The 2015 season has started with a flurry of transactions,
and it’s not even 2015 yet.
The ball drops in about 80 hours, and first pitch in several
months after that, but many JLB teams are gearing up for the 2015 season.
The World Series Champion Vandelay Industries has been busy
with a newborn assistant GM, but this December has forced him to take a look at
his roster, so he says on Facebook.
Not sure why he’d have to even look at it. It still looks as
good as it did in 2014. Chris Sale, Adam Wainwright and Cole Hamels as the
three main SP keepers, to go with JLB minor leaguers Jose Fernandez, Jake
Odorizzi, Danny Duffy and Kevin Gausman, to name a few. The lineup includes the
likes of Carlos Santana, Buster Posey, Michael Brantley, Carlos Gomez, Matt Kemp,
Giancarlo Stanton, Starlin Castro and Ryan Zimmerman. Good thing he doesn’t
have to pay their salaries.
So, he may be set heading into his title defense season.
He’ll have a tough road back going through the competitive
National League.
TRADE EMBARGO
Choo is back at it again, making several trades as he looks
to put together a Cuban national team. So far this offseason, he added Yoenis
Cespedes, Jorge Soler and Alexei Ramirez, and I’m sure he’ll look to add to his Chooban squad
in the draft.
All in all, since Dec. 19, 25 players have changed teams in
four separate trades involving five different teams.
The offseason trading opened with the Slammers sending
Cespedes and Zack Wheeler to Choo for Anthony Rendon.
A day later, Choo and Steroid hooked up for a crazy 10-player
deal that sent some big names back and forth. Notable get for Choo is Edwin
Encarnacion, who cooled off a tad after that hot month earlier in the year but
still ended the season with 34 homers and 98 RBIs. The best part for Choo may
be Ramirez, who ranked fifth at shortstop, a tough
position to find offensive production nowadays. Ramirez had 15 HRs, 74 RBIs, 82
runs, 21 stolen bases and a .273 average. That’s a big addition and a big
offensive piece at shortstop.
Steroid got back Gregory Polanco, who was quite
disappointing last year, batting only .235 with 7 homers and 33 RBIs. Johnny
Cueto is the biggest piece coming back in this deal based on numbers last year
(2.25 ERA, 20-9, 242 strikeouts) but I worry about his jump in innings. If you
take a look at his stats, he’s missed significant time every other year, and
after a huge jump in innings, he’s ready for that “other” year. Steroid will
keep his fingers crossed that Cueto can finish second to Cy Young winner
Clayton Kershaw once again.
Yes, Kershaw will win it again. Why? Because Parker told me.
Choo was back at it the day after Christmas, sending gifts
to the Philly Cheese Steaks, shipping off another Cy Young contender/winner to
the National League. Technically, he shipped two, but Cliff Lee’s best years
may be behind him. Nevertheless, he’s back in the National League, along with
Max Scherzer as the two players were sent to the Cheese Steaks for Hisashi
Iwakuma, Alcides Escobar, Jon Gray, Alex Rios and Jorge Soler.
For the Cheese Steaks, this is a pretty good deal. I worry a
bit with Scherzer not signed, and I hate not knowing where he’ll be, but it’s
still a good starter to pair up with Jon Lester. I assume Cliff Lee gets the
third spot, unless he just acquired him for the heck of it — a long-shot maybe
heading into spring training.
For Choo, this was all about getting Soler and it was a
heavy price to pay. I don’t like Iwakuma. A third-year pitcher from Asia is
always a gamble. He fell apart late in August last year and struggled down the
stretch giving up 31 runs in his final seven starts, failing to complete 5
innings in four of those starts. It’s also another situation where I can’t
imagine that Choo is keeping all these players. Twelve players acquired in
three deals. A great example is the addition of Escobar in the latter deal.
That gives him Ramirez and Escobar at SS. Can’t imagine he’s keeping both.
The final deal was another by the Slammers, waking the Jerk
from his promised winter slumber to get Wil Myers, Tyson Ross and Archie
Bradley in a deal for Sonny Gray and Noah Syndergaard. The Jerk gets a pair of
ML eligible pitchers, including Gray who can make an immediate impact for him.
A crowded outfield opened the door to send Myers, who struggled mightily with a
wrist injury in Tampa Bay to bat .222 with 6 homers and 35 RBIs in 325 at-bats.
The Slammers will hope a new look in San Diego will welcome a return to his ROY
numbers from 2013.
That covers the deals for now, but I’m sure we’re not done
yet. There has to be more Cubans and shortstops out there for Choo to acquire.
DRAFT ORDER
1. Coldsmith III
2. Chief Otto Parts
3. Sex Panthers
4. Jerks
5. Steroid.ERA
6. JimmyJam Slammers
7. Gameday Gamblers
8. You're Freaking Out
9. N.J. Bombers
10. Cheese Steaks
11. Big League Choo
12. Vandelay Industries
Draft picks can be traded at this point, but it all has to
be verbal agreements until the game resets in early February. Just make sure
you make me aware of any draft pick swaps before you send a trade in for consideration.
DIVISIONS, SCHEDULE
The votes have been slow coming, but it’s 5-to-1 (6-to-1 if
you count the fact that Doyle doesn’t participate and automatically has his
vote thrown in with mine) at this point in favor of keeping the divisions as
they have been instead of enacting the switch-up based off of finishes.
At this point, unless there’s a crazy shift in JLB opinion,
we’re sticking with the National and American Leagues as they have been.
The one thing I will change to create a more competitive JLB is make an “almost” balanced schedule. With 21 weeks, we are one week short of
being able to have a truly balanced schedule. So here’s how it will work.
You will play everyone in your division twice (as opposed to
the three times in the past) for a total of 10 matchups. You’ll play five teams
from the other division twice (as opposed to the one matchup in the past) and
the one remaining team from the other League you will play just once during the
long two-week matchup during the All-Star Break. This opponent will be decided
based on finishes (regular season for the teams that do not make the playoffs,
and then playoff finishes for those who make it). This will keep the long World
Series rematch intact. This means the ALCS and NLCS losers will face each other
that week, the ALDS and NLDS losers will match up, and then the non-playoff
teams will face their opposite number in finish.
This should even things up just a bit.
We also will have a decision on Coldsmith here in the next
week. I’m waiting to hear back from parties involved to see if he will continue
to run that franchise into the ground, or whether we can get someone in here to
compete. This franchise has been a mess since the day it was named the Bad News Bears.
I can say this because it’s like making fun of the Amish on TV. He's never going to see this.
This decision should come down as early at New Years Eve, so be prepared for the possibility of welcoming in a new owner who will have a bit of work to do — but as we saw last year, all it takes is one crazy trade with Parker to turn a franchise around.
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