[gehrig38]

Starting Rotation:
1) Roberto Martinez-22 year old former 1st round pick coming off a 15-11 3.88 season, his first. He's a mid 90's righty, with one of the best curve balls in the game. His 3rd pitch is a change up, and it's a decent one. The hope is he's an ace for the next decade in Chicago.
2) Ken Lee-(29) The veteran leader of the staff now that Thompson is gone. He's 55-20 4.13 over the past 3 seasons. A low to mid 90's lefty with great control. Works a good fastball with a decent cutter, outstanding change and split.
3) Bryan Rogers-The rotations best, and likely one of the leagues best power arms. Works in the upper 90's, hitting triple digits often. 31-17 4.65 the past 2 seasons with 406K's and 171 BB's in 373.2 IP.
4) Gerardo Zamora-Another 1st rounder. The 24 year old righty is 32-16 in 75 starts over the past 3 years with a 5.17 ERA. Outstanding command but gives up a few too many hits. Mid to upper 90's fastball with a decent curve, and forkball, and an outstanding changeup.
5) Mike Hamilton-The 26 year old newcomer. Went 38-8 2.90 the past 2 seasons in AAA. Was 3-1 3.61 in 7 starts last season. He allowed the team to let Walt Thompson move on. Works an upper 90's fastball with a good cutter, curve combo and has a useable changeup.

The Tulsa rotation has 3 3+ star prospectes, with 1st rounder Jorge Trujillo as the leading prospect, and just 23 years old. Steve McKinley (26) and Augusto Rocha (24) are the other big prospects and ready if needed.

Bullpen
Right handers Pedro Garcia and Orlando Velez are the newcomers, taking over for free agent Arturo Rodriguez and injured lefty Mike Moore. With Ernesto Cruz getting healthy everyone falls back into their slots but with 4 righties and 2 lefties until Moore gets healthy. 21 year old lefty Jorge Pacheco continues to progress at AAA Tulsa.

Catching
28 year old George Knox takes over full time catching duties. The FL's 2018 gold glove winner hit .243-34-91 last season in 130 games. 26 year old Martin Ramirez takes on the backup duties, both are right handed. Martinez hit .292 in limited action last season, but had a monster .299-27-109 AAA season, winning the league MVP. He won a gold glove at AA 2 seasons ago.

Infielders
Just about the same infield, Salinas at 1B, Riggs 2B, Morgan at 3B with the only real change being Massi Lorenzelli taking over full time SS duties at the outset. The last roster cut was incredibly difficult, as star in waiting Alberto Rivera had to be sent back, given the lack of AB's he'd be getting up here. Wes Webb and John Johnston take over the backup roles, with Webb starting vs LH, and Morgan sitting. Lorenzelli struggled against righties last season and if that potentially happens again Webb would be available to play some short. Johnston is a switch hitter, and Morgan is the only LH hitting infielder.

Outfielders
The leagues best OF returns all five. Batting champion Eric Coates in left, Hugh Collins in center, and the IBL's all time home run leader Bill Alexander in right, with Luis Chavez DH'ing and Ron Miller in the lineup vs lefties. The one change will be in the lineup, moving Chavez into the 2 hole and Riggs to 7.

State of the organization
We're contenders again. With just 2 players contracts due up at seasons end (Collins, Lorenzelli) it should remain that way. But we've now moved into “win it all or else” mode from the front office on down. Last years first round exit had as much to do with the in game management in the Arizona series as anything and everyone's comfortable that will not happen again.

We've finally managed to clear enough room in the budget to increase scouting (7.8M this year) but fan interest has dropped to 76 over the past 10 months with the first round exit and free agent defection of Walt Thompson. If possible I am going to see what I can do to get Collins signed to an extension, but I don't think I have the funds to make that happen without a significant trade of a large contract. There's been talk, with Rivera sitting in AAA, of potentially shopping Wes Morgan around, though it's not public at the moment. Teams are certainly interested, as he's got 2 years and a 3rd year player option left. The most interesting possibility is Baltimore’s offer of 31 year old 2014 Koufax winner Chris O'Slattery. It saves me a couple million this year and next, but he's signed for 7 more seasons, starting after this year, at 77M, with a base of 7.4/8.6/9.8/11/12.2/13.4 and a vesting 7th season.

As I drill down on the offer, looking over their roster, understanding their 'win now' approach, I ask for 24 year old OF Dennis Ash, by including 24 year old Gerardo Zamora. Now I never advocate trading young pitching but we do have a good stable of arms, at AAA and below, and in this organization Zamora is probably the kid I feel has the 'shortest' upside. He's going to be prone to a lot of hits and a lot of HR's imo. Ash would allow me to let Collins walk, and provide gold glove defense wherever I chose to play him in the OF. He's a 5 star guy, no pop, track star speed, gold glove defense, and a batting title type left handed bat. O'Slatterty provides a power, veteran arm, is under contract for what is likely the rest of his career, is an innings horse (never thrown fewer than 238 innings in a season, 1753 IP is #1 all time in the IBL) and is a huge influence, positive, in the clubhouse. I topped it off by asking for their 1st rounder, in exchange for the 2nd rounder I got from them earlier this winter. Which would give me 3 of the first 30 picks in the draft. GM Will Fleming is sleeping on it.