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Bub13 · 04-20-2017, 08:29 PM

MLB says we're going to finish with 60 wins. Hey, what do they know? They also rate our minor league system 35th out of 36th teams...which means that New Orleans has actually signed worse minor leaguers than we have. That's simultaneously comforting and sad.

April 2034: month 11-15 / overall 11-15 .423 Hey, not too bad. We're tied for last place, since Houston got off to an 0-5 start, but recovered. We didn't win more than 2 in a row, but didn't lose more than 2 consectively, either. So that's something. No major injuries, and no exciting performances either.

Transactions: none
Outlook: still cautiously optimistic. We're on a 70-game winning pace, which would be ten games over what MLB says we're capable of.

May 2034: month 5-23 / overall 16-38 .296 Disaster. Two eight-game losing streaks were our only "highlights." Hitting went downhill, pitching went even lower than that. One thing we are doing is hitting home runs, averaging over one per game.

Transactions: Claimed RP Sonny Balderston off waivers from MTL 5/11...Claimed RP Roberto Castillo off waivers from CHW 5/20. Both are better than most of what we're trotting out of the pen every night. Both have good stuff and control, Castillo not much movement tho. Balderston a righty, Castillo a lefty...Traded SP Chance Muller to CLE for OF Eric Lane 5/22. Muller was a big disappointment, not living up to his quality ratings (5.20era and 45ip over 9starts). Lane has decent contact, and good power and gap power. He'll slot into RF, where Kelvin Moreno has HR power, but little else...Traded 2B Tom Connor to BRO for IF Andy Hellard 5/31. Connor hit .141 when he wasn't injured. Plus, he's making $1.05M, so we're saving big bucks. Hellard is solid at the three skilled IF positions, and has a rocket arm. No power, but good enough with the bat to be a quality fill-in when needed.
Outlook: trending downward. Five wins in May. Still, a few transactions and a whole lot of lineup juggling means things can't get worse, right?

June 2034: month 4-23 / overall 20-61 .247 Ahhhh, what. Here's the poster child for our May and June: SP Brent Adams, called up in May, made 7 starts and delivered these results: 1-6, 34ip, 54hits, 15k, 17bb, 10.16era, -0.4war. At the plate, we're still hitting home runs, but little else. (NOTE: The draft review will come in the next post.)

Transactions: Signed 2B Alex Contreras to a one-year deal worth $920K. He's 36, so definitely not a long-term solution. Has a solid glove, decent contact, and good eye. Hit .232 for CLE in 38 games last year. Was a quality starter in the '20s for OAK and POR, putting together a couple of 6 WAR seasons, and even a couple of 20 HR seasons, although his power has declined significantly since.
Outlook: ugh. We're approaching the all-star break, and something's gotta give by then. This is my first extended experience with a team that is not hitting and not pitching at the same time. Home attendance is also hovering around the 15K mark.

July 2034: month 9-17 / overall 29-78 .271 When a 9-17 mark is a fantastic improvement, you know you're not only living in the basement, you're signing a long-term lease. Lots of transactions this month, detailed below, but the biggest one was in the dugout: we fired manager Rehiner Cordova after he started July 0-4, to drop the team to a 20-65 record. To replace him, I hired...ME. Yes, my doppelganger had retired, and was hanging out in the Available Personnel section. I checked me out, saw that I actually had pretty decent ratings, and signed me. Good times. Apparently I'm conventional in style, but controlling in personality. Maybe I'm what this team needs. I look forward to the day when I get to fire myself.

Transactions: Very busy. Traded 2B Alex Contreras to KC for OF Marc Ferenczi 7/5. Contreras played 3 games, got hurt, then sat on the bench when he came back due to the improving play of Jamie Forbes. He was NOT HAPPY, and demanded a trade. So I granted his wish. Ferenczi is 27, best in left and center, and looks like a lot of guys on this team: decent contact, good gap power, no HR power. Good glove tho, which I hope helps our league-bottom defensive efficiency...Traded JD Elder to BAL for IF John Kuczkowski 7/6. Kucz right now is good field/no hit, so he'll fit right in. Actually, he'll probably start in AAA, since I'm set in the infield for now due to some better play from 2B Forbes and 3B/SS Hebert. Elder was supposed to be a go-to lefty power hitter in the middle of the lineup, but only put up .174/.272/.246 in 276ab. I also decided he could go b/c I was hot in pursuit of a new free agent who popped up on the board after his IBL season ended... Signed 1B Jeremy Dunklee as a free agent 7/15. This is potentially my first huge move for this team. Dunklee is 24, and currently has good contact, but plus gap, power, and eye. He's got room to develop; if he hits his potential, he's a future MVP candidate, in my mind at least. He only lacks a glove, and pretty seriously bought his fielding tools from Dave Kingman. He'll DH most of the rest of the season, to see what develops. I signed him for a gigantic $100M contract over 9 years. I made sure our owner was out of town when I did that...Traded SP/RP Dwight Kaufman to BOS for RP Mike Koslowsky 7/27. Kaufman is popular, and had actually pitched relatively well for us (4.42era in 92ip, including 9starts). But he's making $4.1M, and I wanted to cut some pay after signing Dunklee. Plus, his control is erratic (49bb in those 92ip). Koslowsky is decent (13-15 ratings out of 20), affordable, and has enough stamina and three pitches, so could be a spot starter if we need a body...Traded RP Tyler Hines to OAK for RP Matt Inman 7/31. Hines had injury problems, came back and then had every other kind of problem: 19ip, 12bb, 8.05era from the pen. A rotting corpse, basically.) Inman is rated basically the same as Hines, but with better movement (14 vs 10). If his ERA is below 8, he'll be a success.
Outlook: Ok, breathe. We played better with a new manager (9-13 after the firing), and continued remaking our bullpen. I'm also excited to see if Dunklee can live up to his hype. I'm surprised we got him, but we did have budget room. We only had to up our offer twice, so I'm hoping that doesn't mean that he's horribly overrated and this contract will be my Waterloo.

August 2034: month 11-17 / overall 40-95 .296 So close to that magical .300 win percentage. Most of my moves from July have been okay, at least. My bullpen is no longer drawing flies (although Inman, whom I jokingly said could be a success if his ERA was below 8, has an ERA at 7). Dunklee is only hitting around .230, but he's got some power and is getting on base at a .400 clip, which leads our team by far.

Transactions: Claimed RP Andy Long off waivers from RIC 8/27. Great stuff (20 out of 20), and a sweet cutter (19), just fair everywhere else. You can't have too many pitchers, and since we have very little in AAA that's worth calling up, I'm constantly trolling the waiver wire in hopes that at least 1 out of 3 pickups work out.
Outlook: Stability. Hopefully we've at least left the dark months of mid-summer behind, even if we're still a long way off from being competitive.

September 2034: month 17-10 / overall 57-105 .351 Not sure where this came from, but our first winning month ever. Most of the month we treaded water, but ended the season on an 8-game winning streak. Since our Kansas City AAA affiliate was vying for a playoff spot, I only called up a few players. (Plus...there are few interesting players there anyway.) SP Salvador de la Cruz looked promising in five starts, but no batters distinguished themselves. I'll take the end of season funsies, but I'm not sure how many of these guys will be around next year, so I'm thinking this stretch was something of a false dawn.

Transactions: none, other than September callups.
Outlook: Is there room for some optimism for 2035 after that finish? Maybe. Dunklee looks promising at 1B/DH, Forbes looked good at 2B, and Hebert was actually quite good at 3B and SS. The outfield is still all question marks, and the pitching was a mess. The off-season will require a lot of hard thinking.

......

2034 In Review: Hitting

Nobody distinguished himself at the plate, but it wasn't all bad news. Ok...it was mostly bad news. We scored 619 runs and had a .235/.296/.373 slash line. We were the only team to get on base at less than a 30 percent clip. We only stole 33 bases. We did pop 160 home runs, good for a tie for eighth.

Ryan Hebert played well all season long, moving around the infield (52gp at SS, 51 at 3B, 47 at 2B). Still, a 1.5 WAR in 621ab does not an all-star make. He's young enough and still on a minimum contract, and our best contact hitter. He'll return. Jamie Forbes was a pleasant surprise once he took over at second in June, with 16hr and 1.8 WAR in essentially half a season's worth of at bats. He is NOT a good fielder, tho, and that could be his ultimate undoing. At catcher, we got 2.5 WAR out of our regulars, Zamorano and Crabtree, which is satisfactory. Neither is great behind the plate, but they don't kill you either. RF Eric Lane played well after his trade. He only hit .235, which was just below expectation, but he got on base and hit enough HR to earn his keep. Dunklee is still My Precious and I'm looking forward to him developing even more next season. Since Thomas was a lot of meh at 1B, Dunklee might end up there, depending on what I'm able to find in the off-season. Center field devolved to Christopher after Miguel Torres couldn't stay healthy. Neither is really suited to the position. Ferenczi looked okay late in the season, but his upside is limited. Bacon and Moreno had alternating good and awful stretches at the plate, and neither looked particularly useful in the field as well.

Our biggest problem was simply getting on base: next to last in average, and dead last in OBP. Only Seattle was worse than us at the plate, but they still managed to win 75 games due to having good pitching. Going into the off-season, I want to find at least a decent CF, and another 1B or DH. I'll privilege fielding and OBP over power.

2034 In Review: Pitching

If our batters couldn't draw a walk all season, our pitchers couldn't stop putting people on base. We were consistenly ranked 17th out of 18 AL staffs, with only Houston performing worse (although we did give up the most runs, 827 to Houston's 817). We were 16th in WHIP and BABIP, 11th in strikeouts, and 17th in walks allowed.

By far our best starter was Oscar Wiggins. A 3.5 WAR would be pretty fair on most teams, but for us, it's Pitcher of the Year quality. He consistently gave us chances to win, even if we just as consistently failed to grab them. Ed Fisher gave it his all, and his ugly W-L record belies a decent year otherwise. His low strikeout numbers means he puts a lot of balls into play, and our fielding just wasn't good enough to make him better. The rest were nothing special. Tello was second in the league in walks; Klug was maddeningly inconsistent. Rich Rivera started the year well, but fell off the table then got hurt. Hancock and Adams were awful. Others were traded. De la Cruz looked good in his September callup, but my scouts don't like him. Still, he's earned another look.

Our bullpen stabilized after my mid-season moves, but there's still enough bad pitching to shoulder some blame for our woeful season. Closer Jay Yates was the notable exception, and was our only all-star. Ryan Key was up and down, but is worth keeping around. Balderston, Castillo, and Koslowsky were decent to good after their acquisitions, as was Long in September. Raleigh Vance is a scouting darling, and on paper looked like our best pitcher. However, he got bombed all year long, and his ERA only dropped below 6 in September. Cerrone, Hines, and Inman were dreadful.

For next season, I think I can at least tread water with quite a bit of this staff. I want to find 2 more starters, and hopefully another 1-2 more relievers. I want to go into camp with at least 17-20 big league quality pitchers to choose from. We're not there yet, but also not too far from having a servicable, stable rotation and bullpen.

......

2034 MLB Roundup
In the AL, Toronto was the cream of the league with 111 wins. Minnesota (94-68) won the Central, and Oakland (89-73) the West. Tampa Bay (97 wins) and Kansas City (91) were the wild card teams, and the Rays won the one-game playoff. Tampa Bay then shocked Toronto, and Oakland swept the Twins. The A's topped the Rays in 7 to head to their first World Series since 1990. In the NL, Richmond, Pittsburgh, and San Diego won their divisions, with San Francisco (87 wins) and Montreal (91) claiming the wild card spots. The Giants topped the Expos, then swept the surprised Pirates in three games. San Diego likewise swept Richmond. The Giants then beat the Padres in seven to set up a reprise of the 1989 Bay Area Series. The Giants won a classic in seven games, their eighth title overall and first since 2012.

AL Awards:
League MVP: C Devlin Ransberger, Toronto (.289/.364/.621, 50 HR, 129 RBI, 113 R, 166 wRC+, 9.2 WAR)
Cy Young Award: Dave Henderson, Toronto (19-4, 3.13 ERA, 210 IP, 1.26 WHIP, 7.9 K/9, 5.6 WAR)
Rookie of Year: RF Sean Holliday, Texas (.317/.407/.580, 37 HR, 119 RBI, 164 wRC+, 8.4 WAR)

NL Awards:
League MVP: SS Pablo Delgado, Pittsburgh (.303/.428/.574, 36 HR, 91 RBI, 122 R, 188 wRC+, 10.9 WAR)
Cy Young Award: Jake Atkinson, Brooklyn (19-4, 1.95 ERA, 212 IP, 0.97 WHIP, 11.7 K/9, 8.2 WAR)
Rookie of Year: 1B Julio Gonzalez, San Diego (.314/.365/.519, 15 HR, 56 RBI, 158 wRC+, 4.7 WAR)

Other items of interest...
...four no-hitters, including the first two perfect games in this dynasty play (Shawn Knox for STL and Zac Webster for CLE)...Tom Sloan (PIT) and Joey Etler (MIN) win 20 games, but no Cy Young for either...WAS pitcher Orlando Ramos records his 4000th strikeout...PIT hits 248 home runs, missing tying the MLB record by one...Ransberger won his second MVP...the other expansion franchise, New Orleans, won 63 games; St Louis won 60, meaning we'll have the first overall pick in next year's draft.

Next up: 2034 draft review

04-20-2017, 08:29 PM	#5
Bub13 All Star Reserve Join Date: Apr 2014 Location: Maine Posts: 748	Joyriding Through 2034 MLB says we're going to finish with 60 wins. Hey, what do they know? They also rate our minor league system 35th out of 36th teams...which means that New Orleans has actually signed worse minor leaguers than we have. That's simultaneously comforting and sad. April 2034: month 11-15 / overall 11-15 .423 Hey, not too bad. We're tied for last place, since Houston got off to an 0-5 start, but recovered. We didn't win more than 2 in a row, but didn't lose more than 2 consectively, either. So that's something. No major injuries, and no exciting performances either. Transactions: none Outlook: still cautiously optimistic. We're on a 70-game winning pace, which would be ten games over what MLB says we're capable of. May 2034: month 5-23 / overall 16-38 .296 Disaster. Two eight-game losing streaks were our only "highlights." Hitting went downhill, pitching went even lower than that. One thing we are doing is hitting home runs, averaging over one per game. Transactions: Claimed RP Sonny Balderston off waivers from MTL 5/11...Claimed RP Roberto Castillo off waivers from CHW 5/20. Both are better than most of what we're trotting out of the pen every night. Both have good stuff and control, Castillo not much movement tho. Balderston a righty, Castillo a lefty...Traded SP Chance Muller to CLE for OF Eric Lane 5/22. Muller was a big disappointment, not living up to his quality ratings (5.20era and 45ip over 9starts). Lane has decent contact, and good power and gap power. He'll slot into RF, where Kelvin Moreno has HR power, but little else...Traded 2B Tom Connor to BRO for IF Andy Hellard 5/31. Connor hit .141 when he wasn't injured. Plus, he's making $1.05M, so we're saving big bucks. Hellard is solid at the three skilled IF positions, and has a rocket arm. No power, but good enough with the bat to be a quality fill-in when needed. Outlook: trending downward. Five wins in May. Still, a few transactions and a whole lot of lineup juggling means things can't get worse, right? June 2034: month 4-23 / overall 20-61 .247 Ahhhh, what. Here's the poster child for our May and June: SP Brent Adams, called up in May, made 7 starts and delivered these results: 1-6, 34ip, 54hits, 15k, 17bb, 10.16era, -0.4war. At the plate, we're still hitting home runs, but little else. (NOTE: The draft review will come in the next post.) Transactions: Signed 2B Alex Contreras to a one-year deal worth $920K. He's 36, so definitely not a long-term solution. Has a solid glove, decent contact, and good eye. Hit .232 for CLE in 38 games last year. Was a quality starter in the '20s for OAK and POR, putting together a couple of 6 WAR seasons, and even a couple of 20 HR seasons, although his power has declined significantly since. Outlook: ugh. We're approaching the all-star break, and something's gotta give by then. This is my first extended experience with a team that is not hitting and not pitching at the same time. Home attendance is also hovering around the 15K mark. July 2034: month 9-17 / overall 29-78 .271 When a 9-17 mark is a fantastic improvement, you know you're not only living in the basement, you're signing a long-term lease. Lots of transactions this month, detailed below, but the biggest one was in the dugout: we fired manager Rehiner Cordova after he started July 0-4, to drop the team to a 20-65 record. To replace him, I hired...ME. Yes, my doppelganger had retired, and was hanging out in the Available Personnel section. I checked me out, saw that I actually had pretty decent ratings, and signed me. Good times. Apparently I'm conventional in style, but controlling in personality. Maybe I'm what this team needs. I look forward to the day when I get to fire myself. Transactions: Very busy. Traded 2B Alex Contreras to KC for OF Marc Ferenczi 7/5. Contreras played 3 games, got hurt, then sat on the bench when he came back due to the improving play of Jamie Forbes. He was NOT HAPPY, and demanded a trade. So I granted his wish. Ferenczi is 27, best in left and center, and looks like a lot of guys on this team: decent contact, good gap power, no HR power. Good glove tho, which I hope helps our league-bottom defensive efficiency...Traded JD Elder to BAL for IF John Kuczkowski 7/6. Kucz right now is good field/no hit, so he'll fit right in. Actually, he'll probably start in AAA, since I'm set in the infield for now due to some better play from 2B Forbes and 3B/SS Hebert. Elder was supposed to be a go-to lefty power hitter in the middle of the lineup, but only put up .174/.272/.246 in 276ab. I also decided he could go b/c I was hot in pursuit of a new free agent who popped up on the board after his IBL season ended... Signed 1B Jeremy Dunklee as a free agent 7/15. This is potentially my first huge move for this team. Dunklee is 24, and currently has good contact, but plus gap, power, and eye. He's got room to develop; if he hits his potential, he's a future MVP candidate, in my mind at least. He only lacks a glove, and pretty seriously bought his fielding tools from Dave Kingman. He'll DH most of the rest of the season, to see what develops. I signed him for a gigantic $100M contract over 9 years. I made sure our owner was out of town when I did that...Traded SP/RP Dwight Kaufman to BOS for RP Mike Koslowsky 7/27. Kaufman is popular, and had actually pitched relatively well for us (4.42era in 92ip, including 9starts). But he's making $4.1M, and I wanted to cut some pay after signing Dunklee. Plus, his control is erratic (49bb in those 92ip). Koslowsky is decent (13-15 ratings out of 20), affordable, and has enough stamina and three pitches, so could be a spot starter if we need a body...Traded RP Tyler Hines to OAK for RP Matt Inman 7/31. Hines had injury problems, came back and then had every other kind of problem: 19ip, 12bb, 8.05era from the pen. A rotting corpse, basically.) Inman is rated basically the same as Hines, but with better movement (14 vs 10). If his ERA is below 8, he'll be a success. Outlook: Ok, breathe. We played better with a new manager (9-13 after the firing), and continued remaking our bullpen. I'm also excited to see if Dunklee can live up to his hype. I'm surprised we got him, but we did have budget room. We only had to up our offer twice, so I'm hoping that doesn't mean that he's horribly overrated and this contract will be my Waterloo. August 2034: month 11-17 / overall 40-95 .296 So close to that magical .300 win percentage. Most of my moves from July have been okay, at least. My bullpen is no longer drawing flies (although Inman, whom I jokingly said could be a success if his ERA was below 8, has an ERA at 7). Dunklee is only hitting around .230, but he's got some power and is getting on base at a .400 clip, which leads our team by far. Transactions: Claimed RP Andy Long off waivers from RIC 8/27. Great stuff (20 out of 20), and a sweet cutter (19), just fair everywhere else. You can't have too many pitchers, and since we have very little in AAA that's worth calling up, I'm constantly trolling the waiver wire in hopes that at least 1 out of 3 pickups work out. Outlook: Stability. Hopefully we've at least left the dark months of mid-summer behind, even if we're still a long way off from being competitive. September 2034: month 17-10 / overall 57-105 .351 Not sure where this came from, but our first winning month ever. Most of the month we treaded water, but ended the season on an 8-game winning streak. Since our Kansas City AAA affiliate was vying for a playoff spot, I only called up a few players. (Plus...there are few interesting players there anyway.) SP Salvador de la Cruz looked promising in five starts, but no batters distinguished themselves. I'll take the end of season funsies, but I'm not sure how many of these guys will be around next year, so I'm thinking this stretch was something of a false dawn. Transactions: none, other than September callups. Outlook: Is there room for some optimism for 2035 after that finish? Maybe. Dunklee looks promising at 1B/DH, Forbes looked good at 2B, and Hebert was actually quite good at 3B and SS. The outfield is still all question marks, and the pitching was a mess. The off-season will require a lot of hard thinking. ...... 2034 In Review: Hitting Nobody distinguished himself at the plate, but it wasn't all bad news. Ok...it was mostly bad news. We scored 619 runs and had a .235/.296/.373 slash line. We were the only team to get on base at less than a 30 percent clip. We only stole 33 bases. We did pop 160 home runs, good for a tie for eighth. Ryan Hebert played well all season long, moving around the infield (52gp at SS, 51 at 3B, 47 at 2B). Still, a 1.5 WAR in 621ab does not an all-star make. He's young enough and still on a minimum contract, and our best contact hitter. He'll return. Jamie Forbes was a pleasant surprise once he took over at second in June, with 16hr and 1.8 WAR in essentially half a season's worth of at bats. He is NOT a good fielder, tho, and that could be his ultimate undoing. At catcher, we got 2.5 WAR out of our regulars, Zamorano and Crabtree, which is satisfactory. Neither is great behind the plate, but they don't kill you either. RF Eric Lane played well after his trade. He only hit .235, which was just below expectation, but he got on base and hit enough HR to earn his keep. Dunklee is still My Precious and I'm looking forward to him developing even more next season. Since Thomas was a lot of meh at 1B, Dunklee might end up there, depending on what I'm able to find in the off-season. Center field devolved to Christopher after Miguel Torres couldn't stay healthy. Neither is really suited to the position. Ferenczi looked okay late in the season, but his upside is limited. Bacon and Moreno had alternating good and awful stretches at the plate, and neither looked particularly useful in the field as well. Our biggest problem was simply getting on base: next to last in average, and dead last in OBP. Only Seattle was worse than us at the plate, but they still managed to win 75 games due to having good pitching. Going into the off-season, I want to find at least a decent CF, and another 1B or DH. I'll privilege fielding and OBP over power. 2034 In Review: Pitching If our batters couldn't draw a walk all season, our pitchers couldn't stop putting people on base. We were consistenly ranked 17th out of 18 AL staffs, with only Houston performing worse (although we did give up the most runs, 827 to Houston's 817). We were 16th in WHIP and BABIP, 11th in strikeouts, and 17th in walks allowed. By far our best starter was Oscar Wiggins. A 3.5 WAR would be pretty fair on most teams, but for us, it's Pitcher of the Year quality. He consistently gave us chances to win, even if we just as consistently failed to grab them. Ed Fisher gave it his all, and his ugly W-L record belies a decent year otherwise. His low strikeout numbers means he puts a lot of balls into play, and our fielding just wasn't good enough to make him better. The rest were nothing special. Tello was second in the league in walks; Klug was maddeningly inconsistent. Rich Rivera started the year well, but fell off the table then got hurt. Hancock and Adams were awful. Others were traded. De la Cruz looked good in his September callup, but my scouts don't like him. Still, he's earned another look. Our bullpen stabilized after my mid-season moves, but there's still enough bad pitching to shoulder some blame for our woeful season. Closer Jay Yates was the notable exception, and was our only all-star. Ryan Key was up and down, but is worth keeping around. Balderston, Castillo, and Koslowsky were decent to good after their acquisitions, as was Long in September. Raleigh Vance is a scouting darling, and on paper looked like our best pitcher. However, he got bombed all year long, and his ERA only dropped below 6 in September. Cerrone, Hines, and Inman were dreadful. For next season, I think I can at least tread water with quite a bit of this staff. I want to find 2 more starters, and hopefully another 1-2 more relievers. I want to go into camp with at least 17-20 big league quality pitchers to choose from. We're not there yet, but also not too far from having a servicable, stable rotation and bullpen. ...... 2034 MLB Roundup In the AL, Toronto was the cream of the league with 111 wins. Minnesota (94-68) won the Central, and Oakland (89-73) the West. Tampa Bay (97 wins) and Kansas City (91) were the wild card teams, and the Rays won the one-game playoff. Tampa Bay then shocked Toronto, and Oakland swept the Twins. The A's topped the Rays in 7 to head to their first World Series since 1990. In the NL, Richmond, Pittsburgh, and San Diego won their divisions, with San Francisco (87 wins) and Montreal (91) claiming the wild card spots. The Giants topped the Expos, then swept the surprised Pirates in three games. San Diego likewise swept Richmond. The Giants then beat the Padres in seven to set up a reprise of the 1989 Bay Area Series. The Giants won a classic in seven games, their eighth title overall and first since 2012. AL Awards: League MVP: C Devlin Ransberger, Toronto (.289/.364/.621, 50 HR, 129 RBI, 113 R, 166 wRC+, 9.2 WAR) Cy Young Award: Dave Henderson, Toronto (19-4, 3.13 ERA, 210 IP, 1.26 WHIP, 7.9 K/9, 5.6 WAR) Rookie of Year: RF Sean Holliday, Texas (.317/.407/.580, 37 HR, 119 RBI, 164 wRC+, 8.4 WAR) NL Awards: League MVP: SS Pablo Delgado, Pittsburgh (.303/.428/.574, 36 HR, 91 RBI, 122 R, 188 wRC+, 10.9 WAR) Cy Young Award: Jake Atkinson, Brooklyn (19-4, 1.95 ERA, 212 IP, 0.97 WHIP, 11.7 K/9, 8.2 WAR) Rookie of Year: 1B Julio Gonzalez, San Diego (.314/.365/.519, 15 HR, 56 RBI, 158 wRC+, 4.7 WAR) Other items of interest... ...four no-hitters, including the first two perfect games in this dynasty play (Shawn Knox for STL and Zac Webster for CLE)...Tom Sloan (PIT) and Joey Etler (MIN) win 20 games, but no Cy Young for either...WAS pitcher Orlando Ramos records his 4000th strikeout...PIT hits 248 home runs, missing tying the MLB record by one...Ransberger won his second MVP...the other expansion franchise, New Orleans, won 63 games; St Louis won 60, meaning we'll have the first overall pick in next year's draft. Next up: 2034 draft review