"This Otter Be Fun!" -- Gary Shannon, A GM on Baseball's "Frontier"

jksander · 05-25-2024, 08:58 PM

“This Otter Be Fun!”

This will be an attempt at a fast-sim dynasty using OOTP25, featuring Major League Baseball and the MLB Partner Leagues. I’ll be taking over as the General Manager of the Evansville Otters, the oldest remaining original member of the Frontier League. Teams in the Frontier League must recruit and sign their own players, mostly undrafted college players or one-time hot prospects. Teams play a 96-game season from May to September, and teams have a salary cap and are only allowed to have three “veteran” players, meaning over the age of 29 as of October first. Pay in the league is minimal -- typical salaries range from $600 to $1,600 per month, though veterans can earn up to $2,500 per month, and the team’s highest paid player can earn as much as $4,000 per month of which only a third of the salary counts against the cap. Due to the low pay, most players live with host families and receive meal money during the season.

The Otters have played in the league since 1995, playing their home games at historic Bosse Field in Evansville, Indiana, which first opened in 1915. They have won two league championships, in 2006 and 2016, winning three division championships (1997, 2000, 2019).

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My entire life has been lived in the world of baseball.

I can’t remember a time where I wasn’t either holding, tossing, fielding or hitting that white sphere, but I’ve also been chasing it. Chasing the dream that, when I grew up, I’d be able to keep playing this game and never have to age to a point where it wasn’t still acceptable.

Reality has a way of smacking you around, though -- I played well in high school, tried to find my way in college, but wound up never reaching expectations. I got my degree, but rarely played. So I latched on to anything I could, working as an underpaid assistant, or trying to find my way as a scout or a coach. Anything to keep enjoying those sights and smells each year.

I never found my way into the minors, let alone finding a shot at a cup of coffee in the big leagues. Best I could manage was when I landed the job coaching third base for the Evansville Aces, which earned me anough money to get my Master’s in Sports Management while I coached a bunch of younger players who fostered the same dreams of glory, but for most of whom this would be their one last grasp at the dream.

I’ve been with the Aces since 2011, which is a long time to be an anonymous coach at an anonymous college ... Wes Carroll took the head coaching job here in 2009, hired me in two years later, and in all that time we’ve won one Missouri Valley title. Mostly, we bring in the new crop of young men each year and do our best to teach them.

Until a few months ago I figured I’d keep coaching, and maybe eventually try my hand at being a head coach someday. But then fate came calling, and I got a much bigger opportunity than I’d ever expected.

I ‘ve known Bill Bussing since I was a kid.

Supposedly he and my old man were thick as thieves as kids growing up near Indianapolis, and I know they both went to college together. Difference was my dad dropped out and wound up joining the Navy, so we bounced around the country through my childhood and teenage years, while Bussing got his business degree, made a fortune in tech, and then bought the Evansville Otters. A team in a league where baseball dreams either suddenly provide a last chance to rise up in the minors or fade fast like Wrigley Field’s ivy in winter, the Otters gave Bussing a chance to play “big time sports owner” while avoiding the pressures of a major league team -- bring in solid players each year and get families in the seats at Bosse Field and you’ve done your job as long as there’s some profit at the end.

I couldn’t imagine why I suddenly had a series of missed calls from him on my cell.

But as it stood, apparently he needed a General Manager to run the team’s day to day operations, and he had apparently gotten it into his head that hiring me, a long-time local with ties to the Aces, was the prudent investment. I wouldn’t be managing the team on the field -- for that he’ll look elsewhere -- but he told me he knows I understand the game as well as the business side of things, and he’s learned to trust his instincts.

I’ll admit it’s a big move, leaving a job I’ve had for a dozen seasons to suddenly jump into a GM role in the Frontier League at 41, but then again, it’s the tantalizing hook this game has on you -- the chance to still be out there living the baseball life, no matter what the role.

The job offer was a juicy fastball pitched right at me, and I had no choice but to swing.

jksander · 05-26-2024, 01:43 AM

March 18, 2024: In a taste of local sports news, Evansville Otters owner Bill Bussing has hired 41-year-old Gary Shannon to take the team’s helm as General Manager of Baseball Operations. This will be Shannon’s first sports management job, following a 12-year stint as the third base coach for the Evansville Aces over in the Missouri Valley. Shannon attended the University of Indianapolis and played a utility infield role off the bench for the D-II Greyhounds off and on for four years, graduating with a degree in Communications in 2004. After seven years bouncing around the minors as a scout and occcasional team press liason for the Cincinnati Reds’ AA affiliate, Shannon took the job with the Aces and eventually earned his Master’s in Sports Management in 2016. No word yet as to who the team will hire to take on the vacant manager role, or whether any free agent signings will be on the horizon before the Otters begin Frontier League play on May 10th on the road against the New Jersey Jackals. But the team is in good shape financially at the moment, with the team at least $17,000 under the cap with a roster full of non-guaranteed minor league contracts.

March 20, 2024: The Otters have hired 45-year-old Fox Beyer to take over as on-field manager of the team for the upcoming season. Beyer tends to focus on sabermetrics and has been known to be pretty easygoing, with a preference for hitting and offense. He has only signed a one year deal, worth a reported $56,365, to lead the team for the 2024 campaign.

March 22, 2024: The Otters have come out strong in free agency, signing five key players to add juice to the main roster. Among them are 25-year-old power hitting LF Zac Cook ($6,000), 27-year-old four pitch starter Hector Perez ($4,800), 22-year-old CF prospect Jasiah Dixon ($4,160), 27-year-old high-contact utility infielder Diosbel Arias ($6,500) and 29-year-old veteran closer Kyle Zurak ($3,600). All five will play key roles for the team right away, and should help push them to be contenders in the league. The team reportedly had an offer out for 25-year-old third baseman Juan Martinez, but he’s getting bigger offers elsewhere and would put them over the cap if they pursue him further.

March 27, 2024: The Otters have reportedly signed yet another solid veteran pitcher, nabbing 29-year-old Brandon Bailey on a $3,920 one year deal. He has five plus pitches as a flyball pitcher, with solid mid-90s velocity ... the stuff is there to be a solid contributor, and his dominant changeup should lead to a lot of swings and misses. The team has also made a trade, sending Jeffrey Baez, a 30-year-old right fielder, to the Oakland Ballers in exchange for 23-year-old first baseman prospect Nolan Machibroda, 24-year-old center fielder Payton Harden and 24-year-old right-handed starter Jake Dahle, to add depth to our reserve squad. At this point the Otters now have a five-man rotation which features three top starters at 27 and under, plus Bailey as a veteran in the fourth spot. With one of the best bullpens in the league, expectations are high that the team will be hard to score against this season, and with a power batting lineup that features Zac Cook, Yoel Yanqui, Mike Peabody and Disobel Arias, all four under 27, we expect plenty of offensive fireworks as well.

April 19, 2024: Spring training begins today, with an 18-game exhibition schedule that will get us ready for setting opening day lineups. We’ve had to cut our reserve roster back down to meet league guidelines, which meant some tough cuts ... but in the end this team still looks like a solid one on paper, and with season ticket sales up 25% and attendance expected to break 2,100 per game this year, all signs are pointing to plenty of fun this summer at Bosse Field!

May 8, 2024: Spring training game scores and records don’t count for much, as long as the players get the warm-up they need to show what they’re going to be capable of when the season gets going. But we would certainly have liked to have finished better than 7-11 (fifth placein the FL West Division. But it’s all about ridiculously small sample sizes, with nobody going full throttle so as to avoid any early season injury disasters. We’ll have our opening day rosters set in a couple days and then we can get the season going.

May 9, 2024: Here’s our finalized opening day roster:

Lineup
C - Logan Brown
1B - Yoel Yanqui
2B - Diosbel Arias
3B - Riley Delgado
SS - Nick Gonzalez
LF - Zac Cook
CF - Josiah Brown
RF - Mike Peabody
DH - Jomar Reyes

Bench: C Justin Felix, 1B Nolan Machibroda, CF Payton Harden

Starters
1 - Hector Perez
2 - Braden Scott
3 - Adam Smith
4 - Brandon Bailey
5 - Alex Valdez

Closer: Kyle Zurak
Setup: Jon Beymer, Kevin Davis
Middle: Tyler Ras, Leoni De La Cruz, Tyler Driver
Long: Parker Brahms

Our reserve roster has been cut down as well, to include LF Mason House, 2B Austin Bost, SP Jake Dahle, 1B David Mendham and RP Zach Smith, in order to be in compliance with league roster limits.

jksander · 05-26-2024, 01:44 AM

May 12, 2024: We finished our first series sweep tonight with a 12-1 blowout win over the New Jersey Jackals, thanks to Adam Smith who became our first starter to last long enough to notch a win! He pitched five innings with four hits, six strikeouts and an earned run, opening his season with a 1.80 ERA, and our bullpen gave us four innings with just two additional hits as we crushed the opposition. Yanqui, Delgado, Arias and Brown are all hitting over .400 after the first series of the season, and Delgado’s on a particularly hot streak, with three doubles, five RBIs and a .545 average through his first 11 at-bats. We’re expecting a big crowd tomorrow night for opening day at Bosse, with the Joliet Slammers coming to town for a three-game set.

May 13, 2024: More than 4,000 fans made this a great atmosphere at Bosse, as we slammed Joliet 10-3 in the home opener! Brandon Bailey started his season out with a 1-0 record and a 1.80 ERA, allowing just two hits and an earned run with two walks and nine strikeouts, while Reyes and Brown each homered and we had four different players notch doubles. Logan Brown hit twice with two runs and three batted in, improving his average to .438 with five doubles and a homer in his first four starts.

May 15, 2024: We won the series against the Slammers but lost game three by a 6-4 margin, handing us our first loss of the year as we fell to 5-1. Hector Perez (0-1, 9.72 ERA) allowed eight hits in 4.2 innings, with four walks, five strikeouts and five earned runs. We’re hoping the 27-year-old can get a better handle on his control, because he’s been our one starter to really struggle in his first pair of starts. We’re still hitting well, and through six games we have a +30 run differential, which is easily the best in the league ... we just need to stay focused on developing as a unit.

May 23, 2024: We hit a bit of a skid this week, getting swept by the Ottowa Titans here in Evansville, losing four of our six games following the loss to the Slammers last week. But on the road tonight against the New York Boulders we got some swing back into our bats, beating them 15-2 in a blowout that brought our record to 8-5 on the year. Diosbel Arias hit three times with two runs and three RBIs, giving him a team-high 16 RBIs through 13 games to go with his .396 average, and with eight doubles a triple and three homers he’s quickly becoming a fan favorite. He’d risen to the AAA level last year before the Rangers granted him free agency, and while he’s not at the level to be able to consistently put up these numbers in the minors, he’s got plenty more pop in his canon.

June 1, 2024: It was a tough stretch to end the month, and we head into June with an 11-10 record, putting us in fifth place in the West Division, trailing the Gateway Grizzlies in first place by four games. It’s a long season, so not a time to get bogged down on early results ... we’re hitting incredibly well, but Hector Perez (0-3, 21.2 IP, 8.72 ERA) and Alex Valdez (1-1, 13.2 IP, 8.56 ERA) are struggling after five and four starts respectively. If he doesn’t pick things up soon, Perez may find himself on the trading block, as he’s costing us $4,800 this season in guaranteed money.Adam Smith (2-0, 3.98 ERA, 20.1 IP, 19 K’s, 1.52 WHIP) has been our best starter, but our bullpen has struggled in close games as well. Arias continues to lead the team on offense, with a .418 average to go with 16 doubles, a triple and the three homers. Zac Cook is in second place on the team with 20 RBIs, and has hit .338 with 22 doubles, a triple and a homer ... those two currently are combining for 2.5 WAR.

jksander · 05-26-2024, 02:35 AM

June 24, 2024: We’ve stepped up our game so far in June, and now hold a 25-17 record while climbing into second place in the division (still three games behind the Grizzlies of Gateway). Our first baseman, Yoel Yanqui, was named Frontier League Player of the Week this week, having hit .625 with nine runs and seven RBIs this week, as he’s quietly broken out with a .408 season average, 33 doubles and three homers, tied with Arias for the batting lead among all Otters. Zac Cook, meanwhile, has continued to excel as well, hitting .342 with 35 doubles, four triples and two homers. With only a couple weeks left before the East / West All Star game, I’d say we’re right where we want to be.

July 9, 2024: It’s time for the All Star break, and we were on a roll to start July, winning five in a row before dropping a game against the Windy City Thunderbolts 8-4, which we followed by a three-game sweep loss to Ottowa on the road. But we head into the break with a 34-23 record, still behind Gateway by four games, but we lead the Wildcard race by two games, holding the top spot. Braden Scott (3-0, 3.11 ERA, 63.2 IP, 69 K’s, 1.23 WHIP) and Adam Smith (5-0, 3.88 ERA, 55.2 IP, 45 K’s, 1.49 WHIP) have been our two top starters, and closer Kyle Zurak currently holds a 2-1 record with 13 saves and a 5.92 ERA through 24.1 innings. Yoel Yanqui is now the undisputed batting leader for our team, as Arias has cooled significantly. Yanqui has hit .412/.514/.701 with 43 doubles, three triples, four homers and 43 RBIs. He had a five-hit game against Joliet on the first of the month and made the All Star game, as did Scott. Here is the full list of Otters heading for the All Star game:

SP - Hector Perez (3-3, 3.92 ERA, 57.1 IP, 1.33 WHIP, 11.8 K/9, 1.7 WAR) - a huge improvement as the season has progressed!
SP - Braden Scott (3-0, 3.11 ERA, 63.2 IP, 1.23 WHIP, 9.8 K/9, 1.3 WAR)
C - Logan Brown (.331/.431/.550, 160 AB, 1 HR, 5 SB, 135 wRC+, 1.5 WAR)
1B - Yoel Yanqui (.412/.516/.693, 199 AB, 3 HR, 6 SB, 187 wRC+, 2.8 WAR)
2B - Disobel Arias (.366/.469/.628, 191 AB, 4 HR, 4 SB, 145 wRC+, 2.8 WAR)

jksander · 05-26-2024, 03:14 AM

July 11, 2024: The East All Stars were expected to manhandle us, but in the end they only managed to win 12-11, led by Edwin Diaz who hit three times with four RBIs. Yanqui got a hit and batted in a pair for the West to get us some notice, but neither of our pitchers got playing time, while Arias and Brown were hitless. To be honest, it’s fine by me. It means we’ll have our pitchers all rested when we get back into action with three home games hosting New York starting Sunday.

August 1, 2024: Hector Perez has been named Frontier League Pitcher of the Month, going 3-0 in six starts with a 1.35 ERA and 48 K’s through 33.1 innings pitched. He heads into the final month of league action with a 5-3 record, a 3.19 ERA and 117 K’s through 84.2 innings. He’s had such a great month that I’m hearing buzz that he’s now starting to draw interest from major league franchises interested in giving him a shot at the AAA level, though we have him on contract this year and would love to be able to keep him ... but I can’t imagine he’ll want to stick around if he has a shot to break into the big leagues. He’s not the only one ... the real challenge at this level is having to rebuild your entire roster year after year, and being okay with the idea that, by doing well, you allow the players to have their chance to do well and move on.

We’re right in the thick of the playoff race, however, so the focus is on making sure this group finds as much success as we can -- we start the month of August with a 44-30 record, tied for first in the West with Gateway, with the Washington Wild Things (41-33) sitting just three games back. With the Tri-City Valley Cats in the lead in the East with a 46-28 record, we, the Grizzlies and the Quebec Capitales, all at 44-30, are knotted up for potential wild-card spots. It’s a hot mess, and it’s sure to get crazier ... our magic number to clinch a wildcard spot is 20, and to win the division outright it’s 23, with just 22 games remaining.

Some interesting notes:

- Zac Cook currently has 53 doubles, putitng him in fourth place in the entire league, but Dillon Paulson of the New England Knockouts leads the league with 63 of them, to go with 101 hits, three triples and 11 homers.

- Yoel Yanqui is sitting at 99 hits, currently fifth in the league, but he’s unlikely to catch the leader, Andrew Moritz, who has hit 121 times for the Gateway Grizzlies, batting .419 so far this year.

- Washington’s Chase Calabuig leads the league with a .445 average, his 45 doubles, 12 triples and two homers giving him 80 RBIs and 4.4 WAR on the season. He’s one of many with most of his slug coming from doubles ... the league is not known for homers, with J.J. Matijevic of the Gateway Grizzlies leading the league with 15 dingers.

- We’ve clearly climbed our way back into the playoff discussion thanks to pitching. Braden Scott (2.83 ERA), Hector Perez (3.19 ERA) and Adam Smith (3.57 ERA) have the three best ERAs in the league! Perez is now ranked third overall in pitching WAR (2.6) and leads the league in strikeouts (117) and strikeouts per nine innings (12.4). And Kyle Zurak leads the league in saves (17) and shutdowns (16). And though Parker Brahms, our long reliever, isn’t setting any records, he’s played in 32 games this year and amassed 50.2 innings pitched, with a 6-0 record, a 4.97 ERA and 37 K’s.

jksander · 05-26-2024, 05:56 AM

August 3, 2024: And so it begins ... the Pittsburgh Pirates have purchased the rights to Mason House’s contract, sending the 25-year-old left fielder to their rookie league. He’d played in 50 games for us this season, hitting .237/.343/.434 with 25 doubles and 29 RBIs. The cash infusion has certainly made our owner happy -- we’re now sitting on nearly $450,000 in cash assets thanks to his new shot at the minors.

August 5, 2024: Zac Cook has agreed to stay on with us at his same salary of $6,000, through next season. He’s made it clear that he’s fully behind the team as a whole, and wants to win a championship -- and at 26 years of age, he’s hoping to continue to develop well enough to get on some major league teams’ radar. I was happy he didn’t try to take us for too much cap space, making the “team player” move for the betterment of everyone. But I’ll be shocked if he’s in this league after next season.

August 10, 2024: Riley Delgado, at age 29, seems to be coming to grips with the idea that the major leagues aren’t going to be calling anytime soon. But he’s popular here, is batting .353 with 36 doubles and 44 RBIs, and has decided to stay on another year, inking a contract to earn $4,500 to play for the Otters in 2025. He’s an exceptional defensive player at both second and third base, and can handle shorstop in a pinch, so I know he’s worth the money -- particularly as he’s put up 3.0 WAR so far this year.

August 19, 2024: Terrible news as we fight for a shot at the playoffs -- Zac Cook broke his thumb and will now miss the remainder of the season. And we’re not in any position financially under the cap to be able to replace him. Even worse, the 12-6 loss we suffered this evening against New Jersey dropped us to 53-39, a game behind Gateway’s Grizzlies and Washington’s Wild Things ... which now also has us in a three-way tie for the final wild card spot. We’re bringing Sam Highfill, a 23-year-old pitching prospect we’d signed earlier this month for depth on the reserve roster, in to play in left field -- he’s got moderate skill in the position as a two-way player, and he has good eye and ability to get on base and then hopefully steal aggressively enough to get us through the final few days of the playoff push.

August 23, 2024: This race is coming down to the last possible moment ... and we haven’t exactly lived up to expectations, limping our way toward the finish line with three losses in a row before we decided to wake up this evening and whallop Joliet 12-0! With just one game left, at 54-41, all we can do is win our game and pray ... we remain a game out of any chance at a play-in tiebreaker game. But we got some good news for next season -- we can’t afford to bring everyone back that we’d like to, but Adam Smith, 24, has agreed to a $4,000 deal to play another season with our Otters.

August 24, 2024: It was all for naught ... tonight we got hammered by a mediocre Joliet team, losing 11-2 to finish the season with a 54-42 record, so close to the playoffs we could taste it. Gateway and Washington will face off in a tiebreaker tomorrow to determine who wins the division, and Quebec and Ottawa will face off in what some are calling “The Canuck Cup” to decide who will get the final wildcard spot.

August 25, 2024: The Washington Wild Things capped off their huge late season comeback, beating the Gateway in a 16-6 drubbing to claim the West Division crown, relegating the Grizzlies to a wild card spot. Ottawa beat Quebec 5-3 in their play-in game, earning the final spot in the four-team playoffs. The Wild Things’ reward is a best-of-seven series against the Grizzlies, but with home field advantage, while Ottawa would have to find a way past the Tri-City Valley Cats, who had finished 59-37, the best record in the league.

September 12, 2024: In the FL Divisional Series, Ottawa pushed Tri-City to the limit, but the Valley Cats won game seven in a 13-6 blowout to earn their spot in the FL Championship Series. In the West, Washington took a 2-1 series lead in a 12-inning marathon, winning 15-14, but Gateway stormed back even without homefield advantage, winning three in a row to take the series in six, where Tri-City had the home field edge. It didn’t matter to them, apparently, as Gateway declawed the Cats 13-4 in game one, and then did it again in game two, winning 12-3 to head back home with brooms on their minds. So Tri-City came back and beat them 11-10 on the road in 12 innings ... not so fast, Grizzlies! But Gateway responded with a 12-5 win to take a 3-1 lead in the series, winning a tight battle 5-4 in game five to seal the deal in front of more than 6,200 rabid fans. We’ll go into the offseason feeling like we’d been this close to a chance to be champions, but instead we were watching on the sideline with the other 11 teams who didn’t make the cut.

So congratulations go out to all the fans in the Sauget, Ill. / St. Louis, Mo. region as the Grizzlies celebrate their title. This was their first Frontier Championship win since 2003 when they beat us in a 3-0 sweep before the league began expansions. Bill Bussing is said to be happy with the direction the team is heading, but he wants big improvements in fan engagement and attendance in the coming season, and I’m working on getting Braden Scott signed to an extension before the real offseason grind begins. Free agency filings occur on October 4, and then we’ll really start hopping.

jksander · 05-26-2024, 05:57 AM

September 17, 2024: We have a signed contract from Braden Scott, ensuring the 26-year-old lefty will play another season in Evansville, earning himself $7,250 in the process. But the damned salary cap is a hell of a constraint, and we’re most likely going to be saying goodbye to some real stars ... including Diosbel Arias, Hector Perez, Yoel Yanqui, Kyle Zurak, Alex Valdez and Logan Brown.

September 21, 2024: The annual Glove Wizard awards for defensive exellence were announced today, and our team’s big winner was right fielder Mike Peabody, another of our likely-to-leave players, as I am not willing to spend $5,500 in cap space for a .253 hitter. Maybe we can talk if his price comes down later in the offseason.

September 26, 2024: Braden Scott, who just signed his contract extension, was named the Frontier League’s Pitcher of the Year! He finished the season with a 7-2 record through 20 starts, tallied 119 strikeouts through 113.1 innings, and recorded a 2.46 ERA, holding opposing batters to a stellar .195 average. At this level his stuff looks great, but he hasn’t had the opportunities to prove himself in the upper-levels of the minors because scouts don’t think he can handle the tougher competition. Here’s hoping he can help us win a championship, and then get the attention he deserves.

October 4, 2024: Free agents have filed, and we’ve got seven players on guaranteed contracts and four minor leaguers on the reserve roster. Time to get to restocking the team!

October 12, 2024: We made some progress restocking the bullpen, signing three relievers and a closer to minor league contracts. We’re going to have to do this the hard way all winter, working around our cap constraints by finding the best players willing to come in and play for league minimum, and build around the star-caliber players we’re giving guaranteed deals to.

October 19, 2024: We’ve signed 24-year-old catcher Jhoneiker Betancourt to a deal worth $3,490, to give us a decent defensive catcher along with a power bat that should make it worth the guaranteed money in a critical position. We’ve also signed a pair of minor league deals for a pair of mid-rotation starters, as well as a pair of middle infielders, so things are starting to come together. Winter meetings begin in a couple days. Hopefully by the time we get to the Thanksgiving season I’ll have a clearer picture of what our roster’s going to look like, and can update you all accordingly.

jksander · 05-26-2024, 06:58 AM

November 4, 2024: We’ve signed a handful of additional minor league deals, including Trevor Boone, a 27-year-old utility outfielder who has aggressive running skills and the ability to hit for power as a right-handed pull hitter. He’s a real “get,” as early in the free agency process he was looking for several thousand in guaranteed money, but our reputation -- and the players we return to the club who ARE on guaranteed deals -- must have made us difficult to pass up.

November 12, 2024: We’ve been getting most of our work done in the trenches this offseason, but after talking with our owner, who wants to make a big splash, we decided to burn some of the cash he’d been stockpiling and bought the contract of a stud player from the Charleston Dirty Birds. It took $250,000 to purchase Cam Eden’s $8,000 contract from the Atlantic League, but he hit .334/.414/.469 last year with 119 hits, 28 doubles, 45 RBIs and 68 stolen bases! He’s also an excellent center fielder who can defensively handle every outfield position as well as shortstop, and both I and our owner love his potential as a pure contact hitter in this league. He’ll be an immediate asset, and even if the rest of our offseason goes off the rails I think we’ve made a big move toward improving our offense. He has agreed to an extension to his original contract which will keep him here at least through 2026, by which point hopefully he’ll already be an Otters legend.

At this point we have four remaining pending offers out for minor league free agents, and if they sign, we should have a roster worthy of spring training in a few months, and then the annual process of whittling down and finalizing things will begin. But I’m confident we’ve put together a team that can keep up what we started in 2024 and get Evansville into the playoffs.

jksander · 05-26-2024, 08:18 PM

November 25, 2024: The great Cam Eden experiment was a fail -- the Cleveland Guardians got word and decided they want him in their minor leagues, so they bought his contract back and we’re back to f---ed. I should have known that would happen, so better to focus on the players we can get reasonably and not aim so high beyond our station. Sometimes I have to remind myself that we’re the lowest-tier league in professional baseball, and if anyone gets too good they’ll be propelled upward in the chain. Happy Thanksgiving, y’all!

December 8, 2024: Today we got word that Jefferson Morales, 25, agreed to play for us on a minor league deal and will be our likely designated hitter barring significant changes. He’s a solid, patient approach at the plate and could even play left or right field in a pinch, though his bat’s the most useful thing for us at the moment.

December 15, 2024: We’ve now added a final “guaranteed” contract to our roster, signing 24-year-old power lefty first baseman Chase Estep to a deal worth $4,400 to play this upcoming season. He played for Milwaukee last year and hit .249 with 24 doubles and 37 RBIs, but has been developing nicely and our scouts say he’s nearing his full potential. If we can get a good season out of him before he gets plucked away for the minor leagues, it’s a chance we need to take.

December 23, 2024: We got an early Christmas gift in an offer from the Atlantic League’s Lancaster Barnstormers that involved the tough decision to send Zac Cook and his $6,000 contract to them, in exchange for both an excellent SS/3B player (24-year-old Johan Lopez) and an above average bullpen arm (26-year-old lefty Seth Lonsway). His contract converts to a minor league deal with the switch between leagues, and though he’ll still get paid the $7,000 or so that’s on his original deal, it does not count against our cap limit. And Lonsway has the stamina to either be a spot starter or the fifth man in our rotation, depending on how the remainder of this free agent season progresses.

January 25, 2025: We’ve signed our final deal of the offseason barring any other insanity, replacing Zac Cook with utility outfielder Michael Guldberg , 25, who makes steady contact and has the ability to hit and run, making him a base stealing threat. Last season he hit .321 with 19 doubles, five triples and a homer, batting in 38 runs and scoring 50 times for the Lake Country Dockhounds over in the American Association. We’re paying him $4,500 against our remaining cap space freed up by the Cook trade, and I think he’s a big “value addition” to the team as a leadoff hitter.

As it stands right now, with three months left before spring training, we have a full 24-man roster and eight players on the reserve roster. We’ll have to make at least three cuts before opening day from the reserves, but we’ll be able to give them all time on the main 28-man spring training roster in April before we have to make those decisions.

jksander · 05-26-2024, 08:20 PM

An early look at our potential 24-man roster ...

Lineup
C - Jhoneiker Betancourt (24, $3,490) ... CON: 45/55, GAP: 50, POW: 60, EYE: 50/65, DEF: 45
1B - Chase Estep (24, $4,400) ... CON: 50, GAP: 50, POW: 50/70, EYE: 50/55, DEF: 55
2B - Johan Lopez (24, $7,400) ... CON: 60, GAP: 60/65, POW: 45/65, EYE: 55/60, DEF: 50
3B - Riley Delgado (29, $4,500) ... CON: 65, GAP: 45, POW: 40, EYE: 50, DEF: 50
SS - Brian Arias (27, ML) ... CON: 55, GAP: 55, POW: 50, EYE: 60, DEF: 35
LF - Michael Guldberg (25, $4,500) ... CON: 60/70, GAP: 50/55, POW: 40, EYE: 50, DEF: 55
CF - Jasiah Dixon (23, $4,160) ... CON: 50/65, GAP: 45, POW: 45, EYE: 50, DEF: 55
RF - Trevor Boone (27, ML) ... CON: 50, GAP: 70, POW: 55, EYE: 50, DEF: 45
DH - Josh Bissonette (28, ML) ... CON: 60, GAP: 55, POW: 40, EYE: 60, DEF: 45 (at 2B, 3B)

Right now our biggest weak spot is at shortstop, and we’ve got a few months to find a better defensive option at the position. At least he’s on a minor league contract and is therefore just getting the league minimum, with nothing counting against our cap.

Bench
C - Oscar Silverio (23, ML) ... CON: 40/55, GAP: 45, POW: 45/70, EYE: 50, DEF: 45
2B - Abiatal Avelino (29, ML) ... CON: 65, GAP: 45, POW: 45, EYE: 45, DEF: 50
LF - Jefferson Morales (25, ML) ... CON: 50/55, GAP: 55, POW: 55/70, EYE: 55/60, DEF: 40

Reserve Roster
2B - Tim Borden (25, ML) ... CON: 50/60, GAP: 45, POW: 50/60, EYE: 45/60, DEF: 50
1B - Cory Acton (25, ML) ... CON: 50, GAP: 45, POW: 40/45, EYE: 55, DEF: 50
1B/LF - Sam Highfill (24, $2,400) ... CON: 45/50, GAP: 40/45, POW: 45/55, EYE: 55/65, DEF: 45)
RF - Kwan Adkins (28, ML) ... CON: 45, GAP: 40, POW: 50, EYE: 50, DEF: 50

Highfill right now looks like he’ll be a reserve, but his potential is keeping him here until spring training because he’s also our fastest baserunner and most aggressive at going for extra bases. If I can flip him to get a high quality SS for the starting lineup, his freed cap space could come in handy. We’ll most likely make cuts from our reserve roster from our overabundance of backup relievers, but paying someone $2,400 in cap money if he won’t eventually make the main roster would be a tough decision.

Starters
1 - Braden Scott (26, $7,250) ... STU: 60, MOV: 65, CTR: 70/80, STA: 40, HLD: 50 -- FB: 70, SL: 75, CNG: 75
2 - Adam Smith (24, $4,000) ... STU: 45/60, MOV: 55, CTR: 45, STA: 45, HLD: 45 -- FB: 60/80, CV: 50/75, CNG: 50/70
3 - Wesley Moore (25, ML) ... STU: 55, MOV: 50/55, CTR: 40, STA: 50, HLD: 50 -- FB: 60, SL: 60/65, CV: 60/65, CNG: 65
4 - Matt Ball (30, ML) .. STU: 60, MOV: 45, CTR: 60, STA: 50, HLD: 40 -- FB: 70, CV: 75, CNG: 75
5 - Seth Lonsway (26, ML) ... STU: 45/70, MOV: 55, CTR: 45/50, STA: 50, HLD: 55 -- SL: 60/80, CV: 45/75, CNG: 50/70, SNK: 55/80

Bullpen
CL - Colin Baumgartner (25, ML) ... STU: 55/75, MOV: 40/45, CTR: 45/55, STA: 55, HLD: 45 -- FB: 70/80, SL: 60/80, CNG: 55/65
SE: Brian Edgington (26, ML) ... STU: 55/65, MOV: 40/45, CTR: 45/55, STA: 55, HLD: 50 -- FB: 55/60, SL: 55/65, CV: 55/75, SPL: 55/80
SE: Casey Anderson (24, ML) ... STU: 50/60, MOV: 40/45, CTR: 40/50, STA: 55, HLD: 40 -- FB: 60/70, SL: 55/70, CNG: 50/65
MR: Breck Eichelberger (24, ML) ... STU: 55/70, MOV: 40/45, CTR: 40/45, STA: 50, HLD: 40 -- FB: 65/75, CV: 60/80, CNG: 55/75
MR: Trey Gibson (23, ML) ... STU: 50/65, MOV: 40/45, CTR: 45, STA: 55, HLD: 35 -- FB: 60/75, SL: 55/65, CV: 55/75, CNG: 45/60
LR: Hayden Minton (23, ML) ... STU: 55/75, MOV: 40/50, CTR: 45, STA: 50, HLD: 45 -- FB: 60/70, SL: 60/75, CV: 60/75
LR: Isaiah Jackson (23, ML) ... STU: 60/80, MOV: 40/55, CTR: 40, STA: 45, HLD: 45 -- FB: 75/80, CV: 70/80, CNG: 55/75

Reserves
RP - Darlin Alcantara (23, ML) ... STU: 45/65, MOV: 55, CTR: 40/45, STA: 45, HLD: 50 -- FB: 50/65, CV: 45/75
RP - Keider Herrera (20, ML) ... STU: 45/55, MOV: 55, CTR: 40/50, STA: 45, HLD: 50 -- FB: 45/55, CV: 45/65, CNG: 50/70, CUT: 50/65
RP - Erik Rivera (23, ML) ... STU: 50/65, MOV: 40/50, CTR: 40/45, STA: 45, HLD: 55 -- FB: 60/75, CV: 50/75, CNG: 45/65
RP - Victor Soteldo (23, ML) ... STU: 40/65, MOV: 50, CTR: 25/50, STA: 30, HLD: 50 -- FB: 45/60, SL: 45/65, CNG: 50/80

Right now I think we’ve got good depth among our starters, and our bullpen is full of multi-pitch hurlers who have decent stamina so we shouldn’t get destroyed in games where our starters don’t get us deep into games. And our reserves all are high potential prospects, who should be able to fill in during any injury situation. Just making sure we get our final cuts down to 24 and 5 for the main roster and reserves by the end of the preseason is going to be the key.

jksander · 05-26-2024, 08:27 PM

OOC: This one's turning into a lot more fun than I expected ... the roster building part is really difficult because of the combination of the strict salary cap plus the fact that any league above you can decide to buy your players, giving the owner a ton of cash, but which you can't really use, since cash does not affect the cap. So you have to sign a lot of minor league contracts, and just the act of digging to find which quality guys will do so rather than demand high salaries against the cap is a real challenge. Hopefully I'm not drowning you all in way too many details as I post, but I'm doubting many people have played out a GM situation where you're literally starting at the very bottom of the baseball world, so I figure it's a fun exercise.

jksander · 05-26-2024, 11:01 PM

February 17, 2025: I think we’ve found our solution at shortstop! I’ve traded Cory Acton off the reserve roster plus $25,000 in cash to the Sussex County Miners over in the Frontier League West, in exchange for Stephen Alemais, a 29-year-old shortstop who has a 65 rating at short and a 75 rating at second base. He’s primarily a contact hitter who avoids K’s at all costs. He’ll step into the role of starting shortstop immediately, most likely batting ninth to give us consistent hitting all the way through the order. Bryan Arias will now likely drop back on to the reserve roster where his skill level is a better fit (as an emergency backup), with Johan Lopez and Abiatal Avelino providing backup at the position when needed. Last year Alemais was a stud for the Glacier Range Riders (Pioneer League) before signing with Sussex as a free agent -- he hit .415/.473/.709 in that league with 158 hits in 84 games, hitting 63 doubles, 17 triples and five homers as he batted in 150 runs.

Alemais is currently on a guaranteed deal worth just over $4,000, and we’re working to convince him to stick around for an additional year at a slight raise for 2026, considering how hard it has been to find consistent defensive shortstops in this league. At his age, making it onto a major league roster looks next to impossible, so we’re hoping he’ll like the area and want to stay here where he can be a big fish in a small pond.

February 21, 2025: Aleimais has signed his one year extension worth $4,750, which should ensure he stays with our Otters through the next two seasons.

April 24, 2025: Spring Training officially begins today! Of our eight reserve roster players, we’ve decided to invite Bryan Arias, Sam Highfill, Tim Borden and Erik Rivera up to the main roster. We have also decided to release Kwan Adkins, who at age 28 is simply going to have to come to grips with the fact that he isn’t going to be able to phsyically keep playing pro ball, even at this level.

April 25, 2025: Adam Smith completed his work on secondary pitch improvement in our team’s development lab, and as such is now rated 55/75 for his curveball, having noticeably improved his mechanics. Though his overall “stuff” rating remains unchanged, we’re pleased to see how hard he’s out there working to improve, even if it means he moves up to higher levels of baseball in the future. Braden Scott is now our only player still working in the lab, and we’re hoping to have some solid news to announce in two weeks or so when he completes the program.

May 6, 2025: After a little over a week of negotiations, we finally made a trade that allows us to pare down our reserve roster to the required five players following the completion of spring training. We’ve sent four players to the New England Knockouts -- Victor Soteldo, Sam Highfill, Keider Herrera and Darlin Alcantara, in exchange for a power-hitting catcher, Alex Stone, who is on a minor league contract. Stone is a long-term prospect who will spend this season on the reserve roster, but he shows a ton of potential and is the #15 prospect in the Frontier League. We gave up a lot, but in the end I feel we got a player who could succeed at this level for years if he develops, and we don’t have to worry about cutting anyone outright. In fact, we’ll have the roster space to allow us to sign an additional player later in the season if we have a need.

So far we’re 6-6 in preseason action, with six games remaining before we set our opening day rosters and host Sussex County for three games to open the 2025 regular season.

May 9, 2025: Second baseman Johan Lopez strained a hamstring in a preseason game and will miss the first 5-6 weeks of the regular season. We’ve put him on the seven day IL, but luckily we are well stocked with versatile middle infielders who should be able to help us get through the pinch without too much difficulty.

May 14, 2025: We finished the spring season with an 11-7 record, leading the West Division by a game over the Lake Erie Crushers. Tim Borden is on the IL for week due to a nagging bone bruise, so Abiatal Avelino will be on our opening day roster and then returning to the reserve roster. At the moment while Lopez and Borden are injured, we’ll have just Matt Ball and Alex Stone on the reserve roster. Here is our opening day roster:

Lineup
C - Jhoneiker Betancourt
1B - Trevor Boone
2B - Abiatal Avelino
3B - Riley Delgado
SS - Stephen Alemais
LF - Michael Guldberg
CF - Josh Dixon
RF - Bryan Arias
DH - Josh Bissonette

Bench: Oscar Silverio, Chase Estep, Jefferson Morales

Starters
1 - Braden Scott
2 - Adam Smith
3 - Wesley Moore
4 - Seth Lonsway
5 - Isaiah Jackson

Bullpen
Closer: Collin Baumgartner
Setup: Brian Edgington, Breck Eichelberger
Middle: Casey Anderson, Trey Gibson
Long: Hayden Minton, Erik Rivera

In a bit of good news, Braden Scott has completed his work in the development lab, where he’s been working on a new pitch -- and from what I’m told, his progress was outstanding! He already had an excellent fastball, slider and changeup in his repetoire, and he spent all winter working on a sinker, and our scout has it projected to be an above league average pitch before he completes his full development. Right now I’d rate it a 55, with 70 potential, and if he wasn’t already on your radar as likely to repeat as Frontier League Pitcher of the Year, you haven’t been watching. If any pitcher I’ve seen has a chance to surprise as a late bloomer and transition into the major leagues, he’s the one ... and we’re just looking to hold on to him as long as we can.

First pitch tomorrow against Sussex County is at 7:05 p.m. right here at Bosse Field, where we’re anticipating a near-record crowd for an opening day performance. The buzz is strong with this team, with nearly 1,800 season tickets sold already, more than 30% of all available seats!

jksander · 05-27-2024, 12:15 AM

May 15, 2025: Just shy of 4,800 fans packed our stadium tonight as our Otters pulled off a 7-5 win over the Sussex City Miners! They had a 4-1 lead as we came up in the bottom of the fourth, but Riley Delgado scored on an RBI single by Jhoneiker Betancourt, pulling us within a pair, and we tied it up in the bottom of the seventh thanks to an Abiatal Avelino double that drove in runs by Jasiah Dixon and Bryan Arias. They got a run back in the top of the eighth, taking a one-run lead, but we took control for good in the bottom of the eighth with a three-run frame thanks to an RBI single by Trevor Boone that scored two and an RBI single by Michael Guldberg that drove in another. Braden Scott threw 84 pitches and only lasted 4.1 innings, allowing four hits and striking out seven against three walks, allowing four earned runs. Reliever Trey Gibson got the win with a hit, a walk, a strikeout and an earned run in his 1.1 innings, and Collin Baumgartner saved his first game of the year with just a strikeout in the ninth. It was a solid way to start the season, showing some real come-from-behind grit. Here’s hoping we can maintain that energy! It helped that we had five guys throughout the lineup pick up a pair of hits each, which bodes well if we can keep it up.

May 19, 2025: We’ve struggled since getting that opening day win, losing three of our last four including a 1-5 loss tonight against Gateway’s Grizzlies, during which time Jhoneiker Betancourt suffered an intercostal strain and will miss at least the next two weeks. That’s a tough loss, because the hard-hitting catcher had been one of our offensive bright spots, hitting .429 with four doubles and a pair of RBIs in his first four games. Right now we have a 2-3 record, and are looking for any kind of consistency as we’re heading into a rough stretch of road games.

June 1, 2025: We’re 7-9 after the first few weeks of action, and our run differential (-20) is the real concerning thing ... we’re giving up runs and in bunches, and I’m hoping we’ll find ways to put it together and start stringing together wins. We’re 4-3 at home and 3-6 on the road, so it’s still quite the small sample size. We should get Betancourt back in a couple days, barring any issues with his recovery, but it’ll be three weeks before we get Johan Lopez back and can feel like we’re at full strength. Trevor Boone has hit well, hitting .356 with 14 doubles, two triples and 18 RBIs, and Abiatal Avelino has done well in the place of Lopez, hitting .354 through his first 15 games, with 12 doubles, two triples and 19 RBIs. Bryan Arias has been efficient on the basepaths as well, hitting .328/.474/.534 while stealing eight times, hitting nine doubles and a homer, and scoring 17 runs with eight batted in. Our pitchers are struggling to prevent opposition runs, at least through less than a handful of starts apiece, but I’m hopeful they’ll level out over time. Otherwise this could be a long year.

June 2, 2025: Just like that, we get news of a setback for Betancourt -- he’s going to need at least another week to fully recover.

June 7, 2025: We’ll have Betancourt back in the lineup starting tomrrow for our final game of a three-game set against Windy City here in Evansville. But quietly our team has started to come to life! In this past week we’ve gone 5-2, including an 11-9 win tonight, and though our bullpen has continued to struggle with bursts of opponent runs, they’ve been responsible for eight of our 12 wins so far as we’ve climbed back to an above-.500 record. Hayden Minton has been really impressive, considering the 23-year-old was on the border of being either in the bullpen or the reserves all season. He still doesn’t have great control of his arsenal, but when his pitches are on point, they’re almost unhittable. So far he has thrown 17 innings in eight long relief appearances, with a 2-0 record, a 4.76 ERA and 15 K’s. Braden Scott has gone 1-0 with a 3.25 ERA and 33 K’s through his first five starts, and he says he feels like he’s just now starting to hit his stride. If the others in our rotation can catch up with him, I think we’re going to be fine.

We’re currently 12-11 and stuck in a two-way tie for first in the West with Gateway, so even with a slow start we’re still competitive in the league. The East League looks just as competitive, and they’re clearly the teams with the power bats, which has contributed to their winning records against us in the West. But I think it’ll even out over the course of a 96-game season.

jksander · 05-27-2024, 08:22 PM

June 18, 2025: This month has been up and down and then up again, culminating in our most recent series, a three-game set on the road against the Trois-Rivieres Aigles which we won by sweep! We took game one by a 9-7 margin in 10 innings, took game two by a 4-2 margin in 11, and then shut them down thoroughly tonight with a 5-1 win! Nothing spectacular, just great team baseball all around. The three wins in a row put us at 19-14 overall and give us a one game lead in the West Division over Gateway (18-15) and a two game lead on Washington (17-16). But with the rest of our division struggling, it’s looking like a three-man race again this year that’s likely to be as tightly contested as last year’s was. The New Jersey Jackals (23-10) have a three game lead over Trois-Rivieres (20-13) thanks to our sweep, but all teams in that division currently have winning records, so it’s liable to be just as hard-fought on that side of the league table as well.

June 20, 2025: Johan Lopez has recovered from his hamstring strain and will be able to return to our lineup as shortstop effective tomorrow afternoon! He’s been injured all year, and has not played a single game, but he has a ton of potential and we’re hoping he’ll boost our offensive production immediately. But we’re on a win streak as it stands, having crushed Schaumburg 8-1 and 8-0 in the last two games -- tonight’s 8-0 home shutout in front of nearly 4,400 fans featured Isaiah Jackson’s first win of the year! He had a one-hitter going through 5.1 innings, and though he walked four against five strikeouts, he didn’t give up any runs. If he can improve his control he has the ability to become a top prospect, especially as young as he is. Even better, Hayden Minton then went two innings without a hit, and Trey Gibson did the same through 1.2 innings, giving us a one-hit shutout as a unit ... if we can keep playing like this, we’re going to be a hard team to beat.

June 28, 2025: We had one of our best offensive games of the season tonight, beating the New England Knockouts on the road by an 18-2 margin! Johan Lopez has had a slow start to his time on the main roster, but tonight he broke out in a big way, hitting four times with three runs and three RBIs, including his first home run! Brandon Scott had a 6.1 inning three-hitter, improving to 2-1 on the season as we improved to 24-17, staying a game ahead of the Washington Wild Things. The Grizzlies of Gateway have fallen on hard times, going 4-6 in their last ten and slipping to 21-20, three games out of the lead and two games out of the wildcard race.

July 2, 2025: It’s officially Johan Lopez’s breakout moment! Tonight in a 14-7 road beatdown on the Sussex County Miners, Lopez hit five times and blasted three homers out of the park, giving him three runs and 10 batted in! He’s put up a .409 average with six doubles a triple and four homers in his first 10 games back from injury, batting in 22 runs to quickly propel himself into the conversations of who is our best offensive player! Too bad it all happened too late for him to make an All Star impression, but with New York’s Jordan Brewer leading the league’s home run race at just seven dingers this year, his presence in our lineup has clearly been the missing link. What is bad is that he’s almost looking too good too quickly ... hopefully no major league scouts come along and steal him away!

July 3, 2025: It’s like I manifested the bad news ... we got word that the Miami Marlins have purchased the contract of our ace, Braden Scott, and will most likely be sending him to AAA, though it’s possible the 27-year-old could rise up to the major league level if he keeps pitching well since the Marlins are currently sitting in last place in the NL East and needing anything they can find to get fans in the seats.

As for what that means for our team, we’re calling up Matt Ball from the reserve roster, to take over in the #5 spot as a starter. Seth Lonway, Adam Smith and Isaiah Jackson will take over the top three spots, and we’re promoting Hayden Minton (4-1, 5.67 ERA, 33.1 IP, 34 K’s, 1.77 WHIP) out of the bullpen from long relief to pitch in the 4-spot. We are lucky that our bullpen was stocked with high stamina relievers, so I am hopeful we can fight through the tough loss of Scott and still push for a championship. In this league, that’s what you have to do. A guy gets good, he gets gone, and that’s the way it should be considering how little we can pay.

jksander · 05-27-2024, 09:23 PM

July 9, 2025: Reliever Casey Anderson has agreed to an extension of his contract with us at $3,000 for the following year, a raise from his current salary of $2,400 guaranteed. Anderson has gone 2-0 with a 6.23 ERA through 34.2 innings in 28 relief appearances, striking out 27.

July 11, 2025: We’re currently riding a six-game winning streak, the team taking flight after a two game skid following the pitching shakeup. Our offense has been absolutely off the charts this week, sweeping Gatewood on our field by a 40-9 margin and then taking the show on the road where we just completed a sweep of the New York Boulders on THEIR field by a stunning 51-26 margin! With just a single series remaining before the All Star break, against Ottawa here in Evansville, we’re currently 34-20 and have opened up a six game lead on the Grizzlies, putting us in a position to control our own destiny heading into the backstretch of the season. Johan Lopez has led the way offensively, hitting .442 with 13 doubles, five homers and 30 RBIs in his first 18 games, but the increase in contact has been across the board -- we’ve improved to top five levels in every offensive category except home runs, walks, stolen bases and baserunning.

July 15, 2025: The All Star game is tomorrow, and we head into the final six weeks of the season sitting on a nine-game winning streak. Michael Guldberg just won FL Star of the Week, hitting .529 with 18 hits and 17 RBIs, which is great for him heading into the All Star announcements. Hayden Minton, who has adjusted perfectly to his spot in the starting rotation, signed a one year extension worth $3,500 to play for us next year. We’d hoped he’d make the All Star game as a reliever, but he didn’t get the nod despite a 6-1 record, 4.73 ERA and 47 K’s through 45.2 innings pitched -- the 24-year-old is still flying under the radar, so perhaps he’ll be able to continue his breakout through this season and into the next.

Here are the players on our team who DID make the All Star cut this season:

SP - Seth Lonway (6-1, 2.34 ERA, 57.2 IP, 1.18 WHIP, 7.3 K/9, 1.0 WAR)
SS - Josh Bissonette (.324/.439/.507, 219 AB, 1 HR, 6 SB, 126 wRC+, 1.2 WAR)
RF - Bryan Arias (.321/.478/.521, 190 AB, 2 HR, 16 SB, 145 wRC+, 1.8 WAR)

Gateway, loaded with popular stars, had four players make the team, and the Lake Erie Crushers (25-32, 5th place, 12 GB) placed four pitchers in the game as their contribution., our three teams contributing 11 of the 24 spots between us. In the East, New Jersey placed six players, Tri-City placed four and Ottawa, New England and Trois-Riveres each placed three -- those five teams contributing 19 of the league’s 25 spots.

One interesting thing about how our bullpen has worked all year is that we have 17 team saves this year but they’re spread among five of our seven relievers (plus one for Minton who is now starting). And because our starters, with the exception of Seth Lonsway and the now-departed Brandon Scott, weren’t always good at getting enough innings to qualify, a lot of wins have gone to the bullpen. Erik Rivera (5-0, 1 SV, 6.35 ERA, 39.2 IP, 40 K’s, 1.76 WHIP) and Collin Baumgartner (5-2, 5 SV, 5.46 ERA, 31.1 IP, 42 K’s, 1.66 WHIP) have had great under-the-radar seasons in that regard. Even our reliever with the lowest number of innings has had a great season -- that role goes to Breck Eichelberger (2-3, 1 SV, 7.53 ERA, 28.2 IP, 31 K’s, 1.99 WHIP). So no one is getting to hide, everyone’s playing and putting their stamp on this season.

30-year-old infielder Abiatal Avelino has had a breakout year, hitting .359 with 27 doubles, seven triples and two homers, stealing seven bases. He already has 80 hits, putting him on track to break his personal best of 134, back in 2019 when he played for Sacramento, San Francisco’s AAA affiliate. But his skills are best suited for this level -- though he still dreams of getting the call to go back to the majors, he’s too far past his prime to compete against that level of pitcher, so we’re working on a deal that could keep him here again next season.

First baseman Trevor Boone, at 27, has also been catching fire for us -- in a mid-June game in Quebec he hit five times out of six, and on July 10th against New York, he went five of seven and hit for the cycle in a 20-9 blowout win. Through this season he has a .299 average, 43 doubles, seven triples and three homers, with 58 RBIs in 224 at bats! But he’s in the same boat as Avelino ... any hope he has of getting a callup at this point would depend on whether anyone thinks his gap power outweighs his lack of contact ability against the upper levels of pitching. So we’ve offered him an opportunity to stay with us as well.

jksander · 05-27-2024, 11:12 PM

July 19, 2025: Abiatal Avelino has signed an extension to stay with us next year while earning $4,000, a raise from his current salary of $2,400. We play tonight at 7:35, starting a three-game set at home against the visiting Joliet Slammers (23-34) with six weeks left to close out this season and (hopefully) earn our first playoff spot.

July 20, 2025: All Star right fielder Bryan Arias will slightly more than double his salary to $5,000 next year, but has agreed to stay with us in Evansville as a top-rated veteran, barring any outside interest from the major leagues. As is usually the case, it’s impossible to predict where we’ll be anything more than a few months out, but for now this continues a solid trend toward building consistency as we continue to build our brand as family fun with a winning mentality.

July 21, 2025: Riley Delgado has agreed to stay here next season at the same salary, $4,500, that he’s already earning. The 30-year-old third baseman has been hitting .265 with 19 doubles, two triples and 38 RBIs, but is aging past the point where a call-up looks likely. Trevor Boone, meanwhile, has improved enough this year that he still hopes with time to get one last shot at the Bigs ... but he’s agreed to a raise from $2,400 to $4,000 next year to give the Otters another season if that doesn’t happen. Boone, who was again the best hitter in the FL this week (.667 in 12 at bats with one homer and seven RBIs) has been red-hot since June, and the fans are excited that he wants to stick around, however long that sojourn turns out to be.

July 23, 2025: Jasiah Dixon, our 23-year-old center field prospect, won’t likely be at this level for long, but he says he enjoys playing for a winner, and agreed to stay here another year at $4,160, keeping his same salary while he puts the time in down here honing his tools. Dixon has hit .324 this year with 19 doubles, a triple, two homers and 34 RBIs, putting up 1.9 WAR already this season as we’ve kept our winning streak going ... he hit .228 for us last year with 12 doubles and 16 RBIs, and you can tell every time he comes out to play a game he loves this place and our fans send the love right back at him. Unfortunately, tonight our win streak ended at 13 games as we lost a tough one 10-9 on the road to the Florence Y’alls (27-35), but our record stands at 41-21 and we’re ahead of the Gateway Grizzlies (33-29) and Washington Wild Things (32-30) by eight and nine games respectively.

August 1, 2025: The Frontier League has determined that, in July, we had the best batter AND the best pitcher in the league. Johan Lopez led the way on offense, hitting .442 with five homers, 35 RBIs and 28 runs scored. Through his first 32 games, he’s hit .406 with 22 doubles, three triples and six homers, putting up 2.1 WAR in less than two months’ work! If he’d been playing all year instead of spending the first six weeks injured, he’d be right in the race for the league’s batting crown, but is instead ineligible. Casey Anderson, meanwhile, our 24-year-old long reliever, won Pitcher of the Month out of the bullpen -- he was 3-0 with two saves in three chances, completing a 3.52 ERA through 23 innings, holding opposing batters to a .210 average against him. On the year he’s now 4-0 with a 5.47 ERA, making 37 appearances and hurling 51 innings of work, striking out 46 in the process.

With 27 games remaining in the month of August before we close out this season and look to playoff baseball, we hold a 46-23 record, best in our division by seven games over the 39-30 Gateway Grizzlies. In the EL, New Jersey (46-23) leads the division by six games over the Tri-City Valley Cats at 40-29. Unless New England (37-32), Washington (35-34), Quebec (35-34), New York (35-34) or Ottawa (35-34) can tighten up the wildcard race, right now it appears the top two teams in each division will head into the playoffs without any risk of any tiebreaker shenanigans.

jksander · 05-28-2024, 12:14 AM

August 13, 2025: Oscar Silverio, who has hit .269 with four doubles and three homers in 19 games as catcher for us this season, agreed to a raise from his current $2,400 salary to $3,100 to play for us next year. The 23-year-old has shown a lot of improvement, and is capable of starting for us next year, as Jhoneiker Betancourt is looking for a significant raise and is likely to head to free agency in the fall, if not to AA-level minor league ball if a major league team should take a look at him. We’ve gone 8-4 so far this month and though nine of our final 15 games are on the road, we hold a nine game lead on Gateway and have a magic number of seven, so our eventual clinching of home field advantage in the playoffs is all but assured barring an epic collapse.

August 18, 2025: Tonight we beat New England 5-4 in a hard-fought battle among playoff-caliber teams, but the biggest story of the night was that Bryan Arias’ epic on-base streak has come to an end after a staggering 77 consecutive games! He’s had 92 hits and 67 walks this year, making it on base via hit or walk in EVERY SINGLE GAME he’s played in this season! So far he’s averaged .321 but has made it on base at a .470 clip this season.

August 20, 2025: It’s official ... we clinched the Frontier League West tonight on the road, beating New Jersey 11-6, led by Jefferson Morales with three hits, a pair of runs and three RBIs. Casey Anderson won his fifth game out of the bullpen, throwing 34 pitches through 2.1 innings while allowing four hits and a pair of earned runs. Now it’s just a matter of seeing how the rest of the wild-card race goes ... New Jersey should clinch soon in their division, but there are five or six teams within 2.5 games of either wildcard spot, so that’s not going to be decided until the final pitch is thrown.

August 26, 2025: Terrible news! We’ve lost Trevor Boone to a fractured hand for the remainder of the season, losing his powerful bat at the worst possible time. He hit .291 this year with 62 doubles 15 triples and three homers, giving him a .573 slug. We hope to have him back healthy next year since he signed his extension, but this hurts us for sure as we look toward the playoffs.

August 28, 2025: Bryan Arias had been dealing with a badly bruised shoulder, so we’d had him on the IL for seven days as a precaution, but now we’ve learned it’s going to take at least another week to get him back ... that’s right, we’re now down TWO of our best hitters heading into the first round of the playoffs. We’re hopeful to get him back at least midway through the FL Divisional Series, but even that is questionable at this point.

August 29, 2025: Chase Estep batted for our second cycle of the season in a 15-4 drubbing of Gateway in our final game of the season in St. Louis, stepping up in a big way to power our offense in the absence of Boone and Arias. We finished the season with a 63-33 record, beating Gateway in the standings by 10 full games, while New Jersey finished first in the East with a 60-36 record, seven games ahead of the Ottawa Titans and the Tri-City Valley Cats, who were each 53-43, same as Gateway. So we have three teams tied for two wildcard spots ... so we’re not sure who we’ll be playing yet, but drama is sure to unfold!

August 31, 2025: Yesterday afternoon, Ottawa’s Titans beat the Tri-City Valley Cats 6-5 in a tie-breaker game played on Ottawa’s field, clinching themselves a wildcard spot! This evening, Gateway and Tri-City faced off in St. Louis, and this time it was Gateway’s turn to collapse when it counted the most -- they still had a chance heading into the seventh inning trailing 7-4, but the Valley Cats removed all doubt and added seven runs in the top of the seventh to crush the Grizzlies’ chances of returning to the playoffs. In turn that means we’ll be the only team from the West playing in the playoffs, while New Jersey, Ottawa and Tri-City compete from the East. We’ll take on Tri-City in a best-of-seven series starting on Tuesday the 2nd of September. Right now it looks like we could have Arias back in the lineup in time for game three in Tri-City ... we’ll have to do what we can to win our home games without him so we can avoid going into our opponents’ house looking weak.

OOC: I’m going to be watching the games play out live, so I’ll be posting all playoff game results like I do in my “play every game” dynasty threads, but in this case I don’t have control over the team -- my manager Fox Beyer and our bench coach Phil Britton will. So they’ll just be more detailed recaps than normal ... it just seems like a sin to sim through playoff baseball!

jksander · 05-28-2024, 02:23 AM

September 2, 2025: Bosse Field was positively bursting at the seams tonight for game one of the FL Divisional Series’ first game between ourselves and the Tri-City Twin Caps, more than 7,400 fans showing up on a clear, cool night to watch us in our first playoff appearance since losing the championship to Quebec in 2023. Seth Lonsway (6-4, 4.04 ERA, 93.2 IP, 90 K’s, 1.43 WHIP) got the start against Tri-City’s Yusniel Padron-Artiles (0-2, 9.82 ERA, 18.1 IP, 19 K’s, 2.02 WHIP).

Tri-City got on the board in the top of the second with an RBI double by center fielder Tyler Collins on two outs, and though Lonsway got the final out, he’d thrown 52 pitches in two frames, making it unlikely he’d go deep into the game tonight. Chase Estep doubled in the bottom of the inning, and with two outs Jhoneiker Betancourt took a hit to the shoulder but was able to stay in the game, taking first. But we weren’t able to get a run across in that frame, heading into the top of the third trailing 1-0. Lonsway got us through the third thanks to a sweet 6-4-3 double play off a ball weakly hit by their right fielder Tanner Murphy, and he got a pair of strikeouts in the fourth before allowing a double off the bat of Tri-Caps third baseman Madison Stokes. Trey Gibson came out of the bullpen to relieve him and get the final out, sending us into the bottom of the fourth still down by a run. Chase Estep singled and Riley Delgado followed with a double in the bottom of the inning, but Betancourt popped out to short, stranding both runners ... but Michael Guldberg got us on the board with an RBI double that tied us up 1-1 in the bottom of the fifth, and Johan Lopez followed it with an RBI double of his own to put us in the lead!

Trey Gibson stayed out in the top of the sixth and got a quick strikeout, but their DH Jalen Miller hit a two-run power-bomb off him and just like that we were back to a Tri-Caps 3-2 lead heading into the bottom of the sixth. Wesley Moore came out to pitch in the seventh inning, getting around a hit with a fly-out and a pair of K’s, and though he put two runners on bsae in the eighth, he got through that one as well with a strikeout, sending us into the bottom of the eighth still just trailing by a run. In the bottom of the eighth, Jhoneiker Betancourt got on base with a walk, and then Stephen Alemais drove him to third with a single and help from an E8 error in the outfield. Jasiah Dixon loaded the bases with a walk, still just one out, and we smelled a chance to take this one back over! Abiatal Avelino hit a line drive into left, reaching second and driving in a pair to push us back into the lead, but we weren’t able to expand it, heading into the top of the ninth leading 4-3. Breck Eichelberger came out to close, but he was pitching on thin ice, walking two Tri-Caps batters around his first out, and then walking a third to load the bases ... Justin Williams, their first baseman, struck out swinging to give us our second out, but their next batter hit a line drive into left that scored three runs with a double, and we were in a deep hole and sinking fast. Eichelberger melted down from there and the manager didn’t pull him ... just left him out to drown, two more runs scoring before we were able to get back up to bat in the final half inning. Tri-City shut us down quickly and got out of here with the 8-4 win amid choruses of boos from our hometown fans.

What a frustrating loss ... we outhit them 10-8 but Eichelberger’s disasterous inning sunk us -- three hits, three walks, two strikeouts and five earned runs give him a playoff ERA of 45.00 ... yeeesh! That’s a real kick in the balls after Lonsway, Gibson and Moore had combined for just five hits, six walks, 15 strikeouts and three earned runs between them. Avelino hit three times and batted in a pair of runs, while Guldberg hit once with a run and an RBI and Lopez added a hit, a walk and an RBI.

September 3, 2025: The crowd was still bursting the bleachers at the seams for game two, with cooler temperatures but overall great weather for fall baseball -- Adam Smith (3-4, 4.84 ERA, 87.1 IP, 79 K’s, 1.64 WHIP) got the start against Sean Harney (6-3, 6.34 ERA, 92.1 IP, 92 K’s, 1.40 WHIP). Smith’s control was off right out of the gate, and it bit him in the top of the second when second baseman Clay Dungan hit an RBI single off him to put Tri-City in the lead. We needed our bats to wake up in a big way, and that didn’t seem to be in the cards, at least early on. They got first baseman Andrew Navigato onto second with a double in the top of the third, and he stole third and came around to score off a flyout by right fielder Jalen Miller, adding another run to our damage. Smith was an abomination on the mound, and we trailed 6-0 before our manager finally gave him the hook -- bringing in Collin Baumgartner to get the final out after just 2.2 innings.

We got on the board in the bottom of the second with a two-run homer by Abiatal Avelino, cutting our deficit to four runs. Baumgartner kept us in the game, but we kept repeatedly failing from the plate. Brian Edgington came in with two outs in the top of the seventh, a runner on first, and he promptly walked two in a row to load the bases -- the fans pretty much threw up their hands when center fielder Tyler Collins hit a single that drove in a pair and dug our hole back to six runs. Johan Lopez hit a line drive into right field with two outs in the bottom of the seventh, driving in a run with a double, and Tim Borden hit a double that drove in another to cut it back to four, but that was it for the rally. Edgington stayed out and got three quick outs in the top of the eighth, and in the bottom of the inning we got another run back thanks to a Jasiah Dixon double, though Dixon got thrown out trying to make it a triple and ended the inning. Casey Anderson came in to pitch in the top of the ninth, getting two outs but allowing another run to score off a triple by left fielder Jacob Pearson, sending us into the bottom of the inning still needing four runs to prolong this misery. The Tri-Caps weren’t having any of that, and they shut us down efficiently as they beat us again 9-5, sending us on the road with few expectations that we’ll have what it takes to claw our way back in.

Adam Smith gave up six hits, walked five and struck out three, letting six runs score on him in 2.2 innings -- that gave him both a playoff loss and a miserable 20.25 ERA. Baumgartner lasted four innings with a hit, a walk, a strikeout and an earned run, but our offense never gave us a legitimate shot of a comeback, though we outhit the Valley Cats 10-9 ... but we had enough offense to win it if Smith had had even a shred of control. Jasiah Dixon’s four hit effort was overshadowed completely -- he scored twice and drove in another, and Avelino’s homer batted in two more.

Arias is back to full strength, but we’re not allowed to make any roster moves until the end of the series, so we’re stuck praying for a comeback so he can get a shot to return for a championship run.

September 5, 2025: We found ourselves at Tri-City’s tiny Bruno Stadium tonight on a mission -- win this one or we’re all but toast in this series. They had about 4,700 fans in the place on a partly cloudy 58 degree evening, but don’t get me wrong. IT WAS LOUD! Hayden Minton (10-2, 4.55 ERA, 87.0 IP, 92 K’s, 1.47 WHIP) got the start against Kirk McCarty (4-1, 3.03 ERA, 35.2 IP, 33 K’s, 1.29 WHIP). Jasiah Dixon scored a run for us in the top of the first, scoring from third off a groundout by Guldberg to give us our first lead since briefly in game one. And this time we actually built on our success -- in the top of the third, Abiatal Avelino hit a single that drove in two runs, and Johan Lopez hit a one-out double to add another, giving us a solid 4-0 lead. Hayden Minton had a no-hitter going, two outs in the bottom of the fifth, but he walked two batters and then had an inexplicable balk called that put two in scoring position. Andrew Navigato hit an RBI double that scored two, and we brought in Collin Baumgartner who got the final out. Minton was so close to qualifying for the win, but he walked six players and was at 99 pitches ... his lack of control under pressure did him in or he could have lasted much longer.

John Lopez batted in an insurance run in the top of the seventh with a double, and a Riley Delgado RBI single gave us a 6-2 lead heading into the stretch. Bryan Edgington came in with one out and a man on second in the bottom of the frame, giving up an RBI single to right fielder Tanner Murphy to cut our lead to three. He loaded the bases, damned near gave us all heart attacks, and then got the final out via strikes to get us into the top of the eighth still leading 6-3. Edgington got us three quick outs in the bottom of the eighth, but unable to add any more insurance, we went into the bottom of the ninth needing some good closout pitching from Breck Eichelberger, who even with a three-run lead had us nervous after his collapse in game one. He came in with a three run lead and struck out the top two batters in their lineup, then walked a pair and surrendered a hit to catcher Michael Berglund, cutting our lead to two. And then, like it was preordained, third-baseman Madison Stokes hit a single that drove in the tying runs, knotting us up 6-6 and still needing that third f---ing out. He finally got it, but that sent us into extra innings and their fans were fully energized by the comeback.

Chase Estep doubled with one out in the top of the tenth, and with two outs Alemais walked, bringing up Jasiah Dixon, our best hitter so far in the series at .462 ... he got a great hit into deep center, hitting the wall just out of reach of their center fielder, and we had ourselves the lead back by a run, Dixon hitting a double that put two in scoring position. But Avelino popped out to center to keep us from adding more cushion, and Matt Ball came in to pitch, hoping we could finish this out. He got two strikeouts, and then second baseman Clay Dungan hit himself a double, but we were able to escape this game with a win thanks to a pop-fly to center that let us leave with a 7-6 victory and a long sigh of relief. We’re still alive! We still have a chance.

I can tell you one thing, I plan to tell our manager that if he uses Eichelberger again in a closing situation, he’s losing his damned job. That’s two blown playoff saves, and he came out of it with the win despite his own best efforts ... two hits, two walks, three strikeouts and three earned runs in one inning of work. Minton, Baumgartner and Edgington had combined for eight innings with three hits, eight walks and 11 strikeouts, with just three earned runs between them. That we outhit the Valley Cats 14-6 and still damned near blew this game is a level of frustration I can barely explain. Dixon saved us with three hits, two runs and an RBI, while Lopez added three hits, a run and two RBIs. Riley Delgado also did his part, hitting three times and scoring a run. But we’re killing ourselves with the walks ... they walked 10 times to our three, singlehandedly keeping them in this game.

We’ll be right back here tomorrow night, hoping to find a way to tie this series up ... as it is, we trail the Valley Cats two games to one, and need at least one win in the next two nights to allow us to take this back home.

jksander · 05-28-2024, 04:31 PM

September 6, 2025: Tri-City fans came out in force to try and will their team to take control of this series. Isaiah Jackson (4-3, 5.73 ERA, 81.2 IP, 87 K’s, 1.54 WHIP) took the mound against Valley Cats hurler Micah Dallas (0-1, 10.90 ERA, 17.1 IP, 21 K’s, 2.31 WHIP). Both pitchers got off to solid starts, though in the bottom of the second Jackson hit Michael Berglund, Tri-City’s second baseman, with a pitch, fracturing his foot and forcing him out of the game and the remainder of the postseason, definitely ratcheting up the tension in this place -- it wasn’t anything intentional, just one of those weird baseball flukes. Michael Guldberg hit an RBI double in the top of the third to put us up 1-0, but the Valley Cats tied it up with an RBI double by lead-off man Clay Dungan in the bottom of the third, taking the lead moments later with a double by right fielder Tanner Murphy. Jackson loaded the bases but got out of the inning without further incident, but they’d certainly rattled him. We loaded the bases in the top of the fourth but left them all stranded, and the Valley Cats took control in the bottom of the inning, thanks to a Trey Faltine RBI double and a Clay Dungan RBI single that drove in three runs between them. Brian Edgington came in to pitch with one out and a man on first, getting one out on a fielder’s choice before allowing an RBI single by Andrew Navigato that put us in a 6-1 hole heading into the top of the fifth.

Edgington got a pair of outs in the bottom of the fifth and then was replaced due to exhaustion by Erik Rivera, who allowed a pair of baserunners but got the strikeout to get us out of the inning -- we hoped he could handle a few more innings to give our bats a chance to dig out of the hole. It started raining, however, and we worried the game might get called, but after a half-hour rain delay, play resumed. It didn’t matter -- we couldn’t hit for anything, and Tanner Murphy hit a two-run homer in the bottom of the sixth that all but sealed it. In the top of the seventh we finally got another run when Johan Lopez hit a weak grounder that somehow rolled safely into right field for an RBI single, but with two on the corners we still couldn’t spark a rally, going into the stretch still trailing by six runs. Trey Gibson came in for Rivera in the seventh with two runners on base and no outs, getting a strikeout and a flyout before Tanner Murphy added to our humiliation with a two-run double to make it 10-2.

But the tide turned in the top of the eighth ... Jhoneiker Betancourt hit a two-run blast to cut the lead back to six, and Stephen Alemais hit a triple to get us back to the top of the order with one out. They plunked Jasiah Davis on the arm but he was able to take his base, and then Avelino silenced the crowd with a three-run slam out of left field, cutting our deficit to three! Their pitcher walked Guldberg and Lopez, and then with two outs, Riley Delgado hit one off the wall in center-left, driving in yet another with a double, putting two runners in scoring position as this game’s momentum fully shifted! Jeferson Morales popped out to third to end the frame, but we’d added six runs and batted around to get ourselves back into the game trailing 10-8!

Trey Gibson stayed out in the bottom of the inning and didn’t allow a single baserunner, giving us one last shot in the top of the ninth to complete the comeback. Betancourt came up to the plate as the leadoff hitter, and they walked him, bringing up Alemais as the potential tying run! He hit a roller into left field, legging out a double as they chased it down, and just like that we had runners on second and third with leadoff man and .412 hitter Jasiah Dixon coming up to the plate! He got his hit over the head of the third baseman and into left field, driving in a run with a single that put runners on the corners, and their second baseman bobbled a catch to allow Abiatal Avelino reach first ... they dubbed it a hit, not an error, and just like that the game’s tied 10-10 ... unbelievable! Guldberg kept the hit parade going, loading the bases with a single -- STILL NO OUTS! -- and Johan Lopez got us our first lead since the very first inning, hitting a two-RBI double to make it 12-10! Borden struck out for our first out, but Delgado bought us another run with a single, Morales hit a line drive into left for another, and Betancourt picked up his second walk of the inning to load the bases! Alemais batted in another with a single and Dixon struck out for our second out. Avelino batted in two more with a double that went to the wall in center, and Guldberg mercifully struck out swinging to send us into the bottom of the inning leading by seven. Casey Anderson came in to finish them off, getting two outs but placing two on base, which allowed Hugo Cardona to get the Valley Cats three runs back when he hit a homer over the center field wall ... this game is absolutely bonkers! Matt Ball came in to get the last out, and a grounder to first finally ended this as a 17-13 come-from-behind victory ... the series is tied now two games to two, the game ending at 1:09 a.m. thanks to the rain delay, a five hour marathon.

Trey Gibson picked up the win, improving to 1-0 with a 4.15 postseason ERA, throwing two innings with just one hit and four strikeouts, giving him a 0.92 postseason WHIP in his 4.1 innings this series! We outhit the Valley Cats by a staggering 21-14 margin, but amazingly neither team committed an error the entire night. Avelino was a star tonight, hitting four times and walking once, scoring two and driving in six, while Alemais hit four times for three runs and an RBI. Johan Lopez added three hits, a walk, a run and three RBIs, and Betancourt hit twice (including his homer), walked twice and scored three runs with two batted in.

I may never see a comeback like that as long as I live ...

While this series still has plenty of juice left, there was no question of who was going to be the other representative in this year’s FL Championship Series ... Ottawa clinched the four-game sweep over New Jersey, winning game four on their home field by a 7-1 margin, after having defeated the heavily favored Jackals 8-1, 8-7 and 9-5 in the first three games. And they’ll get plenty of time to rest while we slug this out against Tri-City ... but at least we now know we’re guaranteed to get our chance to clinch back on our home field, having retaken the advantage.

jksander · 05-28-2024, 05:15 PM

September 7, 2025: Seth Lonsway (0-0, 2.45 ERA, 3.2 IP, 7 K’s, 1.36 WHIP) gets his second start of the playoffs tonight, facing Yusniel Padron-Artiles (0-0, 3.60 ERA, 5.0 IP, 2 K’s, 1.60 WHIP), and will certainly be hoping he can go deeper into this one as we attempt to take the series lead in front of 4,600 rabid Valley Cats fans. We got on the board quickly, picking up where we finished off last night with an RBI double by Guldberg in the top of the first. Chase Estep batted in two more with a one-out RBI double, giving Lonsway a 3-0 lead before he even had to pitch. Abiatal Avelino hit an RBI triple to add a run in the top of the second, and Guldberg batted him home with a double to quickly make it 5-0. With two outs in the bottom of the third, Tri-City got a run off an RBI double by Jalen Miller, who was able to score from third when Michael Guldberg missed on a throw to the cutoff man, cutting our lead to four, but we got out of the inning without any other fireworks. Lopez hit himself an RBI triple off the wall in center -- six inches higher and it would have been a two-run homer, but it still drove in a run to increase our lead back to five. Chase Estep drove him around to score off a sac-fly to right, and we went into the bottom of the fifth leading 7-1. Lonsway got two outs quickly in the bottom of the sixth, but Tyler Collins got himself an RBI triple with a deeply hit ball to center left that bounced and rolled repeatedly away from our fielder. Johan Lopez then couldn’t make a catch at short, allowing them to pick up another run off a single by Tanner Murphy, but Lonsway got us out of there with a 4-6-3 groundball double play to put us into the seventh inning with a 7-3 lead still safe.

He stayed out in the seventh long enough to get a flyout to center and warm up Breck Eichelberger, who handled himself in a low pressure situation in a much better manner than he did his two early-series appearances, gettng two quick outs to complete the frame. And in the top of the eighth we put some icing on, Jhoneiker Betancourt hitting his second homer of the series to score three runs and give us a 10-3 lead. Avelino hit an RBI double to add to the carnage, and they took Guldberg out of the game with a hit to the hand, fracturing his thumb and forcing him out of the game and the series ... loading the bases as Tim Borden came in to run for him. Johan Lopez hit a two-run double, Delgado walked in a run, and though Morales hit into a double play, those were our first two outs of the inning and a run scored in the process to give us a 12-run lead heading into the bottom of the inning. Eichelberger, with the rout fully on, stayed out there in the bottom of the inning, getting three quick outs around a single hit, and he stayed out in the ninth as well, getting two outs but allowing a garbage run to score off an RBI single by Justin Williams. He completed his game with a strikeout, finishing one out short of a three-inning save but completing our 15-4 victory!

Seth Lonsway had a great game, lasting 6.1 innings with just five hits, three walks and three earned runs, striking out seven, his postseason ERA now at 3.60 after two starts. Eichelberger came out and was able to throw off his early-series jitters, pitching 2.2 innings with three hits, two strikeouts and a single earned run, improving his postseason ERA to 17.36 through 4.2 innings in three appearances. We outslugged the Valley Cats 15-8, led by Avelino who hit four times for three runs and two RBIs, bringing his postseason average up to .464! Guldberg, whose season is now over, hit three times for two runs and two RBIs, giving him a .348 average in the postseason ... we’re going to miss him in the lineup for sure.

This one’s headed back to Evansville where we have a chance to clinch it in six after having started the series out 0-2!

05-26-2024, 01:43 AM	#2
jksander All Star Starter Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Indianapolis IN Posts: 1,767	March 18, 2024: In a taste of local sports news, Evansville Otters owner Bill Bussing has hired 41-year-old Gary Shannon to take the team’s helm as General Manager of Baseball Operations. This will be Shannon’s first sports management job, following a 12-year stint as the third base coach for the Evansville Aces over in the Missouri Valley. Shannon attended the University of Indianapolis and played a utility infield role off the bench for the D-II Greyhounds off and on for four years, graduating with a degree in Communications in 2004. After seven years bouncing around the minors as a scout and occcasional team press liason for the Cincinnati Reds’ AA affiliate, Shannon took the job with the Aces and eventually earned his Master’s in Sports Management in 2016. No word yet as to who the team will hire to take on the vacant manager role, or whether any free agent signings will be on the horizon before the Otters begin Frontier League play on May 10th on the road against the New Jersey Jackals. But the team is in good shape financially at the moment, with the team at least $17,000 under the cap with a roster full of non-guaranteed minor league contracts. March 20, 2024: The Otters have hired 45-year-old Fox Beyer to take over as on-field manager of the team for the upcoming season. Beyer tends to focus on sabermetrics and has been known to be pretty easygoing, with a preference for hitting and offense. He has only signed a one year deal, worth a reported $56,365, to lead the team for the 2024 campaign. March 22, 2024: The Otters have come out strong in free agency, signing five key players to add juice to the main roster. Among them are 25-year-old power hitting LF Zac Cook ($6,000), 27-year-old four pitch starter Hector Perez ($4,800), 22-year-old CF prospect Jasiah Dixon ($4,160), 27-year-old high-contact utility infielder Diosbel Arias ($6,500) and 29-year-old veteran closer Kyle Zurak ($3,600). All five will play key roles for the team right away, and should help push them to be contenders in the league. The team reportedly had an offer out for 25-year-old third baseman Juan Martinez, but he’s getting bigger offers elsewhere and would put them over the cap if they pursue him further. March 27, 2024: The Otters have reportedly signed yet another solid veteran pitcher, nabbing 29-year-old Brandon Bailey on a $3,920 one year deal. He has five plus pitches as a flyball pitcher, with solid mid-90s velocity ... the stuff is there to be a solid contributor, and his dominant changeup should lead to a lot of swings and misses. The team has also made a trade, sending Jeffrey Baez, a 30-year-old right fielder, to the Oakland Ballers in exchange for 23-year-old first baseman prospect Nolan Machibroda, 24-year-old center fielder Payton Harden and 24-year-old right-handed starter Jake Dahle, to add depth to our reserve squad. At this point the Otters now have a five-man rotation which features three top starters at 27 and under, plus Bailey as a veteran in the fourth spot. With one of the best bullpens in the league, expectations are high that the team will be hard to score against this season, and with a power batting lineup that features Zac Cook, Yoel Yanqui, Mike Peabody and Disobel Arias, all four under 27, we expect plenty of offensive fireworks as well. April 19, 2024: Spring training begins today, with an 18-game exhibition schedule that will get us ready for setting opening day lineups. We’ve had to cut our reserve roster back down to meet league guidelines, which meant some tough cuts ... but in the end this team still looks like a solid one on paper, and with season ticket sales up 25% and attendance expected to break 2,100 per game this year, all signs are pointing to plenty of fun this summer at Bosse Field! May 8, 2024: Spring training game scores and records don’t count for much, as long as the players get the warm-up they need to show what they’re going to be capable of when the season gets going. But we would certainly have liked to have finished better than 7-11 (fifth placein the FL West Division. But it’s all about ridiculously small sample sizes, with nobody going full throttle so as to avoid any early season injury disasters. We’ll have our opening day rosters set in a couple days and then we can get the season going. May 9, 2024: Here’s our finalized opening day roster: *Lineup* C - Logan Brown 1B - Yoel Yanqui 2B - Diosbel Arias 3B - Riley Delgado SS - Nick Gonzalez LF - Zac Cook CF - Josiah Brown RF - Mike Peabody DH - Jomar Reyes Bench: C Justin Felix, 1B Nolan Machibroda, CF Payton Harden *Starters* 1 - Hector Perez 2 - Braden Scott 3 - Adam Smith 4 - Brandon Bailey 5 - Alex Valdez Closer: Kyle Zurak Setup: Jon Beymer, Kevin Davis Middle: Tyler Ras, Leoni De La Cruz, Tyler Driver Long: Parker Brahms Our reserve roster has been cut down as well, to include LF Mason House, 2B Austin Bost, SP Jake Dahle, 1B David Mendham and RP Zach Smith, in order to be in compliance with league roster limits. __________________ A Fledgling “Free Agency” Movement in the Post-War World -- An OOTP 26 Dynasty Online Leagues Modern Baseball (Chicago White Sox) Daily Double Baseball (Tampa Bay Devil Rays) Championship Baseball League (Winnipeg Goldeye) WPORBL 55 (Chicago Cubs) WPORBL 74 (Oakland A's) WPORBL 94 (Montreal Expos) WPOBL (Cincinnati Reds)

05-26-2024, 01:44 AM	#3
jksander All Star Starter Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Indianapolis IN Posts: 1,767	May 12, 2024: We finished our first series sweep tonight with a 12-1 blowout win over the New Jersey Jackals, thanks to Adam Smith who became our first starter to last long enough to notch a win! He pitched five innings with four hits, six strikeouts and an earned run, opening his season with a 1.80 ERA, and our bullpen gave us four innings with just two additional hits as we crushed the opposition. Yanqui, Delgado, Arias and Brown are all hitting over .400 after the first series of the season, and Delgado’s on a particularly hot streak, with three doubles, five RBIs and a .545 average through his first 11 at-bats. We’re expecting a big crowd tomorrow night for opening day at Bosse, with the Joliet Slammers coming to town for a three-game set. May 13, 2024: More than 4,000 fans made this a great atmosphere at Bosse, as we slammed Joliet 10-3 in the home opener! Brandon Bailey started his season out with a 1-0 record and a 1.80 ERA, allowing just two hits and an earned run with two walks and nine strikeouts, while Reyes and Brown each homered and we had four different players notch doubles. Logan Brown hit twice with two runs and three batted in, improving his average to .438 with five doubles and a homer in his first four starts. May 15, 2024: We won the series against the Slammers but lost game three by a 6-4 margin, handing us our first loss of the year as we fell to 5-1. Hector Perez (0-1, 9.72 ERA) allowed eight hits in 4.2 innings, with four walks, five strikeouts and five earned runs. We’re hoping the 27-year-old can get a better handle on his control, because he’s been our one starter to really struggle in his first pair of starts. We’re still hitting well, and through six games we have a +30 run differential, which is easily the best in the league ... we just need to stay focused on developing as a unit. May 23, 2024: We hit a bit of a skid this week, getting swept by the Ottowa Titans here in Evansville, losing four of our six games following the loss to the Slammers last week. But on the road tonight against the New York Boulders we got some swing back into our bats, beating them 15-2 in a blowout that brought our record to 8-5 on the year. Diosbel Arias hit three times with two runs and three RBIs, giving him a team-high 16 RBIs through 13 games to go with his .396 average, and with eight doubles a triple and three homers he’s quickly becoming a fan favorite. He’d risen to the AAA level last year before the Rangers granted him free agency, and while he’s not at the level to be able to consistently put up these numbers in the minors, he’s got plenty more pop in his canon. June 1, 2024: It was a tough stretch to end the month, and we head into June with an 11-10 record, putting us in fifth place in the West Division, trailing the Gateway Grizzlies in first place by four games. It’s a long season, so not a time to get bogged down on early results ... we’re hitting incredibly well, but Hector Perez (0-3, 21.2 IP, 8.72 ERA) and Alex Valdez (1-1, 13.2 IP, 8.56 ERA) are struggling after five and four starts respectively. If he doesn’t pick things up soon, Perez may find himself on the trading block, as he’s costing us $4,800 this season in guaranteed money.Adam Smith (2-0, 3.98 ERA, 20.1 IP, 19 K’s, 1.52 WHIP) has been our best starter, but our bullpen has struggled in close games as well. Arias continues to lead the team on offense, with a .418 average to go with 16 doubles, a triple and the three homers. Zac Cook is in second place on the team with 20 RBIs, and has hit .338 with 22 doubles, a triple and a homer ... those two currently are combining for 2.5 WAR. Attached Images __________________ A Fledgling “Free Agency” Movement in the Post-War World -- An OOTP 26 Dynasty Online Leagues Modern Baseball (Chicago White Sox) Daily Double Baseball (Tampa Bay Devil Rays) Championship Baseball League (Winnipeg Goldeye) WPORBL 55 (Chicago Cubs) WPORBL 74 (Oakland A's) WPORBL 94 (Montreal Expos) WPOBL (Cincinnati Reds)

05-26-2024, 02:35 AM	#4
jksander All Star Starter Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Indianapolis IN Posts: 1,767	June 24, 2024: We’ve stepped up our game so far in June, and now hold a 25-17 record while climbing into second place in the division (still three games behind the Grizzlies of Gateway). Our first baseman, Yoel Yanqui, was named Frontier League Player of the Week this week, having hit .625 with nine runs and seven RBIs this week, as he’s quietly broken out with a .408 season average, 33 doubles and three homers, tied with Arias for the batting lead among all Otters. Zac Cook, meanwhile, has continued to excel as well, hitting .342 with 35 doubles, four triples and two homers. With only a couple weeks left before the East / West All Star game, I’d say we’re right where we want to be. July 9, 2024: It’s time for the All Star break, and we were on a roll to start July, winning five in a row before dropping a game against the Windy City Thunderbolts 8-4, which we followed by a three-game sweep loss to Ottowa on the road. But we head into the break with a 34-23 record, still behind Gateway by four games, but we lead the Wildcard race by two games, holding the top spot. Braden Scott (3-0, 3.11 ERA, 63.2 IP, 69 K’s, 1.23 WHIP) and Adam Smith (5-0, 3.88 ERA, 55.2 IP, 45 K’s, 1.49 WHIP) have been our two top starters, and closer Kyle Zurak currently holds a 2-1 record with 13 saves and a 5.92 ERA through 24.1 innings. Yoel Yanqui is now the undisputed batting leader for our team, as Arias has cooled significantly. Yanqui has hit .412/.514/.701 with 43 doubles, three triples, four homers and 43 RBIs. He had a five-hit game against Joliet on the first of the month and made the All Star game, as did Scott. Here is the full list of Otters heading for the All Star game: SP - Hector Perez (3-3, 3.92 ERA, 57.1 IP, 1.33 WHIP, 11.8 K/9, 1.7 WAR) - a huge improvement as the season has progressed! SP - Braden Scott (3-0, 3.11 ERA, 63.2 IP, 1.23 WHIP, 9.8 K/9, 1.3 WAR) C - Logan Brown (.331/.431/.550, 160 AB, 1 HR, 5 SB, 135 wRC+, 1.5 WAR) 1B - Yoel Yanqui (.412/.516/.693, 199 AB, 3 HR, 6 SB, 187 wRC+, 2.8 WAR) 2B - Disobel Arias (.366/.469/.628, 191 AB, 4 HR, 4 SB, 145 wRC+, 2.8 WAR) Attached Images __________________ A Fledgling “Free Agency” Movement in the Post-War World -- An OOTP 26 Dynasty Online Leagues Modern Baseball (Chicago White Sox) Daily Double Baseball (Tampa Bay Devil Rays) Championship Baseball League (Winnipeg Goldeye) WPORBL 55 (Chicago Cubs) WPORBL 74 (Oakland A's) WPORBL 94 (Montreal Expos) WPOBL (Cincinnati Reds)

05-26-2024, 05:56 AM	#6
jksander All Star Starter Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Indianapolis IN Posts: 1,767	August 3, 2024: And so it begins ... the Pittsburgh Pirates have purchased the rights to Mason House’s contract, sending the 25-year-old left fielder to their rookie league. He’d played in 50 games for us this season, hitting .237/.343/.434 with 25 doubles and 29 RBIs. The cash infusion has certainly made our owner happy -- we’re now sitting on nearly $450,000 in cash assets thanks to his new shot at the minors. August 5, 2024: Zac Cook has agreed to stay on with us at his same salary of $6,000, through next season. He’s made it clear that he’s fully behind the team as a whole, and wants to win a championship -- and at 26 years of age, he’s hoping to continue to develop well enough to get on some major league teams’ radar. I was happy he didn’t try to take us for too much cap space, making the “team player” move for the betterment of everyone. But I’ll be shocked if he’s in this league after next season. August 10, 2024: Riley Delgado, at age 29, seems to be coming to grips with the idea that the major leagues aren’t going to be calling anytime soon. But he’s popular here, is batting .353 with 36 doubles and 44 RBIs, and has decided to stay on another year, inking a contract to earn $4,500 to play for the Otters in 2025. He’s an exceptional defensive player at both second and third base, and can handle shorstop in a pinch, so I know he’s worth the money -- particularly as he’s put up 3.0 WAR so far this year. August 19, 2024: Terrible news as we fight for a shot at the playoffs -- Zac Cook broke his thumb and will now miss the remainder of the season. And we’re not in any position financially under the cap to be able to replace him. Even worse, the 12-6 loss we suffered this evening against New Jersey dropped us to 53-39, a game behind Gateway’s Grizzlies and Washington’s Wild Things ... which now also has us in a three-way tie for the final wild card spot. We’re bringing Sam Highfill, a 23-year-old pitching prospect we’d signed earlier this month for depth on the reserve roster, in to play in left field -- he’s got moderate skill in the position as a two-way player, and he has good eye and ability to get on base and then hopefully steal aggressively enough to get us through the final few days of the playoff push. August 23, 2024: This race is coming down to the last possible moment ... and we haven’t exactly lived up to expectations, limping our way toward the finish line with three losses in a row before we decided to wake up this evening and whallop Joliet 12-0! With just one game left, at 54-41, all we can do is win our game and pray ... we remain a game out of any chance at a play-in tiebreaker game. But we got some good news for next season -- we can’t afford to bring everyone back that we’d like to, but Adam Smith, 24, has agreed to a $4,000 deal to play another season with our Otters. August 24, 2024: It was all for naught ... tonight we got hammered by a mediocre Joliet team, losing 11-2 to finish the season with a 54-42 record, so close to the playoffs we could taste it. Gateway and Washington will face off in a tiebreaker tomorrow to determine who wins the division, and Quebec and Ottawa will face off in what some are calling “The Canuck Cup” to decide who will get the final wildcard spot. August 25, 2024: The Washington Wild Things capped off their huge late season comeback, beating the Gateway in a 16-6 drubbing to claim the West Division crown, relegating the Grizzlies to a wild card spot. Ottawa beat Quebec 5-3 in their play-in game, earning the final spot in the four-team playoffs. The Wild Things’ reward is a best-of-seven series against the Grizzlies, but with home field advantage, while Ottawa would have to find a way past the Tri-City Valley Cats, who had finished 59-37, the best record in the league. September 12, 2024: In the FL Divisional Series, Ottawa pushed Tri-City to the limit, but the Valley Cats won game seven in a 13-6 blowout to earn their spot in the FL Championship Series. In the West, Washington took a 2-1 series lead in a 12-inning marathon, winning 15-14, but Gateway stormed back even without homefield advantage, winning three in a row to take the series in six, where Tri-City had the home field edge. It didn’t matter to them, apparently, as Gateway declawed the Cats 13-4 in game one, and then did it again in game two, winning 12-3 to head back home with brooms on their minds. So Tri-City came back and beat them 11-10 on the road in 12 innings ... not so fast, Grizzlies! But Gateway responded with a 12-5 win to take a 3-1 lead in the series, winning a tight battle 5-4 in game five to seal the deal in front of more than 6,200 rabid fans. We’ll go into the offseason feeling like we’d been this close to a chance to be champions, but instead we were watching on the sideline with the other 11 teams who didn’t make the cut. So congratulations go out to all the fans in the Sauget, Ill. / St. Louis, Mo. region as the Grizzlies celebrate their title. This was their first Frontier Championship win since 2003 when they beat us in a 3-0 sweep before the league began expansions. Bill Bussing is said to be happy with the direction the team is heading, but he wants big improvements in fan engagement and attendance in the coming season, and I’m working on getting Braden Scott signed to an extension before the real offseason grind begins. Free agency filings occur on October 4, and then we’ll really start hopping. __________________ A Fledgling “Free Agency” Movement in the Post-War World -- An OOTP 26 Dynasty Online Leagues Modern Baseball (Chicago White Sox) Daily Double Baseball (Tampa Bay Devil Rays) Championship Baseball League (Winnipeg Goldeye) WPORBL 55 (Chicago Cubs) WPORBL 74 (Oakland A's) WPORBL 94 (Montreal Expos) WPOBL (Cincinnati Reds)

05-26-2024, 05:57 AM	#7
jksander All Star Starter Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Indianapolis IN Posts: 1,767	September 17, 2024: We have a signed contract from Braden Scott, ensuring the 26-year-old lefty will play another season in Evansville, earning himself $7,250 in the process. But the damned salary cap is a hell of a constraint, and we’re most likely going to be saying goodbye to some real stars ... including Diosbel Arias, Hector Perez, Yoel Yanqui, Kyle Zurak, Alex Valdez and Logan Brown. September 21, 2024: The annual Glove Wizard awards for defensive exellence were announced today, and our team’s big winner was right fielder Mike Peabody, another of our likely-to-leave players, as I am not willing to spend $5,500 in cap space for a .253 hitter. Maybe we can talk if his price comes down later in the offseason. September 26, 2024: Braden Scott, who just signed his contract extension, was named the Frontier League’s Pitcher of the Year! He finished the season with a 7-2 record through 20 starts, tallied 119 strikeouts through 113.1 innings, and recorded a 2.46 ERA, holding opposing batters to a stellar .195 average. At this level his stuff looks great, but he hasn’t had the opportunities to prove himself in the upper-levels of the minors because scouts don’t think he can handle the tougher competition. Here’s hoping he can help us win a championship, and then get the attention he deserves. October 4, 2024: Free agents have filed, and we’ve got seven players on guaranteed contracts and four minor leaguers on the reserve roster. Time to get to restocking the team! October 12, 2024: We made some progress restocking the bullpen, signing three relievers and a closer to minor league contracts. We’re going to have to do this the hard way all winter, working around our cap constraints by finding the best players willing to come in and play for league minimum, and build around the star-caliber players we’re giving guaranteed deals to. October 19, 2024: We’ve signed 24-year-old catcher Jhoneiker Betancourt to a deal worth $3,490, to give us a decent defensive catcher along with a power bat that should make it worth the guaranteed money in a critical position. We’ve also signed a pair of minor league deals for a pair of mid-rotation starters, as well as a pair of middle infielders, so things are starting to come together. Winter meetings begin in a couple days. Hopefully by the time we get to the Thanksgiving season I’ll have a clearer picture of what our roster’s going to look like, and can update you all accordingly. __________________ A Fledgling “Free Agency” Movement in the Post-War World -- An OOTP 26 Dynasty Online Leagues Modern Baseball (Chicago White Sox) Daily Double Baseball (Tampa Bay Devil Rays) Championship Baseball League (Winnipeg Goldeye) WPORBL 55 (Chicago Cubs) WPORBL 74 (Oakland A's) WPORBL 94 (Montreal Expos) WPOBL (Cincinnati Reds)

05-25-2024, 08:58 PM	#1
jksander All Star Starter Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Indianapolis IN Posts: 1,767	"This Otter Be Fun!" -- Gary Shannon, A GM on Baseball's "Frontier" “This Otter Be Fun!” This will be an attempt at a fast-sim dynasty using OOTP25, featuring Major League Baseball and the MLB Partner Leagues. I’ll be taking over as the General Manager of the Evansville Otters, the oldest remaining original member of the Frontier League. Teams in the Frontier League must recruit and sign their own players, mostly undrafted college players or one-time hot prospects. Teams play a 96-game season from May to September, and teams have a salary cap and are only allowed to have three “veteran” players, meaning over the age of 29 as of October first. Pay in the league is minimal -- typical salaries range from $600 to $1,600 per month, though veterans can earn up to $2,500 per month, and the team’s highest paid player can earn as much as $4,000 per month of which only a third of the salary counts against the cap. Due to the low pay, most players live with host families and receive meal money during the season. The Otters have played in the league since 1995, playing their home games at historic Bosse Field in Evansville, Indiana, which first opened in 1915. They have won two league championships, in 2006 and 2016, winning three division championships (1997, 2000, 2019). - - - - - My entire life has been lived in the world of baseball. I can’t remember a time where I wasn’t either holding, tossing, fielding or hitting that white sphere, but I’ve also been chasing it. Chasing the dream that, when I grew up, I’d be able to keep playing this game and never have to age to a point where it wasn’t still acceptable. Reality has a way of smacking you around, though -- I played well in high school, tried to find my way in college, but wound up never reaching expectations. I got my degree, but rarely played. So I latched on to anything I could, working as an underpaid assistant, or trying to find my way as a scout or a coach. Anything to keep enjoying those sights and smells each year. I never found my way into the minors, let alone finding a shot at a cup of coffee in the big leagues. Best I could manage was when I landed the job coaching third base for the Evansville Aces, which earned me anough money to get my Master’s in Sports Management while I coached a bunch of younger players who fostered the same dreams of glory, but for most of whom this would be their one last grasp at the dream. I’ve been with the Aces since 2011, which is a long time to be an anonymous coach at an anonymous college ... Wes Carroll took the head coaching job here in 2009, hired me in two years later, and in all that time we’ve won one Missouri Valley title. Mostly, we bring in the new crop of young men each year and do our best to teach them. Until a few months ago I figured I’d keep coaching, and maybe eventually try my hand at being a head coach someday. But then fate came calling, and I got a much bigger opportunity than I’d ever expected. I ‘ve known Bill Bussing since I was a kid. Supposedly he and my old man were thick as thieves as kids growing up near Indianapolis, and I know they both went to college together. Difference was my dad dropped out and wound up joining the Navy, so we bounced around the country through my childhood and teenage years, while Bussing got his business degree, made a fortune in tech, and then bought the Evansville Otters. A team in a league where baseball dreams either suddenly provide a last chance to rise up in the minors or fade fast like Wrigley Field’s ivy in winter, the Otters gave Bussing a chance to play “big time sports owner” while avoiding the pressures of a major league team -- bring in solid players each year and get families in the seats at Bosse Field and you’ve done your job as long as there’s some profit at the end. I couldn’t imagine why I suddenly had a series of missed calls from him on my cell. But as it stood, apparently he needed a General Manager to run the team’s day to day operations, and he had apparently gotten it into his head that hiring me, a long-time local with ties to the Aces, was the prudent investment. I wouldn’t be managing the team on the field -- for that he’ll look elsewhere -- but he told me he knows I understand the game as well as the business side of things, and he’s learned to trust his instincts. I’ll admit it’s a big move, leaving a job I’ve had for a dozen seasons to suddenly jump into a GM role in the Frontier League at 41, but then again, it’s the tantalizing hook this game has on you -- the chance to still be out there living the baseball life, no matter what the role. The job offer was a juicy fastball pitched right at me, and I had no choice but to swing. Attached Images __________________ A Fledgling “Free Agency” Movement in the Post-War World -- An OOTP 26 Dynasty Online Leagues Modern Baseball (Chicago White Sox) Daily Double Baseball (Tampa Bay Devil Rays) Championship Baseball League (Winnipeg Goldeye) WPORBL 55 (Chicago Cubs) WPORBL 74 (Oakland A's) WPORBL 94 (Montreal Expos) WPOBL (Cincinnati Reds)

05-26-2024, 03:14 AM	#5
jksander All Star Starter Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Indianapolis IN Posts: 1,767	July 11, 2024: The East All Stars were expected to manhandle us, but in the end they only managed to win 12-11, led by Edwin Diaz who hit three times with four RBIs. Yanqui got a hit and batted in a pair for the West to get us some notice, but neither of our pitchers got playing time, while Arias and Brown were hitless. To be honest, it’s fine by me. It means we’ll have our pitchers all rested when we get back into action with three home games hosting New York starting Sunday. August 1, 2024: Hector Perez has been named Frontier League Pitcher of the Month, going 3-0 in six starts with a 1.35 ERA and 48 K’s through 33.1 innings pitched. He heads into the final month of league action with a 5-3 record, a 3.19 ERA and 117 K’s through 84.2 innings. He’s had such a great month that I’m hearing buzz that he’s now starting to draw interest from major league franchises interested in giving him a shot at the AAA level, though we have him on contract this year and would love to be able to keep him ... but I can’t imagine he’ll want to stick around if he has a shot to break into the big leagues. He’s not the only one ... the real challenge at this level is having to rebuild your entire roster year after year, and being okay with the idea that, by doing well, you allow the players to have their chance to do well and move on. We’re right in the thick of the playoff race, however, so the focus is on making sure this group finds as much success as we can -- we start the month of August with a 44-30 record, tied for first in the West with Gateway, with the Washington Wild Things (41-33) sitting just three games back. With the Tri-City Valley Cats in the lead in the East with a 46-28 record, we, the Grizzlies and the Quebec Capitales, all at 44-30, are knotted up for potential wild-card spots. It’s a hot mess, and it’s sure to get crazier ... our magic number to clinch a wildcard spot is 20, and to win the division outright it’s 23, with just 22 games remaining. Some interesting notes: - Zac Cook currently has 53 doubles, putitng him in fourth place in the entire league, but Dillon Paulson of the New England Knockouts leads the league with 63 of them, to go with 101 hits, three triples and 11 homers. - Yoel Yanqui is sitting at 99 hits, currently fifth in the league, but he’s unlikely to catch the leader, Andrew Moritz, who has hit 121 times for the Gateway Grizzlies, batting .419 so far this year. - Washington’s Chase Calabuig leads the league with a .445 average, his 45 doubles, 12 triples and two homers giving him 80 RBIs and 4.4 WAR on the season. He’s one of many with most of his slug coming from doubles ... the league is not known for homers, with J.J. Matijevic of the Gateway Grizzlies leading the league with 15 dingers. - We’ve clearly climbed our way back into the playoff discussion thanks to pitching. Braden Scott (2.83 ERA), Hector Perez (3.19 ERA) and Adam Smith (3.57 ERA) have the three best ERAs in the league! Perez is now ranked third overall in pitching WAR (2.6) and leads the league in strikeouts (117) and strikeouts per nine innings (12.4). And Kyle Zurak leads the league in saves (17) and shutdowns (16). And though Parker Brahms, our long reliever, isn’t setting any records, he’s played in 32 games this year and amassed 50.2 innings pitched, with a 6-0 record, a 4.97 ERA and 37 K’s. Attached Images __________________ A Fledgling “Free Agency” Movement in the Post-War World -- An OOTP 26 Dynasty Online Leagues Modern Baseball (Chicago White Sox) Daily Double Baseball (Tampa Bay Devil Rays) Championship Baseball League (Winnipeg Goldeye) WPORBL 55 (Chicago Cubs) WPORBL 74 (Oakland A's) WPORBL 94 (Montreal Expos) WPOBL (Cincinnati Reds)

05-26-2024, 06:58 AM	#8
jksander All Star Starter Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Indianapolis IN Posts: 1,767	November 4, 2024: We’ve signed a handful of additional minor league deals, including Trevor Boone, a 27-year-old utility outfielder who has aggressive running skills and the ability to hit for power as a right-handed pull hitter. He’s a real “get,” as early in the free agency process he was looking for several thousand in guaranteed money, but our reputation -- and the players we return to the club who ARE on guaranteed deals -- must have made us difficult to pass up. November 12, 2024: We’ve been getting most of our work done in the trenches this offseason, but after talking with our owner, who wants to make a big splash, we decided to burn some of the cash he’d been stockpiling and bought the contract of a stud player from the Charleston Dirty Birds. It took $250,000 to purchase Cam Eden’s $8,000 contract from the Atlantic League, but he hit .334/.414/.469 last year with 119 hits, 28 doubles, 45 RBIs and 68 stolen bases! He’s also an excellent center fielder who can defensively handle every outfield position as well as shortstop, and both I and our owner love his potential as a pure contact hitter in this league. He’ll be an immediate asset, and even if the rest of our offseason goes off the rails I think we’ve made a big move toward improving our offense. He has agreed to an extension to his original contract which will keep him here at least through 2026, by which point hopefully he’ll already be an Otters legend. At this point we have four remaining pending offers out for minor league free agents, and if they sign, we should have a roster worthy of spring training in a few months, and then the annual process of whittling down and finalizing things will begin. But I’m confident we’ve put together a team that can keep up what we started in 2024 and get Evansville into the playoffs. __________________ A Fledgling “Free Agency” Movement in the Post-War World -- An OOTP 26 Dynasty Online Leagues Modern Baseball (Chicago White Sox) Daily Double Baseball (Tampa Bay Devil Rays) Championship Baseball League (Winnipeg Goldeye) WPORBL 55 (Chicago Cubs) WPORBL 74 (Oakland A's) WPORBL 94 (Montreal Expos) WPOBL (Cincinnati Reds)

05-26-2024, 08:18 PM	#9
jksander All Star Starter Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Indianapolis IN Posts: 1,767	November 25, 2024: The great Cam Eden experiment was a fail -- the Cleveland Guardians got word and decided they want him in their minor leagues, so they bought his contract back and we’re back to f---ed. I should have known that would happen, so better to focus on the players we can get reasonably and not aim so high beyond our station. Sometimes I have to remind myself that we’re the lowest-tier league in professional baseball, and if anyone gets too good they’ll be propelled upward in the chain. Happy Thanksgiving, y’all! December 8, 2024: Today we got word that Jefferson Morales, 25, agreed to play for us on a minor league deal and will be our likely designated hitter barring significant changes. He’s a solid, patient approach at the plate and could even play left or right field in a pinch, though his bat’s the most useful thing for us at the moment. December 15, 2024: We’ve now added a final “guaranteed” contract to our roster, signing 24-year-old power lefty first baseman Chase Estep to a deal worth $4,400 to play this upcoming season. He played for Milwaukee last year and hit .249 with 24 doubles and 37 RBIs, but has been developing nicely and our scouts say he’s nearing his full potential. If we can get a good season out of him before he gets plucked away for the minor leagues, it’s a chance we need to take. December 23, 2024: We got an early Christmas gift in an offer from the Atlantic League’s Lancaster Barnstormers that involved the tough decision to send Zac Cook and his $6,000 contract to them, in exchange for both an excellent SS/3B player (24-year-old Johan Lopez) and an above average bullpen arm (26-year-old lefty Seth Lonsway). His contract converts to a minor league deal with the switch between leagues, and though he’ll still get paid the $7,000 or so that’s on his original deal, it does not count against our cap limit. And Lonsway has the stamina to either be a spot starter or the fifth man in our rotation, depending on how the remainder of this free agent season progresses. January 25, 2025: We’ve signed our final deal of the offseason barring any other insanity, replacing Zac Cook with utility outfielder Michael Guldberg , 25, who makes steady contact and has the ability to hit and run, making him a base stealing threat. Last season he hit .321 with 19 doubles, five triples and a homer, batting in 38 runs and scoring 50 times for the Lake Country Dockhounds over in the American Association. We’re paying him $4,500 against our remaining cap space freed up by the Cook trade, and I think he’s a big “value addition” to the team as a leadoff hitter. As it stands right now, with three months left before spring training, we have a full 24-man roster and eight players on the reserve roster. We’ll have to make at least three cuts before opening day from the reserves, but we’ll be able to give them all time on the main 28-man spring training roster in April before we have to make those decisions. __________________ A Fledgling “Free Agency” Movement in the Post-War World -- An OOTP 26 Dynasty Online Leagues Modern Baseball (Chicago White Sox) Daily Double Baseball (Tampa Bay Devil Rays) Championship Baseball League (Winnipeg Goldeye) WPORBL 55 (Chicago Cubs) WPORBL 74 (Oakland A's) WPORBL 94 (Montreal Expos) WPOBL (Cincinnati Reds)

05-26-2024, 08:20 PM	#10
jksander All Star Starter Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Indianapolis IN Posts: 1,767	An early look at our potential 24-man roster ... *Lineup* C - Jhoneiker Betancourt (24, $3,490) ... CON: 45/55, GAP: 50, POW: 60, EYE: 50/65, DEF: 45 1B - Chase Estep (24, $4,400) ... CON: 50, GAP: 50, POW: 50/70, EYE: 50/55, DEF: 55 2B - Johan Lopez (24, $7,400) ... CON: 60, GAP: 60/65, POW: 45/65, EYE: 55/60, DEF: 50 3B - Riley Delgado (29, $4,500) ... CON: 65, GAP: 45, POW: 40, EYE: 50, DEF: 50 SS - Brian Arias (27, ML) ... CON: 55, GAP: 55, POW: 50, EYE: 60, DEF: 35 LF - Michael Guldberg (25, $4,500) ... CON: 60/70, GAP: 50/55, POW: 40, EYE: 50, DEF: 55 CF - Jasiah Dixon (23, $4,160) ... CON: 50/65, GAP: 45, POW: 45, EYE: 50, DEF: 55 RF - Trevor Boone (27, ML) ... CON: 50, GAP: 70, POW: 55, EYE: 50, DEF: 45 DH - Josh Bissonette (28, ML) ... CON: 60, GAP: 55, POW: 40, EYE: 60, DEF: 45 (at 2B, 3B) Right now our biggest weak spot is at shortstop, and we’ve got a few months to find a better defensive option at the position. At least he’s on a minor league contract and is therefore just getting the league minimum, with nothing counting against our cap. *Bench* C - Oscar Silverio (23, ML) ... CON: 40/55, GAP: 45, POW: 45/70, EYE: 50, DEF: 45 2B - Abiatal Avelino (29, ML) ... CON: 65, GAP: 45, POW: 45, EYE: 45, DEF: 50 LF - Jefferson Morales (25, ML) ... CON: 50/55, GAP: 55, POW: 55/70, EYE: 55/60, DEF: 40 *Reserve Roster* 2B - Tim Borden (25, ML) ... CON: 50/60, GAP: 45, POW: 50/60, EYE: 45/60, DEF: 50 1B - Cory Acton (25, ML) ... CON: 50, GAP: 45, POW: 40/45, EYE: 55, DEF: 50 1B/LF - Sam Highfill (24, $2,400) ... CON: 45/50, GAP: 40/45, POW: 45/55, EYE: 55/65, DEF: 45) RF - Kwan Adkins (28, ML) ... CON: 45, GAP: 40, POW: 50, EYE: 50, DEF: 50 Highfill right now looks like he’ll be a reserve, but his potential is keeping him here until spring training because he’s also our fastest baserunner and most aggressive at going for extra bases. If I can flip him to get a high quality SS for the starting lineup, his freed cap space could come in handy. We’ll most likely make cuts from our reserve roster from our overabundance of backup relievers, but paying someone $2,400 in cap money if he won’t eventually make the main roster would be a tough decision. *Starters* 1 - Braden Scott (26, $7,250) ... STU: 60, MOV: 65, CTR: 70/80, STA: 40, HLD: 50 -- FB: 70, SL: 75, CNG: 75 2 - Adam Smith (24, $4,000) ... STU: 45/60, MOV: 55, CTR: 45, STA: 45, HLD: 45 -- FB: 60/80, CV: 50/75, CNG: 50/70 3 - Wesley Moore (25, ML) ... STU: 55, MOV: 50/55, CTR: 40, STA: 50, HLD: 50 -- FB: 60, SL: 60/65, CV: 60/65, CNG: 65 4 - Matt Ball (30, ML) .. STU: 60, MOV: 45, CTR: 60, STA: 50, HLD: 40 -- FB: 70, CV: 75, CNG: 75 5 - Seth Lonsway (26, ML) ... STU: 45/70, MOV: 55, CTR: 45/50, STA: 50, HLD: 55 -- SL: 60/80, CV: 45/75, CNG: 50/70, SNK: 55/80 *Bullpen* CL - Colin Baumgartner (25, ML) ... STU: 55/75, MOV: 40/45, CTR: 45/55, STA: 55, HLD: 45 -- FB: 70/80, SL: 60/80, CNG: 55/65 SE: Brian Edgington (26, ML) ... STU: 55/65, MOV: 40/45, CTR: 45/55, STA: 55, HLD: 50 -- FB: 55/60, SL: 55/65, CV: 55/75, SPL: 55/80 SE: Casey Anderson (24, ML) ... STU: 50/60, MOV: 40/45, CTR: 40/50, STA: 55, HLD: 40 -- FB: 60/70, SL: 55/70, CNG: 50/65 MR: Breck Eichelberger (24, ML) ... STU: 55/70, MOV: 40/45, CTR: 40/45, STA: 50, HLD: 40 -- FB: 65/75, CV: 60/80, CNG: 55/75 MR: Trey Gibson (23, ML) ... STU: 50/65, MOV: 40/45, CTR: 45, STA: 55, HLD: 35 -- FB: 60/75, SL: 55/65, CV: 55/75, CNG: 45/60 LR: Hayden Minton (23, ML) ... STU: 55/75, MOV: 40/50, CTR: 45, STA: 50, HLD: 45 -- FB: 60/70, SL: 60/75, CV: 60/75 LR: Isaiah Jackson (23, ML) ... STU: 60/80, MOV: 40/55, CTR: 40, STA: 45, HLD: 45 -- FB: 75/80, CV: 70/80, CNG: 55/75 *Reserves* RP - Darlin Alcantara (23, ML) ... STU: 45/65, MOV: 55, CTR: 40/45, STA: 45, HLD: 50 -- FB: 50/65, CV: 45/75 RP - Keider Herrera (20, ML) ... STU: 45/55, MOV: 55, CTR: 40/50, STA: 45, HLD: 50 -- FB: 45/55, CV: 45/65, CNG: 50/70, CUT: 50/65 RP - Erik Rivera (23, ML) ... STU: 50/65, MOV: 40/50, CTR: 40/45, STA: 45, HLD: 55 -- FB: 60/75, CV: 50/75, CNG: 45/65 RP - Victor Soteldo (23, ML) ... STU: 40/65, MOV: 50, CTR: 25/50, STA: 30, HLD: 50 -- FB: 45/60, SL: 45/65, CNG: 50/80 Right now I think we’ve got good depth among our starters, and our bullpen is full of multi-pitch hurlers who have decent stamina so we shouldn’t get destroyed in games where our starters don’t get us deep into games. And our reserves all are high potential prospects, who should be able to fill in during any injury situation. Just making sure we get our final cuts down to 24 and 5 for the main roster and reserves by the end of the preseason is going to be the key. __________________ A Fledgling “Free Agency” Movement in the Post-War World -- An OOTP 26 Dynasty Online Leagues Modern Baseball (Chicago White Sox) Daily Double Baseball (Tampa Bay Devil Rays) Championship Baseball League (Winnipeg Goldeye) WPORBL 55 (Chicago Cubs) WPORBL 74 (Oakland A's) WPORBL 94 (Montreal Expos) WPOBL (Cincinnati Reds)

05-26-2024, 08:27 PM	#11
jksander All Star Starter Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Indianapolis IN Posts: 1,767	OOC: This one's turning into a lot more fun than I expected ... the roster building part is really difficult because of the combination of the strict salary cap plus the fact that any league above you can decide to buy your players, giving the owner a ton of cash, but which you can't really use, since cash does not affect the cap. So you have to sign a lot of minor league contracts, and just the act of digging to find which quality guys will do so rather than demand high salaries against the cap is a real challenge. Hopefully I'm not drowning you all in way too many details as I post, but I'm doubting many people have played out a GM situation where you're literally starting at the very bottom of the baseball world, so I figure it's a fun exercise. __________________ A Fledgling “Free Agency” Movement in the Post-War World -- An OOTP 26 Dynasty Online Leagues Modern Baseball (Chicago White Sox) Daily Double Baseball (Tampa Bay Devil Rays) Championship Baseball League (Winnipeg Goldeye) WPORBL 55 (Chicago Cubs) WPORBL 74 (Oakland A's) WPORBL 94 (Montreal Expos) WPOBL (Cincinnati Reds)

05-26-2024, 11:01 PM	#12
jksander All Star Starter Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Indianapolis IN Posts: 1,767	February 17, 2025: I think we’ve found our solution at shortstop! I’ve traded Cory Acton off the reserve roster plus $25,000 in cash to the Sussex County Miners over in the Frontier League West, in exchange for Stephen Alemais, a 29-year-old shortstop who has a 65 rating at short and a 75 rating at second base. He’s primarily a contact hitter who avoids K’s at all costs. He’ll step into the role of starting shortstop immediately, most likely batting ninth to give us consistent hitting all the way through the order. Bryan Arias will now likely drop back on to the reserve roster where his skill level is a better fit (as an emergency backup), with Johan Lopez and Abiatal Avelino providing backup at the position when needed. Last year Alemais was a stud for the Glacier Range Riders (Pioneer League) before signing with Sussex as a free agent -- he hit .415/.473/.709 in that league with 158 hits in 84 games, hitting 63 doubles, 17 triples and five homers as he batted in 150 runs. Alemais is currently on a guaranteed deal worth just over $4,000, and we’re working to convince him to stick around for an additional year at a slight raise for 2026, considering how hard it has been to find consistent defensive shortstops in this league. At his age, making it onto a major league roster looks next to impossible, so we’re hoping he’ll like the area and want to stay here where he can be a big fish in a small pond. February 21, 2025: Aleimais has signed his one year extension worth $4,750, which should ensure he stays with our Otters through the next two seasons. April 24, 2025: Spring Training officially begins today! Of our eight reserve roster players, we’ve decided to invite Bryan Arias, Sam Highfill, Tim Borden and Erik Rivera up to the main roster. We have also decided to release Kwan Adkins, who at age 28 is simply going to have to come to grips with the fact that he isn’t going to be able to phsyically keep playing pro ball, even at this level. April 25, 2025: Adam Smith completed his work on secondary pitch improvement in our team’s development lab, and as such is now rated 55/75 for his curveball, having noticeably improved his mechanics. Though his overall “stuff” rating remains unchanged, we’re pleased to see how hard he’s out there working to improve, even if it means he moves up to higher levels of baseball in the future. Braden Scott is now our only player still working in the lab, and we’re hoping to have some solid news to announce in two weeks or so when he completes the program. May 6, 2025: After a little over a week of negotiations, we finally made a trade that allows us to pare down our reserve roster to the required five players following the completion of spring training. We’ve sent four players to the New England Knockouts -- Victor Soteldo, Sam Highfill, Keider Herrera and Darlin Alcantara, in exchange for a power-hitting catcher, Alex Stone, who is on a minor league contract. Stone is a long-term prospect who will spend this season on the reserve roster, but he shows a ton of potential and is the #15 prospect in the Frontier League. We gave up a lot, but in the end I feel we got a player who could succeed at this level for years if he develops, and we don’t have to worry about cutting anyone outright. In fact, we’ll have the roster space to allow us to sign an additional player later in the season if we have a need. So far we’re 6-6 in preseason action, with six games remaining before we set our opening day rosters and host Sussex County for three games to open the 2025 regular season. May 9, 2025: Second baseman Johan Lopez strained a hamstring in a preseason game and will miss the first 5-6 weeks of the regular season. We’ve put him on the seven day IL, but luckily we are well stocked with versatile middle infielders who should be able to help us get through the pinch without too much difficulty. May 14, 2025: We finished the spring season with an 11-7 record, leading the West Division by a game over the Lake Erie Crushers. Tim Borden is on the IL for week due to a nagging bone bruise, so Abiatal Avelino will be on our opening day roster and then returning to the reserve roster. At the moment while Lopez and Borden are injured, we’ll have just Matt Ball and Alex Stone on the reserve roster. Here is our opening day roster: *Lineup* C - Jhoneiker Betancourt 1B - Trevor Boone 2B - Abiatal Avelino 3B - Riley Delgado SS - Stephen Alemais LF - Michael Guldberg CF - Josh Dixon RF - Bryan Arias DH - Josh Bissonette Bench: Oscar Silverio, Chase Estep, Jefferson Morales *Starters* 1 - Braden Scott 2 - Adam Smith 3 - Wesley Moore 4 - Seth Lonsway 5 - Isaiah Jackson *Bullpen* Closer: Collin Baumgartner Setup: Brian Edgington, Breck Eichelberger Middle: Casey Anderson, Trey Gibson Long: Hayden Minton, Erik Rivera In a bit of good news, Braden Scott has completed his work in the development lab, where he’s been working on a new pitch -- and from what I’m told, his progress was outstanding! He already had an excellent fastball, slider and changeup in his repetoire, and he spent all winter working on a sinker, and our scout has it projected to be an above league average pitch before he completes his full development. Right now I’d rate it a 55, with 70 potential, and if he wasn’t already on your radar as likely to repeat as Frontier League Pitcher of the Year, you haven’t been watching. If any pitcher I’ve seen has a chance to surprise as a late bloomer and transition into the major leagues, he’s the one ... and we’re just looking to hold on to him as long as we can. First pitch tomorrow against Sussex County is at 7:05 p.m. right here at Bosse Field, where we’re anticipating a near-record crowd for an opening day performance. The buzz is strong with this team, with nearly 1,800 season tickets sold already, more than 30% of all available seats! __________________ A Fledgling “Free Agency” Movement in the Post-War World -- An OOTP 26 Dynasty Online Leagues Modern Baseball (Chicago White Sox) Daily Double Baseball (Tampa Bay Devil Rays) Championship Baseball League (Winnipeg Goldeye) WPORBL 55 (Chicago Cubs) WPORBL 74 (Oakland A's) WPORBL 94 (Montreal Expos) WPOBL (Cincinnati Reds)

05-27-2024, 12:15 AM	#13
jksander All Star Starter Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Indianapolis IN Posts: 1,767	May 15, 2025: Just shy of 4,800 fans packed our stadium tonight as our Otters pulled off a 7-5 win over the Sussex City Miners! They had a 4-1 lead as we came up in the bottom of the fourth, but Riley Delgado scored on an RBI single by Jhoneiker Betancourt, pulling us within a pair, and we tied it up in the bottom of the seventh thanks to an Abiatal Avelino double that drove in runs by Jasiah Dixon and Bryan Arias. They got a run back in the top of the eighth, taking a one-run lead, but we took control for good in the bottom of the eighth with a three-run frame thanks to an RBI single by Trevor Boone that scored two and an RBI single by Michael Guldberg that drove in another. Braden Scott threw 84 pitches and only lasted 4.1 innings, allowing four hits and striking out seven against three walks, allowing four earned runs. Reliever Trey Gibson got the win with a hit, a walk, a strikeout and an earned run in his 1.1 innings, and Collin Baumgartner saved his first game of the year with just a strikeout in the ninth. It was a solid way to start the season, showing some real come-from-behind grit. Here’s hoping we can maintain that energy! It helped that we had five guys throughout the lineup pick up a pair of hits each, which bodes well if we can keep it up. May 19, 2025: We’ve struggled since getting that opening day win, losing three of our last four including a 1-5 loss tonight against Gateway’s Grizzlies, during which time Jhoneiker Betancourt suffered an intercostal strain and will miss at least the next two weeks. That’s a tough loss, because the hard-hitting catcher had been one of our offensive bright spots, hitting .429 with four doubles and a pair of RBIs in his first four games. Right now we have a 2-3 record, and are looking for any kind of consistency as we’re heading into a rough stretch of road games. June 1, 2025: We’re 7-9 after the first few weeks of action, and our run differential (-20) is the real concerning thing ... we’re giving up runs and in bunches, and I’m hoping we’ll find ways to put it together and start stringing together wins. We’re 4-3 at home and 3-6 on the road, so it’s still quite the small sample size. We should get Betancourt back in a couple days, barring any issues with his recovery, but it’ll be three weeks before we get Johan Lopez back and can feel like we’re at full strength. Trevor Boone has hit well, hitting .356 with 14 doubles, two triples and 18 RBIs, and Abiatal Avelino has done well in the place of Lopez, hitting .354 through his first 15 games, with 12 doubles, two triples and 19 RBIs. Bryan Arias has been efficient on the basepaths as well, hitting .328/.474/.534 while stealing eight times, hitting nine doubles and a homer, and scoring 17 runs with eight batted in. Our pitchers are struggling to prevent opposition runs, at least through less than a handful of starts apiece, but I’m hopeful they’ll level out over time. Otherwise this could be a long year. June 2, 2025: Just like that, we get news of a setback for Betancourt -- he’s going to need at least another week to fully recover. June 7, 2025: We’ll have Betancourt back in the lineup starting tomrrow for our final game of a three-game set against Windy City here in Evansville. But quietly our team has started to come to life! In this past week we’ve gone 5-2, including an 11-9 win tonight, and though our bullpen has continued to struggle with bursts of opponent runs, they’ve been responsible for eight of our 12 wins so far as we’ve climbed back to an above-.500 record. Hayden Minton has been really impressive, considering the 23-year-old was on the border of being either in the bullpen or the reserves all season. He still doesn’t have great control of his arsenal, but when his pitches are on point, they’re almost unhittable. So far he has thrown 17 innings in eight long relief appearances, with a 2-0 record, a 4.76 ERA and 15 K’s. Braden Scott has gone 1-0 with a 3.25 ERA and 33 K’s through his first five starts, and he says he feels like he’s just now starting to hit his stride. If the others in our rotation can catch up with him, I think we’re going to be fine. We’re currently 12-11 and stuck in a two-way tie for first in the West with Gateway, so even with a slow start we’re still competitive in the league. The East League looks just as competitive, and they’re clearly the teams with the power bats, which has contributed to their winning records against us in the West. But I think it’ll even out over the course of a 96-game season. Attached Images __________________ A Fledgling “Free Agency” Movement in the Post-War World -- An OOTP 26 Dynasty Online Leagues Modern Baseball (Chicago White Sox) Daily Double Baseball (Tampa Bay Devil Rays) Championship Baseball League (Winnipeg Goldeye) WPORBL 55 (Chicago Cubs) WPORBL 74 (Oakland A's) WPORBL 94 (Montreal Expos) WPOBL (Cincinnati Reds)

05-27-2024, 08:22 PM	#14
jksander All Star Starter Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Indianapolis IN Posts: 1,767	June 18, 2025: This month has been up and down and then up again, culminating in our most recent series, a three-game set on the road against the Trois-Rivieres Aigles which we won by sweep! We took game one by a 9-7 margin in 10 innings, took game two by a 4-2 margin in 11, and then shut them down thoroughly tonight with a 5-1 win! Nothing spectacular, just great team baseball all around. The three wins in a row put us at 19-14 overall and give us a one game lead in the West Division over Gateway (18-15) and a two game lead on Washington (17-16). But with the rest of our division struggling, it’s looking like a three-man race again this year that’s likely to be as tightly contested as last year’s was. The New Jersey Jackals (23-10) have a three game lead over Trois-Rivieres (20-13) thanks to our sweep, but all teams in that division currently have winning records, so it’s liable to be just as hard-fought on that side of the league table as well. June 20, 2025: Johan Lopez has recovered from his hamstring strain and will be able to return to our lineup as shortstop effective tomorrow afternoon! He’s been injured all year, and has not played a single game, but he has a ton of potential and we’re hoping he’ll boost our offensive production immediately. But we’re on a win streak as it stands, having crushed Schaumburg 8-1 and 8-0 in the last two games -- tonight’s 8-0 home shutout in front of nearly 4,400 fans featured Isaiah Jackson’s first win of the year! He had a one-hitter going through 5.1 innings, and though he walked four against five strikeouts, he didn’t give up any runs. If he can improve his control he has the ability to become a top prospect, especially as young as he is. Even better, Hayden Minton then went two innings without a hit, and Trey Gibson did the same through 1.2 innings, giving us a one-hit shutout as a unit ... if we can keep playing like this, we’re going to be a hard team to beat. June 28, 2025: We had one of our best offensive games of the season tonight, beating the New England Knockouts on the road by an 18-2 margin! Johan Lopez has had a slow start to his time on the main roster, but tonight he broke out in a big way, hitting four times with three runs and three RBIs, including his first home run! Brandon Scott had a 6.1 inning three-hitter, improving to 2-1 on the season as we improved to 24-17, staying a game ahead of the Washington Wild Things. The Grizzlies of Gateway have fallen on hard times, going 4-6 in their last ten and slipping to 21-20, three games out of the lead and two games out of the wildcard race. July 2, 2025: It’s officially Johan Lopez’s breakout moment! Tonight in a 14-7 road beatdown on the Sussex County Miners, Lopez hit five times and blasted three homers out of the park, giving him three runs and 10 batted in! He’s put up a .409 average with six doubles a triple and four homers in his first 10 games back from injury, batting in 22 runs to quickly propel himself into the conversations of who is our best offensive player! Too bad it all happened too late for him to make an All Star impression, but with New York’s Jordan Brewer leading the league’s home run race at just seven dingers this year, his presence in our lineup has clearly been the missing link. What is bad is that he’s almost looking too good too quickly ... hopefully no major league scouts come along and steal him away! July 3, 2025: It’s like I manifested the bad news ... we got word that the Miami Marlins have purchased the contract of our ace, Braden Scott, and will most likely be sending him to AAA, though it’s possible the 27-year-old could rise up to the major league level if he keeps pitching well since the Marlins are currently sitting in last place in the NL East and needing anything they can find to get fans in the seats. As for what that means for our team, we’re calling up Matt Ball from the reserve roster, to take over in the #5 spot as a starter. Seth Lonway, Adam Smith and Isaiah Jackson will take over the top three spots, and we’re promoting Hayden Minton (4-1, 5.67 ERA, 33.1 IP, 34 K’s, 1.77 WHIP) out of the bullpen from long relief to pitch in the 4-spot. We are lucky that our bullpen was stocked with high stamina relievers, so I am hopeful we can fight through the tough loss of Scott and still push for a championship. In this league, that’s what you have to do. A guy gets good, he gets gone, and that’s the way it should be considering how little we can pay. __________________ A Fledgling “Free Agency” Movement in the Post-War World -- An OOTP 26 Dynasty Online Leagues Modern Baseball (Chicago White Sox) Daily Double Baseball (Tampa Bay Devil Rays) Championship Baseball League (Winnipeg Goldeye) WPORBL 55 (Chicago Cubs) WPORBL 74 (Oakland A's) WPORBL 94 (Montreal Expos) WPOBL (Cincinnati Reds)

05-27-2024, 09:23 PM	#15
jksander All Star Starter Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Indianapolis IN Posts: 1,767	July 9, 2025: Reliever Casey Anderson has agreed to an extension of his contract with us at $3,000 for the following year, a raise from his current salary of $2,400 guaranteed. Anderson has gone 2-0 with a 6.23 ERA through 34.2 innings in 28 relief appearances, striking out 27. July 11, 2025: We’re currently riding a six-game winning streak, the team taking flight after a two game skid following the pitching shakeup. Our offense has been absolutely off the charts this week, sweeping Gatewood on our field by a 40-9 margin and then taking the show on the road where we just completed a sweep of the New York Boulders on THEIR field by a stunning 51-26 margin! With just a single series remaining before the All Star break, against Ottawa here in Evansville, we’re currently 34-20 and have opened up a six game lead on the Grizzlies, putting us in a position to control our own destiny heading into the backstretch of the season. Johan Lopez has led the way offensively, hitting .442 with 13 doubles, five homers and 30 RBIs in his first 18 games, but the increase in contact has been across the board -- we’ve improved to top five levels in every offensive category except home runs, walks, stolen bases and baserunning. July 15, 2025: The All Star game is tomorrow, and we head into the final six weeks of the season sitting on a nine-game winning streak. Michael Guldberg just won FL Star of the Week, hitting .529 with 18 hits and 17 RBIs, which is great for him heading into the All Star announcements. Hayden Minton, who has adjusted perfectly to his spot in the starting rotation, signed a one year extension worth $3,500 to play for us next year. We’d hoped he’d make the All Star game as a reliever, but he didn’t get the nod despite a 6-1 record, 4.73 ERA and 47 K’s through 45.2 innings pitched -- the 24-year-old is still flying under the radar, so perhaps he’ll be able to continue his breakout through this season and into the next. Here are the players on our team who DID make the All Star cut this season: SP - Seth Lonway (6-1, 2.34 ERA, 57.2 IP, 1.18 WHIP, 7.3 K/9, 1.0 WAR) SS - Josh Bissonette (.324/.439/.507, 219 AB, 1 HR, 6 SB, 126 wRC+, 1.2 WAR) RF - Bryan Arias (.321/.478/.521, 190 AB, 2 HR, 16 SB, 145 wRC+, 1.8 WAR) Gateway, loaded with popular stars, had four players make the team, and the Lake Erie Crushers (25-32, 5th place, 12 GB) placed four pitchers in the game as their contribution., our three teams contributing 11 of the 24 spots between us. In the East, New Jersey placed six players, Tri-City placed four and Ottawa, New England and Trois-Riveres each placed three -- those five teams contributing 19 of the league’s 25 spots. One interesting thing about how our bullpen has worked all year is that we have 17 team saves this year but they’re spread among five of our seven relievers (plus one for Minton who is now starting). And because our starters, with the exception of Seth Lonsway and the now-departed Brandon Scott, weren’t always good at getting enough innings to qualify, a lot of wins have gone to the bullpen. Erik Rivera (5-0, 1 SV, 6.35 ERA, 39.2 IP, 40 K’s, 1.76 WHIP) and Collin Baumgartner (5-2, 5 SV, 5.46 ERA, 31.1 IP, 42 K’s, 1.66 WHIP) have had great under-the-radar seasons in that regard. Even our reliever with the lowest number of innings has had a great season -- that role goes to Breck Eichelberger (2-3, 1 SV, 7.53 ERA, 28.2 IP, 31 K’s, 1.99 WHIP). So no one is getting to hide, everyone’s playing and putting their stamp on this season. 30-year-old infielder Abiatal Avelino has had a breakout year, hitting .359 with 27 doubles, seven triples and two homers, stealing seven bases. He already has 80 hits, putting him on track to break his personal best of 134, back in 2019 when he played for Sacramento, San Francisco’s AAA affiliate. But his skills are best suited for this level -- though he still dreams of getting the call to go back to the majors, he’s too far past his prime to compete against that level of pitcher, so we’re working on a deal that could keep him here again next season. First baseman Trevor Boone, at 27, has also been catching fire for us -- in a mid-June game in Quebec he hit five times out of six, and on July 10th against New York, he went five of seven and hit for the cycle in a 20-9 blowout win. Through this season he has a .299 average, 43 doubles, seven triples and three homers, with 58 RBIs in 224 at bats! But he’s in the same boat as Avelino ... any hope he has of getting a callup at this point would depend on whether anyone thinks his gap power outweighs his lack of contact ability against the upper levels of pitching. So we’ve offered him an opportunity to stay with us as well. Attached Images __________________ A Fledgling “Free Agency” Movement in the Post-War World -- An OOTP 26 Dynasty Online Leagues Modern Baseball (Chicago White Sox) Daily Double Baseball (Tampa Bay Devil Rays) Championship Baseball League (Winnipeg Goldeye) WPORBL 55 (Chicago Cubs) WPORBL 74 (Oakland A's) WPORBL 94 (Montreal Expos) WPOBL (Cincinnati Reds)

05-27-2024, 11:12 PM	#16
jksander All Star Starter Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Indianapolis IN Posts: 1,767	July 19, 2025: Abiatal Avelino has signed an extension to stay with us next year while earning $4,000, a raise from his current salary of $2,400. We play tonight at 7:35, starting a three-game set at home against the visiting Joliet Slammers (23-34) with six weeks left to close out this season and (hopefully) earn our first playoff spot. July 20, 2025: All Star right fielder Bryan Arias will slightly more than double his salary to $5,000 next year, but has agreed to stay with us in Evansville as a top-rated veteran, barring any outside interest from the major leagues. As is usually the case, it’s impossible to predict where we’ll be anything more than a few months out, but for now this continues a solid trend toward building consistency as we continue to build our brand as family fun with a winning mentality. July 21, 2025: Riley Delgado has agreed to stay here next season at the same salary, $4,500, that he’s already earning. The 30-year-old third baseman has been hitting .265 with 19 doubles, two triples and 38 RBIs, but is aging past the point where a call-up looks likely. Trevor Boone, meanwhile, has improved enough this year that he still hopes with time to get one last shot at the Bigs ... but he’s agreed to a raise from $2,400 to $4,000 next year to give the Otters another season if that doesn’t happen. Boone, who was again the best hitter in the FL this week (.667 in 12 at bats with one homer and seven RBIs) has been red-hot since June, and the fans are excited that he wants to stick around, however long that sojourn turns out to be. July 23, 2025: Jasiah Dixon, our 23-year-old center field prospect, won’t likely be at this level for long, but he says he enjoys playing for a winner, and agreed to stay here another year at $4,160, keeping his same salary while he puts the time in down here honing his tools. Dixon has hit .324 this year with 19 doubles, a triple, two homers and 34 RBIs, putting up 1.9 WAR already this season as we’ve kept our winning streak going ... he hit .228 for us last year with 12 doubles and 16 RBIs, and you can tell every time he comes out to play a game he loves this place and our fans send the love right back at him. Unfortunately, tonight our win streak ended at 13 games as we lost a tough one 10-9 on the road to the Florence Y’alls (27-35), but our record stands at 41-21 and we’re ahead of the Gateway Grizzlies (33-29) and Washington Wild Things (32-30) by eight and nine games respectively. August 1, 2025: The Frontier League has determined that, in July, we had the best batter AND the best pitcher in the league. Johan Lopez led the way on offense, hitting .442 with five homers, 35 RBIs and 28 runs scored. Through his first 32 games, he’s hit .406 with 22 doubles, three triples and six homers, putting up 2.1 WAR in less than two months’ work! If he’d been playing all year instead of spending the first six weeks injured, he’d be right in the race for the league’s batting crown, but is instead ineligible. Casey Anderson, meanwhile, our 24-year-old long reliever, won Pitcher of the Month out of the bullpen -- he was 3-0 with two saves in three chances, completing a 3.52 ERA through 23 innings, holding opposing batters to a .210 average against him. On the year he’s now 4-0 with a 5.47 ERA, making 37 appearances and hurling 51 innings of work, striking out 46 in the process. With 27 games remaining in the month of August before we close out this season and look to playoff baseball, we hold a 46-23 record, best in our division by seven games over the 39-30 Gateway Grizzlies. In the EL, New Jersey (46-23) leads the division by six games over the Tri-City Valley Cats at 40-29. Unless New England (37-32), Washington (35-34), Quebec (35-34), New York (35-34) or Ottawa (35-34) can tighten up the wildcard race, right now it appears the top two teams in each division will head into the playoffs without any risk of any tiebreaker shenanigans. Attached Images __________________ A Fledgling “Free Agency” Movement in the Post-War World -- An OOTP 26 Dynasty Online Leagues Modern Baseball (Chicago White Sox) Daily Double Baseball (Tampa Bay Devil Rays) Championship Baseball League (Winnipeg Goldeye) WPORBL 55 (Chicago Cubs) WPORBL 74 (Oakland A's) WPORBL 94 (Montreal Expos) WPOBL (Cincinnati Reds)

05-28-2024, 12:14 AM	#17
jksander All Star Starter Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Indianapolis IN Posts: 1,767	August 13, 2025: Oscar Silverio, who has hit .269 with four doubles and three homers in 19 games as catcher for us this season, agreed to a raise from his current $2,400 salary to $3,100 to play for us next year. The 23-year-old has shown a lot of improvement, and is capable of starting for us next year, as Jhoneiker Betancourt is looking for a significant raise and is likely to head to free agency in the fall, if not to AA-level minor league ball if a major league team should take a look at him. We’ve gone 8-4 so far this month and though nine of our final 15 games are on the road, we hold a nine game lead on Gateway and have a magic number of seven, so our eventual clinching of home field advantage in the playoffs is all but assured barring an epic collapse. August 18, 2025: Tonight we beat New England 5-4 in a hard-fought battle among playoff-caliber teams, but the biggest story of the night was that Bryan Arias’ epic on-base streak has come to an end after a staggering 77 consecutive games! He’s had 92 hits and 67 walks this year, making it on base via hit or walk in EVERY SINGLE GAME he’s played in this season! So far he’s averaged .321 but has made it on base at a .470 clip this season. August 20, 2025: It’s official ... we clinched the Frontier League West tonight on the road, beating New Jersey 11-6, led by Jefferson Morales with three hits, a pair of runs and three RBIs. Casey Anderson won his fifth game out of the bullpen, throwing 34 pitches through 2.1 innings while allowing four hits and a pair of earned runs. Now it’s just a matter of seeing how the rest of the wild-card race goes ... New Jersey should clinch soon in their division, but there are five or six teams within 2.5 games of either wildcard spot, so that’s not going to be decided until the final pitch is thrown. August 26, 2025: Terrible news! We’ve lost Trevor Boone to a fractured hand for the remainder of the season, losing his powerful bat at the worst possible time. He hit .291 this year with 62 doubles 15 triples and three homers, giving him a .573 slug. We hope to have him back healthy next year since he signed his extension, but this hurts us for sure as we look toward the playoffs. August 28, 2025: Bryan Arias had been dealing with a badly bruised shoulder, so we’d had him on the IL for seven days as a precaution, but now we’ve learned it’s going to take at least another week to get him back ... that’s right, we’re now down TWO of our best hitters heading into the first round of the playoffs. We’re hopeful to get him back at least midway through the FL Divisional Series, but even that is questionable at this point. August 29, 2025: Chase Estep batted for our second cycle of the season in a 15-4 drubbing of Gateway in our final game of the season in St. Louis, stepping up in a big way to power our offense in the absence of Boone and Arias. We finished the season with a 63-33 record, beating Gateway in the standings by 10 full games, while New Jersey finished first in the East with a 60-36 record, seven games ahead of the Ottawa Titans and the Tri-City Valley Cats, who were each 53-43, same as Gateway. So we have three teams tied for two wildcard spots ... so we’re not sure who we’ll be playing yet, but drama is sure to unfold! August 31, 2025: Yesterday afternoon, Ottawa’s Titans beat the Tri-City Valley Cats 6-5 in a tie-breaker game played on Ottawa’s field, clinching themselves a wildcard spot! This evening, Gateway and Tri-City faced off in St. Louis, and this time it was Gateway’s turn to collapse when it counted the most -- they still had a chance heading into the seventh inning trailing 7-4, but the Valley Cats removed all doubt and added seven runs in the top of the seventh to crush the Grizzlies’ chances of returning to the playoffs. In turn that means we’ll be the only team from the West playing in the playoffs, while New Jersey, Ottawa and Tri-City compete from the East. We’ll take on Tri-City in a best-of-seven series starting on Tuesday the 2nd of September. Right now it looks like we could have Arias back in the lineup in time for game three in Tri-City ... we’ll have to do what we can to win our home games without him so we can avoid going into our opponents’ house looking weak. OOC: I’m going to be watching the games play out live, so I’ll be posting all playoff game results like I do in my “play every game” dynasty threads, but in this case I don’t have control over the team -- my manager Fox Beyer and our bench coach Phil Britton will. So they’ll just be more detailed recaps than normal ... it just seems like a sin to sim through playoff baseball! __________________ A Fledgling “Free Agency” Movement in the Post-War World -- An OOTP 26 Dynasty Online Leagues Modern Baseball (Chicago White Sox) Daily Double Baseball (Tampa Bay Devil Rays) Championship Baseball League (Winnipeg Goldeye) WPORBL 55 (Chicago Cubs) WPORBL 74 (Oakland A's) WPORBL 94 (Montreal Expos) WPOBL (Cincinnati Reds)

05-28-2024, 02:23 AM	#18
jksander All Star Starter Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Indianapolis IN Posts: 1,767	September 2, 2025: Bosse Field was positively bursting at the seams tonight for game one of the FL Divisional Series’ first game between ourselves and the Tri-City Twin Caps, more than 7,400 fans showing up on a clear, cool night to watch us in our first playoff appearance since losing the championship to Quebec in 2023. Seth Lonsway (6-4, 4.04 ERA, 93.2 IP, 90 K’s, 1.43 WHIP) got the start against Tri-City’s Yusniel Padron-Artiles (0-2, 9.82 ERA, 18.1 IP, 19 K’s, 2.02 WHIP). Tri-City got on the board in the top of the second with an RBI double by center fielder Tyler Collins on two outs, and though Lonsway got the final out, he’d thrown 52 pitches in two frames, making it unlikely he’d go deep into the game tonight. Chase Estep doubled in the bottom of the inning, and with two outs Jhoneiker Betancourt took a hit to the shoulder but was able to stay in the game, taking first. But we weren’t able to get a run across in that frame, heading into the top of the third trailing 1-0. Lonsway got us through the third thanks to a sweet 6-4-3 double play off a ball weakly hit by their right fielder Tanner Murphy, and he got a pair of strikeouts in the fourth before allowing a double off the bat of Tri-Caps third baseman Madison Stokes. Trey Gibson came out of the bullpen to relieve him and get the final out, sending us into the bottom of the fourth still down by a run. Chase Estep singled and Riley Delgado followed with a double in the bottom of the inning, but Betancourt popped out to short, stranding both runners ... but Michael Guldberg got us on the board with an RBI double that tied us up 1-1 in the bottom of the fifth, and Johan Lopez followed it with an RBI double of his own to put us in the lead! Trey Gibson stayed out in the top of the sixth and got a quick strikeout, but their DH Jalen Miller hit a two-run power-bomb off him and just like that we were back to a Tri-Caps 3-2 lead heading into the bottom of the sixth. Wesley Moore came out to pitch in the seventh inning, getting around a hit with a fly-out and a pair of K’s, and though he put two runners on bsae in the eighth, he got through that one as well with a strikeout, sending us into the bottom of the eighth still just trailing by a run. In the bottom of the eighth, Jhoneiker Betancourt got on base with a walk, and then Stephen Alemais drove him to third with a single and help from an E8 error in the outfield. Jasiah Dixon loaded the bases with a walk, still just one out, and we smelled a chance to take this one back over! Abiatal Avelino hit a line drive into left, reaching second and driving in a pair to push us back into the lead, but we weren’t able to expand it, heading into the top of the ninth leading 4-3. Breck Eichelberger came out to close, but he was pitching on thin ice, walking two Tri-Caps batters around his first out, and then walking a third to load the bases ... Justin Williams, their first baseman, struck out swinging to give us our second out, but their next batter hit a line drive into left that scored three runs with a double, and we were in a deep hole and sinking fast. Eichelberger melted down from there and the manager didn’t pull him ... just left him out to drown, two more runs scoring before we were able to get back up to bat in the final half inning. Tri-City shut us down quickly and got out of here with the 8-4 win amid choruses of boos from our hometown fans. What a frustrating loss ... we outhit them 10-8 but Eichelberger’s disasterous inning sunk us -- three hits, three walks, two strikeouts and five earned runs give him a playoff ERA of 45.00 ... yeeesh! That’s a real kick in the balls after Lonsway, Gibson and Moore had combined for just five hits, six walks, 15 strikeouts and three earned runs between them. Avelino hit three times and batted in a pair of runs, while Guldberg hit once with a run and an RBI and Lopez added a hit, a walk and an RBI. September 3, 2025: The crowd was still bursting the bleachers at the seams for game two, with cooler temperatures but overall great weather for fall baseball -- Adam Smith (3-4, 4.84 ERA, 87.1 IP, 79 K’s, 1.64 WHIP) got the start against Sean Harney (6-3, 6.34 ERA, 92.1 IP, 92 K’s, 1.40 WHIP). Smith’s control was off right out of the gate, and it bit him in the top of the second when second baseman Clay Dungan hit an RBI single off him to put Tri-City in the lead. We needed our bats to wake up in a big way, and that didn’t seem to be in the cards, at least early on. They got first baseman Andrew Navigato onto second with a double in the top of the third, and he stole third and came around to score off a flyout by right fielder Jalen Miller, adding another run to our damage. Smith was an abomination on the mound, and we trailed 6-0 before our manager finally gave him the hook -- bringing in Collin Baumgartner to get the final out after just 2.2 innings. We got on the board in the bottom of the second with a two-run homer by Abiatal Avelino, cutting our deficit to four runs. Baumgartner kept us in the game, but we kept repeatedly failing from the plate. Brian Edgington came in with two outs in the top of the seventh, a runner on first, and he promptly walked two in a row to load the bases -- the fans pretty much threw up their hands when center fielder Tyler Collins hit a single that drove in a pair and dug our hole back to six runs. Johan Lopez hit a line drive into right field with two outs in the bottom of the seventh, driving in a run with a double, and Tim Borden hit a double that drove in another to cut it back to four, but that was it for the rally. Edgington stayed out and got three quick outs in the top of the eighth, and in the bottom of the inning we got another run back thanks to a Jasiah Dixon double, though Dixon got thrown out trying to make it a triple and ended the inning. Casey Anderson came in to pitch in the top of the ninth, getting two outs but allowing another run to score off a triple by left fielder Jacob Pearson, sending us into the bottom of the inning still needing four runs to prolong this misery. The Tri-Caps weren’t having any of that, and they shut us down efficiently as they beat us again 9-5, sending us on the road with few expectations that we’ll have what it takes to claw our way back in. Adam Smith gave up six hits, walked five and struck out three, letting six runs score on him in 2.2 innings -- that gave him both a playoff loss and a miserable 20.25 ERA. Baumgartner lasted four innings with a hit, a walk, a strikeout and an earned run, but our offense never gave us a legitimate shot of a comeback, though we outhit the Valley Cats 10-9 ... but we had enough offense to win it if Smith had had even a shred of control. Jasiah Dixon’s four hit effort was overshadowed completely -- he scored twice and drove in another, and Avelino’s homer batted in two more. Arias is back to full strength, but we’re not allowed to make any roster moves until the end of the series, so we’re stuck praying for a comeback so he can get a shot to return for a championship run. September 5, 2025: We found ourselves at Tri-City’s tiny Bruno Stadium tonight on a mission -- win this one or we’re all but toast in this series. They had about 4,700 fans in the place on a partly cloudy 58 degree evening, but don’t get me wrong. IT WAS LOUD! Hayden Minton (10-2, 4.55 ERA, 87.0 IP, 92 K’s, 1.47 WHIP) got the start against Kirk McCarty (4-1, 3.03 ERA, 35.2 IP, 33 K’s, 1.29 WHIP). Jasiah Dixon scored a run for us in the top of the first, scoring from third off a groundout by Guldberg to give us our first lead since briefly in game one. And this time we actually built on our success -- in the top of the third, Abiatal Avelino hit a single that drove in two runs, and Johan Lopez hit a one-out double to add another, giving us a solid 4-0 lead. Hayden Minton had a no-hitter going, two outs in the bottom of the fifth, but he walked two batters and then had an inexplicable balk called that put two in scoring position. Andrew Navigato hit an RBI double that scored two, and we brought in Collin Baumgartner who got the final out. Minton was so close to qualifying for the win, but he walked six players and was at 99 pitches ... his lack of control under pressure did him in or he could have lasted much longer. John Lopez batted in an insurance run in the top of the seventh with a double, and a Riley Delgado RBI single gave us a 6-2 lead heading into the stretch. Bryan Edgington came in with one out and a man on second in the bottom of the frame, giving up an RBI single to right fielder Tanner Murphy to cut our lead to three. He loaded the bases, damned near gave us all heart attacks, and then got the final out via strikes to get us into the top of the eighth still leading 6-3. Edgington got us three quick outs in the bottom of the eighth, but unable to add any more insurance, we went into the bottom of the ninth needing some good closout pitching from Breck Eichelberger, who even with a three-run lead had us nervous after his collapse in game one. He came in with a three run lead and struck out the top two batters in their lineup, then walked a pair and surrendered a hit to catcher Michael Berglund, cutting our lead to two. And then, like it was preordained, third-baseman Madison Stokes hit a single that drove in the tying runs, knotting us up 6-6 and still needing that third f---ing out. He finally got it, but that sent us into extra innings and their fans were fully energized by the comeback. Chase Estep doubled with one out in the top of the tenth, and with two outs Alemais walked, bringing up Jasiah Dixon, our best hitter so far in the series at .462 ... he got a great hit into deep center, hitting the wall just out of reach of their center fielder, and we had ourselves the lead back by a run, Dixon hitting a double that put two in scoring position. But Avelino popped out to center to keep us from adding more cushion, and Matt Ball came in to pitch, hoping we could finish this out. He got two strikeouts, and then second baseman Clay Dungan hit himself a double, but we were able to escape this game with a win thanks to a pop-fly to center that let us leave with a 7-6 victory and a long sigh of relief. We’re still alive! We still have a chance. I can tell you one thing, I plan to tell our manager that if he uses Eichelberger again in a closing situation, he’s losing his damned job. That’s two blown playoff saves, and he came out of it with the win despite his own best efforts ... two hits, two walks, three strikeouts and three earned runs in one inning of work. Minton, Baumgartner and Edgington had combined for eight innings with three hits, eight walks and 11 strikeouts, with just three earned runs between them. That we outhit the Valley Cats 14-6 and still damned near blew this game is a level of frustration I can barely explain. Dixon saved us with three hits, two runs and an RBI, while Lopez added three hits, a run and two RBIs. Riley Delgado also did his part, hitting three times and scoring a run. But we’re killing ourselves with the walks ... they walked 10 times to our three, singlehandedly keeping them in this game. We’ll be right back here tomorrow night, hoping to find a way to tie this series up ... as it is, we trail the Valley Cats two games to one, and need at least one win in the next two nights to allow us to take this back home. __________________ A Fledgling “Free Agency” Movement in the Post-War World -- An OOTP 26 Dynasty Online Leagues Modern Baseball (Chicago White Sox) Daily Double Baseball (Tampa Bay Devil Rays) Championship Baseball League (Winnipeg Goldeye) WPORBL 55 (Chicago Cubs) WPORBL 74 (Oakland A's) WPORBL 94 (Montreal Expos) WPOBL (Cincinnati Reds)

05-28-2024, 04:31 PM	#19
jksander All Star Starter Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Indianapolis IN Posts: 1,767	September 6, 2025: Tri-City fans came out in force to try and will their team to take control of this series. Isaiah Jackson (4-3, 5.73 ERA, 81.2 IP, 87 K’s, 1.54 WHIP) took the mound against Valley Cats hurler Micah Dallas (0-1, 10.90 ERA, 17.1 IP, 21 K’s, 2.31 WHIP). Both pitchers got off to solid starts, though in the bottom of the second Jackson hit Michael Berglund, Tri-City’s second baseman, with a pitch, fracturing his foot and forcing him out of the game and the remainder of the postseason, definitely ratcheting up the tension in this place -- it wasn’t anything intentional, just one of those weird baseball flukes. Michael Guldberg hit an RBI double in the top of the third to put us up 1-0, but the Valley Cats tied it up with an RBI double by lead-off man Clay Dungan in the bottom of the third, taking the lead moments later with a double by right fielder Tanner Murphy. Jackson loaded the bases but got out of the inning without further incident, but they’d certainly rattled him. We loaded the bases in the top of the fourth but left them all stranded, and the Valley Cats took control in the bottom of the inning, thanks to a Trey Faltine RBI double and a Clay Dungan RBI single that drove in three runs between them. Brian Edgington came in to pitch with one out and a man on first, getting one out on a fielder’s choice before allowing an RBI single by Andrew Navigato that put us in a 6-1 hole heading into the top of the fifth. Edgington got a pair of outs in the bottom of the fifth and then was replaced due to exhaustion by Erik Rivera, who allowed a pair of baserunners but got the strikeout to get us out of the inning -- we hoped he could handle a few more innings to give our bats a chance to dig out of the hole. It started raining, however, and we worried the game might get called, but after a half-hour rain delay, play resumed. It didn’t matter -- we couldn’t hit for anything, and Tanner Murphy hit a two-run homer in the bottom of the sixth that all but sealed it. In the top of the seventh we finally got another run when Johan Lopez hit a weak grounder that somehow rolled safely into right field for an RBI single, but with two on the corners we still couldn’t spark a rally, going into the stretch still trailing by six runs. Trey Gibson came in for Rivera in the seventh with two runners on base and no outs, getting a strikeout and a flyout before Tanner Murphy added to our humiliation with a two-run double to make it 10-2. But the tide turned in the top of the eighth ... Jhoneiker Betancourt hit a two-run blast to cut the lead back to six, and Stephen Alemais hit a triple to get us back to the top of the order with one out. They plunked Jasiah Davis on the arm but he was able to take his base, and then Avelino silenced the crowd with a three-run slam out of left field, cutting our deficit to three! Their pitcher walked Guldberg and Lopez, and then with two outs, Riley Delgado hit one off the wall in center-left, driving in yet another with a double, putting two runners in scoring position as this game’s momentum fully shifted! Jeferson Morales popped out to third to end the frame, but we’d added six runs and batted around to get ourselves back into the game trailing 10-8! Trey Gibson stayed out in the bottom of the inning and didn’t allow a single baserunner, giving us one last shot in the top of the ninth to complete the comeback. Betancourt came up to the plate as the leadoff hitter, and they walked him, bringing up Alemais as the potential tying run! He hit a roller into left field, legging out a double as they chased it down, and just like that we had runners on second and third with leadoff man and .412 hitter Jasiah Dixon coming up to the plate! He got his hit over the head of the third baseman and into left field, driving in a run with a single that put runners on the corners, and their second baseman bobbled a catch to allow Abiatal Avelino reach first ... they dubbed it a hit, not an error, and just like that the game’s tied 10-10 ... unbelievable! Guldberg kept the hit parade going, loading the bases with a single -- STILL NO OUTS! -- and Johan Lopez got us our first lead since the very first inning, hitting a two-RBI double to make it 12-10! Borden struck out for our first out, but Delgado bought us another run with a single, Morales hit a line drive into left for another, and Betancourt picked up his second walk of the inning to load the bases! Alemais batted in another with a single and Dixon struck out for our second out. Avelino batted in two more with a double that went to the wall in center, and Guldberg mercifully struck out swinging to send us into the bottom of the inning leading by seven. Casey Anderson came in to finish them off, getting two outs but placing two on base, which allowed Hugo Cardona to get the Valley Cats three runs back when he hit a homer over the center field wall ... this game is absolutely bonkers! Matt Ball came in to get the last out, and a grounder to first finally ended this as a 17-13 come-from-behind victory ... the series is tied now two games to two, the game ending at 1:09 a.m. thanks to the rain delay, a five hour marathon. Trey Gibson picked up the win, improving to 1-0 with a 4.15 postseason ERA, throwing two innings with just one hit and four strikeouts, giving him a 0.92 postseason WHIP in his 4.1 innings this series! We outhit the Valley Cats by a staggering 21-14 margin, but amazingly neither team committed an error the entire night. Avelino was a star tonight, hitting four times and walking once, scoring two and driving in six, while Alemais hit four times for three runs and an RBI. Johan Lopez added three hits, a walk, a run and three RBIs, and Betancourt hit twice (including his homer), walked twice and scored three runs with two batted in. I may never see a comeback like that as long as I live ... While this series still has plenty of juice left, there was no question of who was going to be the other representative in this year’s FL Championship Series ... Ottawa clinched the four-game sweep over New Jersey, winning game four on their home field by a 7-1 margin, after having defeated the heavily favored Jackals 8-1, 8-7 and 9-5 in the first three games. And they’ll get plenty of time to rest while we slug this out against Tri-City ... but at least we now know we’re guaranteed to get our chance to clinch back on our home field, having retaken the advantage. __________________ A Fledgling “Free Agency” Movement in the Post-War World -- An OOTP 26 Dynasty Online Leagues Modern Baseball (Chicago White Sox) Daily Double Baseball (Tampa Bay Devil Rays) Championship Baseball League (Winnipeg Goldeye) WPORBL 55 (Chicago Cubs) WPORBL 74 (Oakland A's) WPORBL 94 (Montreal Expos) WPOBL (Cincinnati Reds) Last edited by jksander; 05-28-2024 at 04:39 PM.

05-28-2024, 05:15 PM	#20
jksander All Star Starter Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Indianapolis IN Posts: 1,767	September 7, 2025: Seth Lonsway (0-0, 2.45 ERA, 3.2 IP, 7 K’s, 1.36 WHIP) gets his second start of the playoffs tonight, facing Yusniel Padron-Artiles (0-0, 3.60 ERA, 5.0 IP, 2 K’s, 1.60 WHIP), and will certainly be hoping he can go deeper into this one as we attempt to take the series lead in front of 4,600 rabid Valley Cats fans. We got on the board quickly, picking up where we finished off last night with an RBI double by Guldberg in the top of the first. Chase Estep batted in two more with a one-out RBI double, giving Lonsway a 3-0 lead before he even had to pitch. Abiatal Avelino hit an RBI triple to add a run in the top of the second, and Guldberg batted him home with a double to quickly make it 5-0. With two outs in the bottom of the third, Tri-City got a run off an RBI double by Jalen Miller, who was able to score from third when Michael Guldberg missed on a throw to the cutoff man, cutting our lead to four, but we got out of the inning without any other fireworks. Lopez hit himself an RBI triple off the wall in center -- six inches higher and it would have been a two-run homer, but it still drove in a run to increase our lead back to five. Chase Estep drove him around to score off a sac-fly to right, and we went into the bottom of the fifth leading 7-1. Lonsway got two outs quickly in the bottom of the sixth, but Tyler Collins got himself an RBI triple with a deeply hit ball to center left that bounced and rolled repeatedly away from our fielder. Johan Lopez then couldn’t make a catch at short, allowing them to pick up another run off a single by Tanner Murphy, but Lonsway got us out of there with a 4-6-3 groundball double play to put us into the seventh inning with a 7-3 lead still safe. He stayed out in the seventh long enough to get a flyout to center and warm up Breck Eichelberger, who handled himself in a low pressure situation in a much better manner than he did his two early-series appearances, gettng two quick outs to complete the frame. And in the top of the eighth we put some icing on, Jhoneiker Betancourt hitting his second homer of the series to score three runs and give us a 10-3 lead. Avelino hit an RBI double to add to the carnage, and they took Guldberg out of the game with a hit to the hand, fracturing his thumb and forcing him out of the game and the series ... loading the bases as Tim Borden came in to run for him. Johan Lopez hit a two-run double, Delgado walked in a run, and though Morales hit into a double play, those were our first two outs of the inning and a run scored in the process to give us a 12-run lead heading into the bottom of the inning. Eichelberger, with the rout fully on, stayed out there in the bottom of the inning, getting three quick outs around a single hit, and he stayed out in the ninth as well, getting two outs but allowing a garbage run to score off an RBI single by Justin Williams. He completed his game with a strikeout, finishing one out short of a three-inning save but completing our 15-4 victory! Seth Lonsway had a great game, lasting 6.1 innings with just five hits, three walks and three earned runs, striking out seven, his postseason ERA now at 3.60 after two starts. Eichelberger came out and was able to throw off his early-series jitters, pitching 2.2 innings with three hits, two strikeouts and a single earned run, improving his postseason ERA to 17.36 through 4.2 innings in three appearances. We outslugged the Valley Cats 15-8, led by Avelino who hit four times for three runs and two RBIs, bringing his postseason average up to .464! Guldberg, whose season is now over, hit three times for two runs and two RBIs, giving him a .348 average in the postseason ... we’re going to miss him in the lineup for sure. This one’s headed back to Evansville where we have a chance to clinch it in six after having started the series out 0-2! __________________ A Fledgling “Free Agency” Movement in the Post-War World -- An OOTP 26 Dynasty Online Leagues Modern Baseball (Chicago White Sox) Daily Double Baseball (Tampa Bay Devil Rays) Championship Baseball League (Winnipeg Goldeye) WPORBL 55 (Chicago Cubs) WPORBL 74 (Oakland A's) WPORBL 94 (Montreal Expos) WPOBL (Cincinnati Reds)