Complete Universe Facegen Pack 2.0 (New)

[AESP_pres]

By the way the name isn't important anymore when we create a FG since we use the "historical minor ID" and not the "frst name_last name" system like before. So even if BBRef change the name of a guy just because they feel like it the id will always stay the same.

[AESP_pres]

Lans I have a fun little challenge for you... do you think you could use your AI tool to make a good FG of Bill McCloskey with the very bad picture included in his BBRef page? No way I can do something good with it so I need your help...

https://www.baseball-reference.com/p...cclobi01.shtml

[Amazin69]

Another case of how the game's having already held the 1979 draft affects things: the Mariners' 24th round pick was IF Roy Clark, just finishing up his college career at North Carolina.

But here, he's been in my minors all year, and the AI likes him, so when I traded Julio Cruz to Boston in the Carlton Fisk deal (naturally, both Julio and the Sawx have gotten red-hot…) I had an opening, and I plucked Roy from the minors.

Roy does have a facegen…but it's the Roy Clark from the 1902 Giants (clark001) and this is "clark004".

Fortunately, we have this card from the AA Lynn Sailors in 1981, which is as high as Roy ever got IRL.



Sorry about the squinty eyes, but ooooh-la-la that 'stache!

[LansdowneSt]

Here's Roy Clark for ya, Amazin'. Lots of saturated, red splotches when you get up close to him that had to be dealt with.

The "Roy_Clark.fg" facegen has been marked for deletion. I'd have tagged it as a duplicate eventually but my audit of all the file names is only up to "H".

[Amazin69]

Thanks for Roy!

Now that we're heading towards the trade deadline, the AI squads are getting active. The Angels are 20.5 games up on us (everyone but them is under .500), but they're tuning up for the post-season. I have no idea why they think John Hiller (who was getting firebombed in Detroit) should be their new closer, when Mark Clear was doing a fine job, but it's only costing them Ken Schrom, so they went for it.

The Sawx, as I mentioned, are surging after the trade with us. They now stand in 4th place in the AL East, 7.5 back of the Brewers (the shock is that the Indians are right on Milwaukee's heels), not exactly in the thick of it, but close enough to dream. So they've been trying to help the pitching staff (Eckersley can't do it alone…Mike Torrez is 5-15, and we're still in July!) by bringing back some old friends.

First they brought Sparky Lyle back from Texas (Sparky had been getting spanked down there) and now they've reimported Marty Pattin, who may be older than dirt, but was doing a good job in Kansas City. That's not the headline on the news item though…it read "Kansas City sends Porter to Boston".

Well, I thought, that makes sense. Fisk is in Seattle now, why not bring in Darrell Porter? 1979 was his best season, after all.

Well, this isn't Darrell. It's his baby brother, Denny, also a catcher. (Apparently the Kansas City AI had Denny backing up Darrell for a while and I missed it because I just saw "D. Porter" on the depth charts and didn't notice the duplication.) Denny only had 3 seasons in pro ball IRL (posted a sweet .955 OPS in A-ball in 1980, but then only had 30 games at Ft. Myers in 1981, and it was over…no idea what happened), so I couldn't find a picture of him, but he played college ball at Southeastern Oklahoma, so perhaps that's the direction to go in?

Thanks in advance.

[bthom]

Hi there Lans, would you be willing to tackle a few up and coming top prospects that could see their debuts this season and (more likely) next? Cade Horton, Matt Shaw, Andrew Painter and Jackson Jobe. Shaw's a smiler unfortunately, couldn't find a solid headshot of him, but the rest have some decent pictures out there.

[LansdowneSt]

Bthom, I’ll get these guys done tonight.

Amazon’, I found some pics but might take until tomorrow night as I gotta due some work on them to get them to work well.

[LansdowneSt]

Scouting grades: Fastball: 70 | Curveball: 50 | Slider: 60 | Changeup: 55 | Control: 65 | Overall: 55

Thought to be the second-best high school right-hander in the 2021 Draft, Painter was the taken in the first round that summer behind Jackson Jobe. He leapt to the head of the pitching prospect ranks with an outstanding first full season of pro ball in 2022, reaching Double-A and being named MLB Pipeline Pitching Prospect of the Year. He appeared to be on a fast track to Philadelphia when an elbow injury shut him down early in 2023, and his Tommy John surgery in late July will keep him out for the 2024 season.

The fact that Painter is still regarded as one of the best pitching prospects in the game while on the sidelines is a testament to his ability. His combination of stuff, size and feel for pitching add to the faith in him, with a legitimate four-pitch mix at his disposal. His fastball can touch triple digits and was averaging around 96 mph at the end of 2022, and he throws both a sinking two-seamer as well as a high-spin four-seamer up in the zone. His slider is an out pitch, a low-80s offering with a ton of break and huge spin rates. His upper-70s curve provides a different look, and his above-average changeup has really improved.

All coming from his 6-foot-7 frame, Painter does an amazing job of repeating his delivery well, enabling him to fill up the zone while missing a ton of bats. He was knocking on the big-league door when the injury occurred, so don’t be surprised to see him get there again quickly once he’s healthy, and it’s important to note that even with the missed time, he’ll be just 22 years old for the entire 2025 season when he’s expected to return. - mlbpipeline

He was 230lbs in OOTP but 215 per MLB and OOTP so I made this with a 215lb weight. I've changed the weight in the db going forward as well.

[LansdowneSt]

Scouting grades: Fastball: 60 | Curveball: 50 | Slider: 70 | Changeup: 45 | Control: 55 | Overall: 55

Though Horton was one of the top two-way prospects and two-sport talents in the 2020 Draft, he went unselected because he wanted to play baseball and football at Oklahoma. He never got any time at quarterback for the Sooners and missed his first baseball season following Tommy John surgery in February 2021, but he came back to dominate in the 2022 postseason and lead Oklahoma to a second-place finish at the College World Series. Signed for a below-slot $4.45 million as the seventh overall pick that July, he won Cubs Minor League pitcher of the year accolades in his 2023 pro debut, reaching Double-A while posting a 2.65 ERA, .191 opponent average and 117/27 K/BB ratio in 88 1/3 innings.

Horton posted a 7.94 ERA during the 2022 college regular season before toying with a cutter at the Big 12 Conference tournament and discovering a slider that has become a plus-plus weapon that sits in the mid-80s with two-plane depth. He sets it up with a mid-90s fastball that peaks at 98 mph and features bat-missing carry and run. He's working to upgrade a mid-80s changeup with some fade and will use a low-80s downer curveball to give hitters a different look.

For a pitcher with just 53 2/3 innings of college experience, Horton looked more advanced than expected during his first pro season. The athleticism that allowed him to double as a third baseman for the Sooners also translates into consistent strikes, and he had no difficulty maintaining his stuff and control throughout 2023. Besides improving his changeup, the only other thing he really needs to prove to become a No. 2 starter is that he can handle a full workload. - mlbpipeline

[LansdowneSt]

Scouting grades: Hit: 55 | Power: 55 | Run: 55 | Arm: 45 | Field: 50 | Overall: 55

Lightly scouted and recruited as a Massachusetts high schooler, Shaw blossomed into the highest pick ever out of the University of Maryland when the Cubs selected him 13th overall last July. After winning the Cape Cod League batting title (.360) and MVP award during the summer of 2022, he set the Terrapins’ career home run record (53) and was named Big Ten Conference player of the year last spring. He continued to rake after turning pro for $4,848,500, hitting .357/.400/.618 with eight homers and 15 steals in 38 games while reaching Double-A.

Shaw grew up a Red Sox fan and models his game after Dustin Pedroia. He walks a similarly fine line between aggression and discipline at the plate, repeatedly turning his right-handed swing loose yet still making consistent hard contact. He has no discernible weakness, thriving against both lefties and righties and against all types of pitches. He uses the entire field well, and his solid power plays to all parts of the park.

Shaw’s baserunning instincts enable him to make good use of his solid speed. He played second base as a college freshman before moving to shortstop, where he has enough range but his fringy arm is a liability. Chicago is set up the middle with Gold Glovers Nico Hoerner and Dansby Swanson, so Shaw has shifted to third base and has the tools to become an average defender there. - mlbpipeline

[LansdowneSt]

Scouting grades: Fastball: 65 | Slider: 70 | Changeup: 60 | Cutter: 55 | Control: 60 | Overall: 60

Detroit bucked recent Draft trends when it selected Jobe third overall in 2021 and signed him for $6.9 million. The Oklahoma native was expected to need time to develop, and that has indeed been the case. He went through an uneven first full season in 2022 and missed out on much of the first half of 2023 with lumbar spine inflammation. Following his return in mid-June, he was as dominant as ever with a 2.81 ERA and an astonishing 84/6 K/BB ratio over 64 innings across four levels, finishing at Double-A Erie. Jobe also made up for the lost time with four impressive starts in the Arizona Fall League.

After throwing more of a dead-zone fastball in high school, the 6-foot-2 right-hander has added more ride to the heater, and he aims for 18 inches of induced vertical break on the 94-97 mph pitch. As if that wasn’t dangerous enough, his 82-85 mph slider remains his best offering, with spin rates regularly above 3,000 rpm and sweeping horizontal movement of 10-17 inches. He added an 88-92 mph cutter for 2023 that gave him a tighter, more controllable look, and his mid-80s changeup improved with more killed spin, making him a tough at-bat for lefties too.

Jobe walked only 2.3 percent of his batters faced during the regular season last summer, but that number climbed to 7.5 in the shorter AFL sample. Even with all the repertoire tinkering, his control gains have solidified his standing as one of the best prospect arms in the game. The next goal will be staying on the mound for 100+ innings in a season, at which point Jobe might be already knocking on Detroit’s door. - mlbpipeline

[bthom]

These are fantastic as usual Lans, thank you for doing all four so quickly!

[LansdowneSt]

Amazin', given the pics of Denny Porter I got from ancestry.com via a family post and a team photo link, here's where I think I have settled on trying to make a fg from them. Tough one though I can see an eyeglass-less Darrell in there.

[Amazin69]

Thanks! It appears that Denny really was the reason the Sawx made that trade; Marty Pattin never even made the 40-man, as the front office tried to waive him down to Pawtucket, only to discover that Pawtucket was in Detroit, in his case.

(No Idea what John McHale is doing in Detroit. They traded John Hiller, as noted above, and sent Jack Billingham back to Cincinnati…only to replace them with Pattin and Tom Burgmeier, on waivers from the Hub. If that's a youth movement, I'll need to check my dictionary.)

************************

I try to keep up on who's popping up, but I'm clearly not checking Toronto often enough, as Don Pisker had been up for two months and made 31 appearances before I even spotted him. He even won a game with a pinch-homer against the Yankees.

Plenty of pics for Don, of course, who even made a Topps "Prospects" card, back in the day.



Don with the Charleston Charlies in 1978, per TCMA.



Sharing a card with a possible future Hall of Fame manager.

Of course, by the time Topps hit the stores, Houston had already traded Don for Gary Woods. But surely Canada was the land of opportunity?




Well, not if your Syracuse form was a drop from your Charleston days, as with Don. I guess he didn't like the cold weather.

(There is also a pic of Don as a sulky Salt Lake Gull in his final year, but it's from a high angle and shadowed, so I passed.)

As always, thanks in advance.

[LansdowneSt]

Here's my go at Don Pisker. I tried to look to all the pics but based it on the black and white one, smoothing out the shadow that gave him a facegen light mustache and then looked next to that Astros rookie card that's surely in a shoebox, in a closet, at my parent's house.

[negroleagueenthusiast]

Any chance we can get one for Isaiah Drake from the Braves system? He is about to make his debut in my file.

[LansdowneSt]

Scouting grades: Hit: 40 | Power: 50 | Run: 70 | Arm: 50 | Field: 50 | Overall: 40

Drake’s older brother Kenyan has had a fairly lengthy NFL career, but Isaiah chose the baseball route. Playing his high school ball in the Braves’ backyard, it looked like he might be heading to Georgia Tech for college, but after performing well in the Draft League and the Combine, the Braves decided to go way over slot and give him close to $750,000 in the fifth round to sign him away from campus. He had a brief, and uneventful, debut in the Florida Complex League after signing.

Young for his Draft class, Drake is a left-handed hitter who could develop an exciting power-speed combination. He might be the fastest player in the system now and that should help him on both sides of the ball. He has raw power aplenty to tap into and will have to work on his approach and his ability to barrel up the baseball to get to it as he advances.

Drake’s speed allows him to cover a ton of ground in center field and he should be able to stick there, especially as he improves his reads and routes and doesn’t simply outrun the ball. Patience is going to be key here, as he’s a bit of a project, but the payoff could be considerable considering the raw tools.

IMPORTANT NOTE: I changed his height and weight to 180cm and 180lbs in the OOTP database so that it matches mlb.com and BBR. If you already have him in a game, he will be too short and too heavy. This fg was made for the new h/w so change it in-game via the player editor. Otherwise, I fear it will bloat out.

[Amazin69]

Thanks for Pisker! And yes, he didn't have a mustache, so no reason for the facegen to showcase Pisker's whiskers.

The Cardinals are in free-fall, again. Their current 9-game losing streak puts them 10 games below .500, and they'd be in danger of getting passed by the Mets if the New Yorkers hadn't also dropped their last 5.

The bullpen is a particular dumpster fire, so they've called up Kerry Burchett.



St. Louis's 41st-round pick in the 1978 draft, out of East Tennessee State U. (Go, Moccasins! And yes, I actually knew that off the top of my head because they pulled a big upset in the NCAA basketball tournament around 1989 or so…memory is a strange thing), Kerry was IRL having a decent season at Class A St. Petersburg, which he would follow with an excellent 1980 there, before stalling out after 20 starts at AA Arkansas in 1981. But at least being with the Travs got him on a card!

I have been unable to discover if he is Representative Tim Burchett (R-TN)'s brother, however. (Kerry is 9 years older.) Tim represents the 2nd district, based in Knoxville, which isn't too far from Johnson City, but I can't find anything that would tell me, either way.

I did learn that Tim spent two terms as the Mayor of Knox County before being elected to Congress. Which surprised me, as I thought that was merely an honorary post, given that Tim's successor is Glenn Jacobs, better known as ex-WWE wrestler "Kane". But no, Jacobs is now a serious politician, it seems. I wonder if he will one day succeed Tim in Congress as well, and if there's a rule against putting your fellow Congressmen through tables.

But anyway, back to Kerry. Let's hope he doesn't find his time on the mound to be Hell…in a Cell!

*************
Also, the Expos have called up Bob Pate, who has a facegen. Which is yet more proof that Bob is not a "Caucasian", if you would be so kind to inform the database about that.

Again, thanks in advance.

[luckymann]

Hey bud, been a while between requests from yours truly. If possible and whenever you get time, I was wondering if you could update a guy who has become a true fave of mine, George Hendrick.

While the FG I have for him is far from a disaster and one I've become used to, I wouldn't mind updating it to celebrate him signing a long-term deal with my A's not so long ago. The likeness is quite good but was hopeful of having the pinkish (dis)coloration sorted, Mac issues notwithstanding.

Thanks in advance

G

[AESP_pres]

Already done... my seventies FGs will be in the next pack update (in the meantime you can use my link if you want them). But since you requested him... here we go