For the second year in a row, we did a project where 30 people took over the roles as the 30 MLB GMs and conducted the offseason in a week. We did arbitration, made trades and signed free agents. At the end of the week, we were supposed to submit 25-man rosters and budgets and that information will be posted here.
This project cannot ever hope to replicate results in the real world. If this is the only way you can think of this being a success – please stop reading immediately. The 30 of us put a lot of time and effort into this and we know that it’s not in any way, shape or form indicative of how things will play out in real life. Don’t play the Captain Obvious role and point out things that wouldn’t happen in MLB. Any pointless posts such as this will be deleted with extreme prejudice.
However, please look at the individual teams and see what their owners thought were the proper ways to go. Did the Mets owner address the shortstop situation? Did the Cubs owner get more starting pitching? Did the Nationals owner try to bring the old gang back for one more go? There are storylines for each club and the thought process behind the moves is just as important, if not more important, than the moves themselves.
But feel free to criticize the moves, too. Did anyone pull an AJ Preller and try to trade a team into contention and make horrible deals? Did a squad a pitcher away from contention focus only on hitting? Did an owner trade a top prospect for pennies on the dollar? These things and others are certainly up for praise, criticism and debate.
This post will stay at the top of the page for about a week and I will update as the owners send me their information. Thanks for reading and we look forward to your thoughts on our project.
Atlanta Braves- Julian McCarthy
Miami Marlins – Joe Vasile
New York Mets – Patrick Albanesius
Philadelphia Phillies – Rob Rogan
Washington Nationals – Dan Kolton
Chicago Cubs – Paul LaRocca
Cincinnati Reds
Milwaukee Brewers – Brian Joura
Pittsburgh Pirates – Jim Keller
St. Louis Cardinals – David Groveman
Arizona Diamondbacks – Jon Williams
Colorado Rockies – Dan Spiro
Los Angeles Dodgers
San Diego Padres – Steve Parsons
San Francisco Giants – Matt Netter
Baltimore Orioles – Greg Jarvis
Boston Red Sox – Joe Barbieri
New York Yankees – Jon Joura
Tampa Bay Rays – Peter Golenbock
Toronto Blue Jays – Eric Stashin
Chicago White Sox
Cleveland Indians – Matt Bruce
Detroit Tigers – John Coppinger
Kansas City Royals
Minnesota Twins – Peter Kreutzer
Houston Astros – Brian Mullen
Los Angeles Angels – Jock Thompson
Oakland Athletics – Scott Ferguson
Seattle Mariners – Zach Sanders
Texas Rangers – Ray Kuhn
Finally, I’d like to thank the 29 other people who participated in this. I hope you had fun and that you will consider doing it again next year.
I want in on this next year.
The David Groveman Cardinals have begun selling Post-Season Ticket Plans.
One question and one suggestion.
Question: Did you have a trades limit this year?
Suggestion: I’d recommend adding a floor for veterans salary. Maybe something like 1m if you’ve been in the league 5 years and 2m if you’ve been in the league 10 years. This would be a reasonable simulation of real life and would would prevent some guys (*cough Groveman*) from exploiting the system and putting in min bids for everyone and just stocking the ends of their roster that way.
And for consistency sake (though it’s not really material), it would be nice if there was an agreed upon number for the league minimum salary because i noticed that pretty much everyone was using a different number which ranged from 510k to 600k
The trade limit was 5.
The minimum salary was $510K. It’s common for pre-arb players to get minimal raises – I know I gave guys $515 and $525 if they played a full season or more.
Everyone knew that the minimum was $510K
I was still under budget with giving my veterans $1 Mil instead of $510 K