2052 Season Review - Try 2 - with less effort
When I first took over the riggers, my goal was to build a solid young core of players around Claudio Montes, Mulia Kusuma, and Clement Launay and start competing for the playoffs by 2052. We finished the season with an extremely hot month of September, so not only did we make the playoffs, but we finished 2nd in the SL and won 90 games and I've got a good young core of players that will be here for years to come (or be upgraded). Rafael Juarez is my only player who isn't young, but he's entering the last 3 years of a team friendly salary structure, so I hopefully have time to find a player to play 3B. I think I've done a good job building up the minor league system and managing salaries and budget so I'm able to spend big in IFA or use very large single year FA contracts to add popular star players to the team (thus boosting attendance and budget). Along with my personal goals, the team did a good job accomplishing the owner's goals as well:
Starting Pitchers:
I still don't really have an ACE pitcher, but my stadium factors and defensive build should allow for average pitchers to play well and above average guys to excel. One of my goals in the next few years is to pick up a true ACE pitcher since I don't really have one in my system. Dave Meyer was the obvious best pitcher for the riggers this season, and I think he's a solid #2 type pitcher. Freddy Ramos was promoted from AAA and did very well, and I think he has a bright future as well. Bill Tremblett (on IR and not listed) was my other top tier young pitcher, but he struggled through a sophomore slump this season and then hurt hisself for 7 months, so he might be ruined. Jesse Wiseman, Jose Rivera, and Kadidou Idogbe are my 3 stalwart stop gaps who are still going strong. Wiseman and Rivera both had really nice seasons as starters, but I think their future will be in relief pitching roles with starting potential (which I like to dick with 7 day lineup types). DOG is still the right price and has been consistently decent for 4 years now, so I've got him down as my #5 pitcher going forward. Terry Morgan is another youngster who had a sophomore slump, but hopefully he plays better next year. He's not phenomenal looking, but has better potential than Wiseman/Rivera/Idogbe
Relief Pitchers:
Esteve Montes had a really nice season as a closer with 49 saves and a winning record as well. He still gives up too many HRs for my taste, but I'm still confident in him moving forward for a couple seasons. Tyronne Massey did really well in my setup role this season and will remain. Daniel Saldana had a good last month to make his stats look respectable, but he struggled for much of the season and his ratings have dived according to my scout and OSA, so I might need to find a new LOOGY. Francisco Garcia had a down year and played so bad at one point that I had to limit his innings. Hopefully he gets his shit together because when he's playing well he makes for a great relief pitcher option as a closer or setup guy. David Johnson was brought up from AAA and struggled a bit. He might not be a long term solution here, and he might start on AAA in 2053 when Rivera and Wiseman slide over to relief pitcher roles.
Catcher - Claudio Montes had a nice season for a 24 year old and I'm confident that he'll continue to be a solid player for years to come. I don't think he'll ever be an all star level player, but a solid 2-3 WAR guy with good defense and decent hitting is good enough for me. His backup is still struggling in the WBL, especially in the second half of the season. I'd like to have a backup catcher that can play some DH or at least provide more of a bat as a pinch hitter, so I might be looking to upgrade on a single year contract. I think my youngster is still 2 years out from being fully WBL ready.
Infield -
Rafael Juarez was one of the best 3B in the league again and only a downturn in the last couple of weeks kept him below 5 WARS. The next 3 years make up the team friendly portion of his deal, so I'm excited to have him around at a price I consider reasonable. Mason Faz came via trade with
@Rutgers Mike. He obviously played extremely well for Mike this year and he also helped shore up my DH spot for the playoff push. I signed him to a 1 year $20M contract for next season. To some this might seem excessive, but it is really part of my financial plan going forward to sign star players to large 1 year contracts in non IFA years. It provides the obvious on field benefits and also really helps drive up fan interest, which increases my future budgets. Hopefully Faz has another good season next year. Mulia Kusuma exceeded 3 WAR for the first time this season, and he did a better job at the plate this season with a nice high average of .294. He's a solid young shortstop and I expect he will continue to serve me well in the future. Dani Rod shook off his early WBL troubles and had a decent season at 1B, though he definitely slumped toward the end of the year compared to his hot start. I hope he'll give me a couple more good seasons, but I plan on bringing up Roosevelt Gonzales, his eventual replacement, at some point next season. Clement Launay is a guy who is never going to show a lot of WAR because he doesn't have a great batting average and he doesn't hit for power, but he plays good defense and his eye is good enough to get him on base at an acceptable rate to be a leadoff hitter. I'd love to see his average improve, but he still gets on base at over .325. Eneas Cezimbra's ratings have continue to decline and I think I'll use him in a similar role as Marco Eirosa, having both in AAA as acceptable stopgaps in case of injury, but neither is good enough to be a regular starter for a HAVE. Then we have Douglass Tagg. He had -0.1 WAR but had +10 Leadership WAR, leading the riggers to the playoffs. I don't question it. At least he can play multiple positions well defensively!
Outfield:
Julio Manuel is the BTT and he had a great season hitting over .800 OPS and providing solid defense in CF. I plan on moving him to LF next season (my LF area needs a CF like range to cover due to park factors) and hopefully JULIO had a long and wonderful career for me putting up 3+ WAR seasons. Quinton Magnanti came up from AAA near the end of the season to replace Lorenzo Castillo, who struggled and was sent back down to AAA. Q Magnanti was + in the field and hit .800 OPS at the plate, to rack up 0.9 WAR in only 40 games or so. Hopefully he can keep that up next year and become a starter at the RF spot. George Miller came back to the riggers to play DH against LHP, pinch hit, and provide some leadership and ticket sales. It worked swimmingly as he greatly increased fan interest and hit for a ridiculous 1.211 OPS in the last month of the season to fuel the rigger push for the playoffs. He wanted too much money for me to bring him back next season, and I know his hot month was more of a fluke than what can be expected in the future, but for the sake of ticket sales we'll see what we can do to keep him a rigger. Mason Brett came via a blockbuster trade in which we gave up our DH Carter Gibson and our LOOGY Juan Garcia. He's a high contact high GAP player with speed and ++ defense who should fit extremely well in the rigger system. Immediately after the trade he was extremely upset and played poorly, but we got him under contract and he played very well the last couple of games of the season to get back above 0 WAR. Next year I plan on playing him in CF. Solano Lares had a rough season at the plate, but still played solid defense. He'll be 4th outfielder next season, which is a role he's done well in.