his cheek. "I reminded her that even though no baseball team has ever come back from a 3-game deficit in the playoffs, we weren't winners yet. "Then she asked me if I had listened to her new song. A love song. It was duet with Usher, I guess."
Walters stares at a seemingly deflated Russell, then into the camera, then back to a still silent Russell. "Well, did you listen to it?" Without an answer, Russell unplugged his mic and walked out of the interview.
Russell has never publicly spoken about the call since his Walters' interview, but we all know how the series played out. Russell, behind the plate for Game 4, couldn't catch Roberts stealing second in the ninth. He committed a key error in Game 5. A damned bloody sock dominated him in Game 6, and he was benched in a Game 7 loss.
We'll never know how the Alicia Keys phone call altered the course of baseball history. In fact, the only person who can possibly know isn't telling, but several Yankees who declined to be named describe a defeated and dejected Russell in the locker room before Game 4. "He wasn't himself," one source told me. "He was the leader of our team. He was our rock. But something had changed in Ramone that day and he never got it back."
A day after the Red Sox won the World Series, breaking the Curse of the Bambino, Russell retired at a press-conference. Baseball was no longer meant for him, and he yearned for something more fulfilling. His cleats would never touch the freshly-raked dirt in the Bronx again. Never again would his batting gloves cover up his tattoo while at the plate. He was broken. Broken by the game he loved, broken by a girl, and broken by the pursuit to be perfect in an imperfect world. Baseball was losing a star in its infancy, and a nation watched in sadness as Ramone Russell walked off, and walked out, of the Yankee locker room for the last time.
Today, Russell pursues a new passion. You can often find him cycling trails in sunny San Diego, and wasting a weekend away at La Jolla Beach with his two dogs, Corkscrew and Stamos. When he can't enjoy San Diego, you'll find him promoting a perfect-perfect gem of video game: MLB The Show. In internet chat rooms, he is lauded as a bit of a meme with a strong cult following, but few know of the man he once was.
Mr. Utilitorre.
The Crawford Box Bandit.
Ramone.
^{this is a reposted writeup from months ago in which I also made a mock Ramone Russell Diamond Dynasty card}

Hey Baseball buddies! Hope everyone had a relaxing Thanksgiving weekend...and following week. I'm back now, and it's time to get balls deep on the rest of this list.
This year’s Hall of Fame ballot includes 11 first time players. None of them are first ballot locks and some of them are guaranteed to fall off the ballot after one year of eligibility. So once again, we’re taking a look at all the ballot rookies, starting from the bottom. We've previously covered Nick Swisher, Michael Cuddyer and AJ Burnett, so it’s time for…
Dan Haren
Bill James Hall of Fame Monitor: 30
Career bWAR (13 years): 35.1
Stats: 153-131, 3.75 ERA, 2013 K, 2419.2 IP, 1.181 WHIP, 109 ERA+
Awards: All-Star x3 (AL 2007, NL 2008, ‘09)
League Leading Stats: Starts x3 (34, 2006; 34, 2007; 34, 2011), WHIP (1.003, 2009), K/BB x3 (5.15, 2008; 5.87, 2009; 5.82, 2011)
Teams Played For: Cardinals (2003-04), A’s (2005-07), D-backs (2008-2010), Angels (2010-2012), Nationals (2013), Dodgers (2014), Marlins (2015), Cubs (2015)
Throughout the ‘90s, David Cone picked up a reputation as kind of a gun for hire. Twice the Blue Jays brought him in mid-season for playoff pushes. The Yankees signed him longer term to solidify a rotation that won four rings, and Boston brought him in at the end of his career to try and stoke their own championship fires. He was a six-time all-star, a Cy Young winner and a fringe HoF candidate who was always happy with the “hired merc” persona.
Dan Haren was kind of like that, only more mediocre.
Daniel Boone* Haren first gained the attention of scouts while he was pitching at Pepperdine, along with teammate Noah Lowery. In their junior years, Haren put up a 2.22 ERA and was named WCC Player of the year, while Lowery posted a 1.71 ERA en route to being named WCC Pitcher of the year. Both players skipped their senior season and declared for the MLB draft; a draft in which the Giants would take Lowery in the first round, with the Cardinals drafting Haren in the second.
Lowery seemed to be on his way to a good-to-above-average career in SF until the Giants medical staff decided that he needed to be sacrificed upon the alter of Dave Dravecky and completely mis-managed a circulatory issue into a career ending forearm injury that cost Lowery a rib in the process. Meanwhile, Haren was completely fine, he was just in St Louis. He appeared in 28 games over two seasons, making 19 starts and throwing 4.2 shutout innings in the 2004 World Series, but the Cards wound up sending Haren to Oakland, along with Kiko Calero and future Mexican Baseball League gold glover Daric Barton, in a trade that netted them Mark Mulder.
In response Haren, clearly happy about being relieved of the burden of pretending that St Louis has the best fans in baseball, entered the prime portion of his career.
From 2005 to 2010, Haren’s age 24 to 29 seasons, ol’ Dirty Dan was a legit dealer. 85-64, 3.55 in 1343 innings, with 1176 K, to the tune of a 3.61 FIP, 1.173 WHIP and 123 ERA+. Over that span, he would make all three of his all-star appearances and be good for 27.1 bWAR, including back to back 6+ bWAR seasons in 2008 and 2009.
In the middle of that stretch, the A’s traded Haren to Arizona in exchange for a massive haul of prospects that included Carlos Gonzalez, Brett Anderson, Greg Smith, Dana Eveland and Chris Carter. Three of those guys would go on to have notable big league careers, but only one would make any noise in an A’s uniform because Billy Beane was always playing a game of keep away with himself.
The back half of Haren’s career, 2011-2015 was less successful. Haren kept on doing exactly the same things he’d always done, just with ever diminishing returns. Two full seasons in LAA, including his last really good effort in 2011. A season in DC. Back to LA proper for a season in Dodger blue. Then 21 games for Miami in 2015 before the Cubs traded for him to try and get them over the hump a year before they were really ready for prime time. (This was three years after a deal to trade Haren straight up for Carlos Marmol fell through. A deal which, while not being on quite the same level as Lou Brock for Ernie Broglio, would have been hilariously lopsided, nonetheless. Haren was still good for 500 innings of league average ball over his last three seasons; Marmol once finished third in the league in hit batters, despite only throwing 74 innings. A stat we celebrated by making him our closer. And sure, he gave us one pretty solid season, but then he started blowing saves like he was a drunken college student in Seattle during Fleet Week and you know what? I’m getting off track.)
Unlike Cone, Haren was never a guy who embraced the “missing piece” role. When the Angles let him walk after the 2012 season, Haren told the LA Times “I’m sick of changing teams.” And, since baseball is a petty bitch with a weird sense of humor, Haren would naturally be forced to change uniforms four times over the next three seasons.
A large part of the reason for Haren’s decline can be attributed to his change in velocity. Haren was never exactly a fireballer, but in the early portion of his career his fastball could routinely end up in the lower-end-of-the-lower-end of the 90’s and he could dial it up into the 93-94 range when he needed. By the time the Angels declined his option in 2012, however, his fastball was down to the high 80’s (a fact he’s kind of leaned into and embraced: his Twitter handle is @ithrow88). His last season in the bigs, Haren’s 86 MPH average was the second slowest non-knuckleballer in the majors.
Haren was able to remain effective because he’d always had impeccable control. At no point in his career did he ever walk more than 55 batters in a season and there were just three full seasons in his career when his BB/9 ratio got above 2. But he wasn’t ever known as a Maddux-type pitcher who lived life on the black. Instead, Haren liked to use his ability to throw any pitch at any time as a means of coming right at guys and challenging them where they live. When it worked, it worked: Haren struck out over 200 batters three times and was the active leader in K/9 ratio when he retired. But all that reward came with an ever increasing amount of risk as well: Haren coughed up 305 homers in his career, 54th all time. Back in 2016, Haren directly addressed his lack of both velocity and fear in an amazing, now sadly deleted, tweet: “Sometimes when the count was 3-1, I would just throw it down the middle and hope for the best. People pop up in batting practice, right?” (The quarantine has slowed him down a bit, but Haren has historically been a highly entertaining Twitter follow)
Dan Haren spent 13 seasons in the major leagues, dividing nine of those years more or less evenly betwixt the A’s, Dbacks and Angels. He made the most starts in Oakland and professed to be happiest in Anaheim, but he goes into the Hypothetical Hall with the Diamondbacks, as a nod to his two all-star appearances with the team and the two best overall seasons of his career. He’s also fifth all time in franchise history for bWAR for pitchers (13.1), sixth in ERA (3.56) and fourth in WHIP (1.132).
Chances of making the Hall: Worse than his chances of making an MLB comeback, better than his chances of winning the fastest pitch competition at your local ballpark.
Chances of leaving the ballot this year: 100%
*not his actual middle name, but fuck. It should be, right?

In the aftermath of the Super Bowl, the American Association has been busy, announcing their 2021 lineup and schedule, and continuing to fill rosters for the upcoming season, which will start on May 18.
Here's a look at what teams have been up to the last couple days:
Chicago Dogs
The Dogs re-signed RHP Justin Goossen-Brown, who will return for his third season with the Dogs. The 24-year-old righty is 1-2 with a 3.45 ERA in 22 games (four starts) over the 2019-20 seasons with Chicago, but he posted a 5.14 ERA in his eight appearances in 2020.
Next, they signed infielder Grant Kay. The 27-year-old previous reached as high as Triple-A with Tampa Bay, before signing with Sioux Falls in 2020, where he hit .262 with 3 homers and 18 RBI in 39 games.
Lastly, they re-signed 31-year-old reliever Paul Schwendel. Pitching professionally for the first time since 2015, Schwendel went 0-1 with a 5.81 ERA in 23 games, but struck out 33 batters in just 26.2 innings.
Fargo-Moorhead RedHawks
Fargo-Moorhead re-signed outfielder Alex Boxwell, a 24-year-old who suited up 34 times in 2020, batting .246 with 4 homers and 10 RBI. A Minnesota alum, Boxwell also has had cups of coffee with the St. Paul Saints and Gary SouthShore Railcats in 2018 and '19, before finishing the 2019 campaign in Fargo.
The RedHawks also inked right-hander Michael Hope, who they re-acquired in a trade with the Sussex County Miners of the Frontier League on January 25. The 24-year-old was a RedHawk in 2019, going 8-0 in 31 games out of the bullpen with a 3.46 ERA, striking out 46 over 59.2 innings, and even going 3-for-7 with a homer at the plate.
Lastly, the 'Hawks acquired another pitcher from Sussex County, trading for 29-year-old lefty Cam Hatch. Most recently, Hatch pitched in the pop-up league Yinzer Baseball Confederacy in 2020, going 0-2, but posting a 0.87 ERA with two saves over nine outings and 10.1 innings. Hatch has also pitched in the Pacific Association (2018-19) and the United Shore Professional Baseball League (2016).
Milwaukee Milkmen
The Milkmen re-signed three members of their championship squad, starting with set-up man AJ Schugel. The 31-year-old righty, who posted a 3.19 ERA in 73 MLB games from 2015-17, excelled for Milwaukee in 2020 after missing all of 2019, posting a 1.03 ERA in 28 games and allowing just ten hits in 26.1 innings, good for a microscopic .112 opponent's batting average.
Another righty reliever, 29-year-old Zach Hartman, re-upped as well. Hartman, Milwaukee's all-time pitching appearances leader with 60, returns for his third year with the Milkmen, having gone 4-4 with a 3.72 ERA over 87.0 innings. A former Dodgers and Angels prospect, Hartman was 1-1 with a 3.89 ERA in 18 games (four starts) in 2020, striking out 25 over 34.2 innings.
A man who caught both hurlers, catcher Christian Correa, returns for his second year in Milwaukee and fourth in the AA. Correa batted just .211 with four homers (one of them a walk-off) and 20 RBI, but was known for his defensive acumen behind the dish. The 27-year-old also has played in the AA for Kansas City (2017,19) and Sussex County (2018) in the now-defunct Can-Am League.
Winnipeg Goldeyes
Not content to watch two division rivals shore up their bullpen, the Goldeyes re-signed right-hander Nate Antone (who's not from San Antone). With the Goldeyes in 2020, the 29-year-old went 1-0 with a 3.55 ERA in 22 games, striking out 29 and allowing just 17 hits over 25.1 innings. An Indy-ball lifer, Antone had previously pitched for Quebec and Sussex County (both 2019) in the Can-Am League, Gary (2017) and Joliet (2017-18) of the Frontier League.
Also, the Goldeyes shored up the left side with southpaw Ken Frosch, who pitched for St. Paul from 2017-19. Frosch has appeared in 133 AA games (plus seven more in the postseason), going 9-6 with a 2,76 ERA in 124.0 innings with the Saints, striking out 129 and being the key lefty reliever on the 2019 AA Champs and the 2018 runner-ups. Including his 2016 stint in the Frontier League (with Evansville), Frosch has a career 2.47 ERA over 180 games, all in Indy ball.
Looking Ahead
So far, several teams already have quite a few signings, while others have remained rather silent on that front, though perhaps they are merely waiting out uncertainty in the MLB/MiLB umbrella to see what kind of players fall out and wind up in the Indy ranks.
What also will be interesting to see is the development of Kane County's roster. With Opening Day now barely three months away, the Cougars are in, but they have no manager and no players, so there will be a lot of scrambling done in the coming weeks.
On the other side, the traveling Houston Apollos will be run as a by-product of the Pecos League, meaning that their players will be supplied from the Pecos League, with the roster likely being assembled much later than other teams.

We're moving right along, Baseball Buddies! This year's Hall of Fame ballot contains 11 first time members. None of them are locks for first year induction, but there are several who are going to fall off the ballot for not meeting the 5% threshold. So before they're gone, we're taking a look at all of them. We've already covered Nick Swisher, Michael Cuddyer, AJ Burnett and Dan Haren, which brings us to...
Shane Victorino
Bill James Hall of Fame Monitor: 32
Career bWAR (12 years): 31.5
Stats: .275/.340/.425, 102 OPS+, 108 HR, 231 2B, 70 3B, 231 SB, 731 R
Awards: All Star x2 (NL, 2009; NL, 2011) Gold Glove x4 (NL, OF, 2008; NL, OF, 2009; NL, OF, 2010; AL, OF, 2013) World Champion x2 (Philly, 2008; Boston, 2013)
League Leading Stats: Triples x2 (13, 2009; 16, 2011), HBP (18, 2013)
Teams Played For: Padres (2003), Phillies (2005-2012), Dodgers (2012), Red Sox (2013-2015), Angels (2015)
Humble brag time: thanks to a lucky combination of good friends and being a professional freelancer—thus setting my own schedule—I have been fortunate enough to attend at least one round of every World Baseball Classic. So in 2009, I’m up in Toronto, watching the Pool C games at Rogers Centre. My friend and I are up in the outfield second deck, getting ready to watch what would become Team USA’s 6-5 victory over Team Canada in the opening game. There’s this Yankees fan about three rows ahead of us and he’s spending the first few innings heckling everyone on Team USA who’s not a Yankee which is, like, the MOST “Yankees fan” thing ever.
So, like, as the rosters are being announced and they get to Jimmy Rollins, who was wearing jersey number one for the WBC, and Yankees Dude yells out “Hey Rollins! You might be number one, but you’ll never be Number Two!” Then he looks around kind of smug to make sure that everyone gets his Jeter joke and we’re all like “dude, they’re on the same team.”
Anyway, the reason that story is relevant is because in the third inning when Shane Victorino comes to bat, the best Yankees Dude can come up with is “Victorino? More like ‘Victory? NOOOOOOO!’,” which is some weak-ass sauce.
So what else can I say about the Flyin’ Hawaiian? Well, for starters, there have been 46 major league players born in the great state of Hawaii—including 11 who were born there before Hawaii was even a state—and, measuring just by bWAR, Victorino is the third most successful behind Sid “The Squid” Fernandez (32.75 bWAR) and Charlie “First Marlins Opening Day Starter” Hough (38.42). (Fun side note, the World Series winning 1986 Mets team featured two starters from Hawaii, as Ron Darling was a rotation mate with Fernandez.)
A three sport star in high school, Victorino passed up scholarships in football and baseball at the University of Hawaii after the Dodgers called his name in the 1999 MLB draft. After spending a couple of seasons in their farm system, advancing as high as AA in 2002, before being selected by the Padres in the ’02 Rule 5 draft. Because he was clearly a talented youngster and because the ’03 Pads were led in WAR by fuckin Mark Loretta, it felt like a pretty safe time to gamble on a 22-year-old speedster with upside. Unfortunately for Victorino, it was a case of too fast, too soon and he struggled against big league pitching, slashing .151/.232/.178 in 83 PAs for the Dads, striking out in 23% of his at bats. After just under two months with the club, the Padres waived him. Victorino cleared waivers and, per the Rule 5 guidelines, he was offered back to LA, who sent him back to the farm.
After two more seasons of minor league toil, Victorino was once again selected in the Rule 5 Draft, this time by Philadelphia. He performed better in a smaller sample size, slashing .294/.263/.647 over 19 PAs, but the Phillies weren’t impressed enough to keep him on the roster so he was once again offered back to LA. THIS time, however, the Dodgers said “Nah son” and declined. Thus, having cleared waivers, the Phillies were able to send Victorino down to Scranton. This proved to be a lucky stroke for Philly, as the Flyin’ Hawaiian was about ready to take off.
2006, Victorino’s age 25 season, became his first full taste of the majors and he did not fuck around with it. He would slash .287/.346/.414 that season and immediately jumpstart a six year stretch that saw him combine for a .282/.348/.443, 164 double, 58 triple, 155 stolen base, 531 run scored stat line, amounting to a 106 OPS+ and 21.9 bWAR, including a high of 5.5 in 2011. That same run would see him lead the whole major leagues in triples twice, nab three Gold Glove awards, get named to two all-star teams and pick up a World Series ring in 2008, after hitting a combined .270 in the playoffs with three doubles, a triple, two homers and 13 RBI. Oh, and in 2007 he ended “Shane Victorino Day” with a walk-off homer to beat the Giants.
In 2012, with the Phillies milling around the middle of the NL pack, Victorino was shipped to Los Angeles just before the trade deadline, in exchange for 26 innings of Josh Lindblom, a 64 ERA+ from Ethan Martin and Stefan “Player to be Named Later” Jarrin, who promptly retired the next season and is now an inside sales rep for the Dodgers.
Now, I know that it might not sound like the Phillies got a lot in exchange for Victorino. This was, after all, a Rubin Amaro joint so nobody expected it to be great. But don’t let first impressions fool you! Because if you go down the rabbit hole, you see that the Phillies then flipped Lindblom to the Rangers that offseason in exchange for Michal Young’s desiccated corpse, who they then sent to the Dodgers for Rob Rasmusson, who was sent to the Blue Jays for Bran Lincoln, who pitched 2.1 innings for the Phillies in 2014 before being released. NOW how does the trade look?
But if it’s any consolation, it wasn’t super successful for LA either, as Victorino never looked particularly comfortable in Dodger blue, hitting .245 with an 85 OPS+ in 53 games down the stretch. He was allowed to wade into free agency that offseason, and signed three year, $39 million deal with the Red Sox. He thanked the club by giving them one last brilliant season of baseball.
Victorino started the 2013 season off with an injury in May but came back at the beginning of June and went off to the tune of a career high .294 batting average. His .351 OBP missed his career high by .001, and he finished the slash line with a .451 SLG, the second highest of his career. He stole 21 bags, scored 82 runs, combined for 53 XBH and posted a 118 OPS+ and career high 6 bWAR. He didn’t exactly carry those good feelings over to October, hitting .196 across the playoffs, but it was good enough to help the Red Sox to a World Series win, Victorino’s second career ring.
Then, like the Bluesmobile at the end of that chase though downtown Chicago, Victorino’s body collapsed in a heap and he was done as a useful player. He managed just 30 games the next season, batting exclusively from just one side of the plate for the first time in his career thanks to the pain, before going under the knife in the offseason to have a piece of his fucking back removed.
He came back in 2015 and played like a guy who had gotten a piece of his fucking back removed, before being traded to the Angels and managing to play even worse. In the offseason he signed a minor league deal with the Cubs and I looked forward to watching him play at Iowa in 2016. But he was only on the roster for nine games before being released and, as we all know, nothing else good happened for the Cubs that year.
There was nobody knocking on his door and Victorino seemed to be pretty at peace with the fact that his career was over. So at peace in fact, that it was not until two years later—on July 3, 2018—that Victorino looked up from his newspaper with one of those “oh shit” epiphany moments, picked up his phone and tweeted out the fact that, oh yeah, he was retired now. The Phillies signed him to a one-day contract so they could claim dibs.
Shane Victorino played for 12 seasons in the major leagues, almost all of it in Philly. He had his best single season in Boston, but it would be utterly laughable to think of him going into the Hypothetical Hall as anything other than a Phillie. He was a perennially beloved fan favorite; a heartwarming, charismatic contrast to bygone Phillies like Lenny Dykstra and Curt Schilling. The only category he ranks among the franchise leaders in is stolen base percentage (fourth, 82.11%), but come on. It’s the Phillies. You’ve got to be very good for a very long time to crack the leaderboards of a team where Sliding Billy Hamilton was sealing 102 bases in 1890.
Chances of making the Hall: Worse than Santa’s chances of getting a standing O in Philly
Chances of leaving the ballot this year: 100%

Heading out of 2019 and into 2020, the Rockies had no expectations. Heading out of 2020 and into 2021… we still have no expectations.
But this isn’t a post about hating the Colorado Rockies and what they’ve done poorly or not done! After all, the literal title of this post is “A toast to the 2020 Colorado Rockies”. So instead of hating on Jeff Bridich like we always do as Rockies fans, let’s bring up some highs, some lows, and overall, let’s have a fun time reminiscing about a truly unique Rockies season, even outside covid.

MILE HIGHS

Comeback Player of the Year… after 7 years off
Prior to this season, the last MLB season Daniel Bard pitched in was in 2013, where he only pitched 1 inning, giving up two walks and an earned run. His 9.00 ERA in 2013 and the 6.22 ERA the year prior led to him being designated for assignment by the Red Sox, which was disappointing for Bard after posting great numbers for the 2009-2011 Sox teams. It appeared as if the yips had ended his career, retiring in 2017 after being stuck in minor league purgatory for several years. Yet, seven years later, with tape on his back, he pitches himself back into the big leagues with an excellent spring training showing. He not only is able to throw his first major league pitch since Barack Obama was in office, he’s still got his vintage stuff on a 99 mph pitch. Truly, a comeback story for the ages.
Nolan Is Still Nolan
Nolan Arenado had injured his shoulder within the first few games in Oakland. He’s clearly not himself offensively this year, with a triple slash of .253/.303/.434, and a wRC+ of 76. He hasn’t had one season under 100 wRC+ since his rookie year, so why do I still say “Nolan Is Still Nolan”? Despite that shoulder injury, he’s still the best defensive player in baseball. If you don’t like FanGraphs, here’s Baseball Savant ranking him among the top fielders in baseball, too. Here’s baseball-reference having Nolan lead in defensive WAR as well!. Not a stats guy? Here’s an amazing play by Nolan to pass the eye test. No matter how you slice it, Nolan was still Nolan defensively, and he did all of that through injury.
The Re-Emergence of K-Free and Senzei
Both Kyle Freeland and Antonio Senzatela debuted in 2017. In 2018, they both improved to lead the Rockies oh-so-close to upsetting the Dodgers for the NL West title. Then 2019 came, and both pitchers suffered major setbacks. Kyle Freeland? Went from an unheard of 2.85 ERA despite playing in Coors to a 90’s era Rockies-esque 6.73 ERA. And, Senzatela? Not much better, falling from a respectable 4.38 to a horrendous 6.71 ERA. It looked like the Rockies had a starting pitching problem again, but in 2020 the two made improvements. Senzatela would start to mix his pitches better, and it got him a 3.44 ERA, best of his career, as he led the Rockies in rWAR and ranked second in fWAR. Freeland had a 4.33 ERA, which looks even better if you take out his last start in a meaningless game, bringing it down to 3.69. These guys proved that 2019 struggles were just a fluke and oddly made the rotation a Rockies strength. Hats off to these two underrated comebacks, alongside Daniel Bard.
A Fantastic Start to the Season
Of all of the stories, the high that Rockies fans remember best is their hot start to the season. Starting 11-3, the Rockies looked absolutely dominant in a shortened 60-game season. Not a single Rockies fan, or even any fan, was expecting this greatness. Sure, the offense wasn’t sustainable and the bullpen had signs of distress, but it didn’t matter. The Rockies were #1 in the NL, baby.

ROCKY LOWS

The Rockies Forget How to Win
The higher you climb, the farther you fall, they say. After the Rockies went 11-4 through the first 15 games of the season, they only needed to play .500 ball for the rest of the season to make the expanded playoffs. The Rockies would go 15-30 the next 45 games. In all honesty, let’s not talk about this anymore.
A Bullpen only Sunnier than in Philadelphia
The Phillies had a historically bad bullpen, with an ERA of 7.06. Right behind them, however, were the 6.77 ERA Colorado Rockies. Daniel Bard & Yency Almonte were pretty much the only good relievers in the Rockies bullpen. Carlos Estevez posted a 7.50 ERA after a 3.75 ERA the year prior. Jairo posted a 7.65 ERA mark himself after setting himself up to be a promising closer last season. Hoffman continued to be a bust, with a whopping 9.28 ERA. Pazos provided no support as a lefty with a 16.88 ERA. Then, of course, Bridich-overpayment Wade Davis had an amazing 20.77 ERA. Please come back healthy Scott Oberg. We miss you.
Please Fire Jeff Bridich
Last year, u/Underbubble made this exact point here too: Jeff Bridich needs to be fired. Since then, he’s somehow gotten worse. I’ve already mentioned how bad Wade Davis had been this season, but what did Bridich do to try and improve on his mediocre 2019 team, and supposedly make these 2020 Rockies the 94-win team Rockies owner Dick Monfort famously projected them to be?
Nothing - literally nothing. He signed minor leaguers, released some bad players, and that’s it. Oh, and he pissed off Nolan Arenado. While most fans want a World Series win or even a playoff appearance from their squad every year, every Rockies fan wants Jeff Bridich fired instead, as there’s no reaching those two goals with him as our GM. Rockies fans are to Jeff Bridich as Mets fans were to the Wilpons. Bridich is still our GM though, so it looks to be a rough offseason for us.

GOODBYES, AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS OF AN OLD FRIEND

I want to start by giving a quick shoutout to DJ LeMahieu! After Jeff Bridich foolishly believed that Daniel Murphy was a better investment than DJ LeMahieu, he would go on to become an MVP candidate for the Yankees, in both 2019 and 2020. A triple slash of .364/.421/.590 is just absurd, even in a 60 game season. Beautiful. Let’s say move onto goodbyes though before this becomes a rant.
Matt Kemp: The only team to beat the Dodgers this whole season in a series? The Colorado Rockies. Who hit the home run to put the Rockies in the lead for one of those crucial games. Matt Kemp. You’re probably not a Rockie with the DH rule being removed once again, but you truly made your time here memorable. Thanks.
Chris Owings: Other than the fact we didn’t see you for like, half the season after you got injured… You did quite well for us here. You were an underrated part of our original 11-4 run. I don’t think you’re a Rockie next year either, but you were also memorable.
Wade Davis: Uh. Thanks for September 2018. That wasn’t bad!
Daniel Murphy: Thanks for bringing meme material to 2020.
Drew Butera: We know you’re going to be back again, who are we kidding.
Last year’s toast said good riddance to the 2019 Rockies. Well, 2020 was unique. It’s not gonna be easy to forget. Though still, one last toast to the 2020 Rockies, and good riddance, once again.

ColoradoRockies Top 5 Shitposts by Karma:

I feel silly
RoxsHub (NSFW?)
After doing nothing in the offseason
What a monster.
Wade Davis has me like