Re-doing the 1993 Expansion Draft

[Trav876]

Alright, I'm finally committing to re-doing the 1993 expansion draft, as the Colorado Rockies, building them from scratch

Entering OOTP '24 in 1992, simmed through the season, and joined as the Rockies GM in the off-season coming into 1993.

My plan on building the Rockies...
1) Heavy focus on pitching & defense. My coaches reflect this, I'm putting $ into coaches & development.
2) Pitching focus is on higher stuff type pitchers... because swings & misses are even more valuable in a hitter's ballpark (even if it means you might walk some guys now & then)
3) Gap power...Mile High Stadium has 80% higher triples rate! (in this game, at least). So, not sure if it 100% correlates to more gap power, and/or if speed matters as well, but I like guys who have good gap power for getting us extra base hits.

I'm not concerned with trying to be good right away. Remember in 1993, there is no wild card. So you have to win the West (which are half the teams in the NL). Thus, I'm playing more for '95, maybe '94 even depending on how things go.

Check out the video below to see the expansion draft:
https://youtube.com/live/nN0ODvDPiqQ

LOTS of pitching available in this expansion draft. Marlins didn't take a non-pitcher until like 14th round!

That worked out well for me, since I'm trying to focus on pitching & defense. Hopefully the hitting will come along, being in such a hitter friendly park. We also signed David Cone who I think is a bit underrated...didn't have an outstanding year in 1992, but is a high stuff guy.

[Trav876]

We're about 25 games in and couldn't be much happier with our pitching and defense. Which, that has been my big focus, so it's good to see that panning out.

Of course, not a huge sample size yet, with being only 1/8 or so through the season. But we're right around .500 and have some good young pitching doing decently. Rigo Beltran, a high stuff guy, Frank Castillo, and Mike Trombly, all having good starts so far.

Gregg Martin currently with 5 saves and a MINISCULE 0.96 ERA.

Check out the video here- https://youtube.com/live/iwZwyLXSWbE

[Trav876]

Recap #2 of the new expansion 1993 Colorado Rockies...see how our strategy is paying off. Decent pitching and defense, but offense could use a boost. Did end up making a trade to try to do that...check out the video here-

https://youtube.com/live/acxpmrYqmng

[Trav876]

Recap #3:

We finish the year ALMOST .500...at 79-83. We did sweep the Reds who have a stacked team with Barry Bonds who they added as a FA this last offseason, after winning the World Series in '92.

Stunningly, the sweep was huge because the Reds ended up NOT making the playoffs, despite winning 110 games! You read that right. The Braves were a game better at 111, and remember back in '93 you had to win your division outright, which there were only 2 in each league.

So the new 1994 playoff format and re-alignment into 3 divisions couldn't come at a better time, after a 110 win team did not even make the playoffs. LOL.

Both the Blue Jays & the Braves swept the LCS and one of them was now bound to lose their first game of the playoffs, in the World Series.

The World Series champs of 1993 ended up being...

The Toronto Blue Jays. Just like in Real Life! But with a pretty different team in this game. They traded for Gary Sheffield who was a beast, and Olerud also hit .350 with 25 jacks.

Here is the end of the season on video- https://youtube.com/live/Mywef3sj8AY