1993 Colorado Rockies & Beyond. Working Towards Building a Dynasty

[Trav876]

Welcome to 1993 Opening Day in Colorado, done over! What an exciting time... as a big time Rockies fan, I remember it vividly. The attendance records, the Mile High Miracles...

The Rockies were able to pull in a LOT of money, with sellout crowds in Mile High Stadium (before moving to Coors Field), and with that, were able to get some big time Free Agents such as Ellis Burks, Larry Walker, and Bill Swift in the subsequent years. But alas, this was real life. Let's not get too far ahead of ourselves. In THIS sim, we're going to try to build the Rockies into a Dynasty. One of the most intriguing teams to ever exist, with their thin altitude and historically hitter-friendly park.

Now, I have tweaked some settings to make them tougher, but also realistic.

BALLPARK & FINANCIALS
Leaving this the same as it is in OOTP. Again, this is a good part of the challenge. The roller coaster of pitcher stats means you better have some mentally tough pitchers. Mile High Stadium (the home of the Rockies in '93 & '94), is NOT as hitter friendly as Coors Field- which has the largest gaps in MLB, but it's still a hitter's park for the most part. I have "adjust with history" checked, so when the game moves into 1995, the Rockies will be in Coors Field. Because of this, I'm really trying to either (or, both if possible) develop some good pitchers, and/or sign some. Preferably not to long-term deals, even if I need to "overpay" for a shorter contract. This is due to the way altitude can wreck a pitcher... physically in real life, but in this game, probably some confidence factor. Coors is where pitchers go to DIE.

Now, as mentioned above, the Rockies set a bunch of attendance records. Mile High Stadium had some 80,000 seats, and the Rockies fan interest was (and still is, to an extent) about as high as it gets. Interestingly in OOTP, if you ENTER into 1993 like I did, it doesn't have the Rockies with high fan interest, however if you EXPAND into 1993 (like starting the sim in 1992 or prior), they have huge fan interest, being an expansion team. So because of this and to make it more realistic, I edited the fan interest at the start of the sim to put it at a 10/10. Obviously after that, I'll let the game do its thing and potentially it can go down, etc.

RULES & TRADING
-Regular MLB rules for 1993 (as far as options years, etc.)
-Hard mode for trading
-Scaled up the "Trade Difficulty" about 4 notches
-Slightly favored prospects too. It seems (& maybe it's just me) that you can get some prospects for vets that no one would even really take in real life. So this seems to help with that.

MINOR LEAGUES
I have roster limits (35 on the rookie leagues, 28 for the others), and pro service time limits (4 years for Rookie Ball, 7 years for A Ball). This is to keep the game moving guys up, or out. So they don't just have a bunch of veterans, for example, raking in like single A and crushing your prospects. I have heard that can happen.

ROOKIE DRAFT: To maintain some element of realism (& I think this helps also make it a bit more of a challenge, as it seems easy to beat the AI in drafting, via historical sims, even without re-calc enabled), I have Rookies imported to their original teams. So eventually the Rockies will get Todd Helton... A-Rod will start with the Mariners... etc. That way you don't also have players all moved totally around on all different teams.

OTHER
-NO RATINGS shown for Overall or Potential (e.g. no "stars," no "numbers").
-Simply the 20-80 scale on the specific attributes that your scout shows you (contact, power, etc.). So, really have to consider stats... the accuracy of the scout... and so on, to determine the worth of players. I think this is more realistic.

VIDEO PLAYLIST HERE-
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...SIe-AMvICVroQo

Follow along on this blog for updates & to see what's happening!

[Trav876]

Just past Mid-Season Update:

-Rockies at 38-57, about what we'd expect at this point, & as an expansion team.
-Rockies have former STUD Dale Murphy as their lone All-Star, who has a resurgence. We then trade him for a AA starting pitching prospect (a no-brainer in my opinion, to try to "sell" a 37 year-old while at high value... when no one would take him otherwise. Plus, he's a pending free agent).
-Rockies also trade Dante Bichette (yes, it hurts me, since he was such a big time Rockie in real life) for prospect Damon Buford. Bichette in this game was self-centered, so a) don't want him hurting team chemistry, and b) just wasn't sold that he's going to develop the way he did in real life. His 1993 numbers in this game are pretty standard for how his career has been up to this point.
Chris Jones, a decently promising prospect, gets hurt for 6 weeks. He was just coming along, getting lots of ABs and doing better than when he first came up. So, tough timing for him with the injury. But it will give Buford regular starts now.

Around the League

-David Cone gets traded BACK to the Mets. They solidify an already dominant starting rotation of Saberhagen, Gooden, Fernandez
-Kirk Gibson gets traded to Philadelphia for SP Danny Jackson, their #3 starter. Interesting move, but Gibson is having a good year, despite being 37 years old.
-Duane Ward gets traded to Montreal, for pitching prospect Miguel Batista.

Moving Forward
-At the trade deadline, we'll try to see if we can get anything for a few upcoming free agents... namely Daryl Boston who's having a decent year for us, and Charlie Hayes (who isn't, but still has OK ratings)
-Been THRILLED with our pitching, especially David Neid. Just having secured Jeff Parrett to an extension, will look to continue developing these young guys & possibly try for a good free agent pitcher (or 2) with all the money we are accumulating from our fan interest / ticket sales, being an incredibly popular expansion team. Will definitely need to get some offense though as well, in free agency and/or trades.

Here is a corresponding video of a few games being played-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5SbZchjisY

[Trav876]

Rockies Trades
Rockies trade away 3B Charlie Hayes, who hasn't been much of a contributor, and is a free agent after this season (asking for over a mil to re-sign), getting stud RP Larry Anderson in return. Now, before you think it's an outstanding deal, Anderson is 40 years old. But he is on contract for one more year after this year, and I really think we can make a push for the playoffs next year with all the money we have, to make a splash in free agency. I'm looking for him to be a good bullpen piece, even at 41 next year, because his ratings and stats are both solid currently.

-This trade will also make room for 3B prospect Pedro Castellano, who has 20 jacks in AAA Colorado Springs right now.


Rockies also trade a few minor leaguers/borderline major leaguers (Gerald Young & Gary Wayne) to the Expos for Mark Grudzielanek, who is a top 200 prospect. Pumped about this trade. Grudzielanek is struggling in AAA, but did well in AA last year. So I don't know if I'll bring him up in September, but I like him. My assistant GM was all for it too.

Rockies also trade Giradi & Cole (who have not been doing well this year) to Seattle for LHP minor leaguer Tim Davis. Davis has done well in AAA and will give the Rockies a good 2nd lefty option in the pen.

Finally, Rockies trade one of their top hitters, Daryl Boston, for 26 year old Derek Bell from the Padres. Bell is slashing .281/.330/.362 but my scout has him rated pretty decently. I wasn't going to re-sign Boston. He was asking for like a 6 year deal and he's already 30. He's also having his best year in a while, so I wanted to get something for him while his stock was high.

Around the League
-Big trade: Houston gets Troy Neel for Ken Caminiti (Oakland)
-Big trade: Jose Guzman going to Atlanta to bolster their pitching staff, Cubs in return get Deion Sanders who's got some pop this year, slugging over .400
-Dave Magadan also having a decent year .369 OBP, hitting .277, gets traded from Florida to Montreal for prospects (including Kent Bottenfield who's doing well in AA with a 2.23 ERA)
-Cleveland getting 34 year old RP Dennis Rasmussen from KC who has a 2.68 ERA, giving up Kelly Stinnett who's having a good year in AAA. Indians are 10 games out from the Yankees, so this may be more for the following year(s).
-Solid Closer Jim Gott getting traded away from the Dodgers (Thank Golly, say the Rockies!) for prospects to the Reds, who are 9 games back.
-Expos send 3B Sean Berry to KC.
-Braves send Jeff Blauser to Baltimore for solid catching prospect Greg Zaun