Thanks um, mr. trump. Anyway I took Sanderson with the second first round pick. I then used a traded for 2nd round pick to trade for Gary Matthews, who was better than any outfielder still available in the draft - I was hoping for Willie Wilson, who would have been added to Dave Collins and Jerry Mumphrey to create a rare progressive league speed-demon team.
But alas it was not to be and the fastest man in baseball went right before that pick so I traded for Matthews. The last second round pick I had I used to get Jim Beattie, since the pitching staff is good, but flattens out for a couple of seasons around 1983-4 and he pitches fairly well and takes up the slack as a SP then.
I feel very good about this team now. Perhaps I could have done more were I more of an entrepreneurial type. But I have a good infield with Thornton, Dauer, Trammell and DeCinces. The two catchers Asby and May are good. The OF will most likely start Leon Roberts, Gary Matthews and Rico Carty (31 homers and put Mumphrey in for the late innings def) with Collins, Mumphrey, Lee Lacy, Dan Meyer and Dave Chalk as a bench.
Randy Jones, Scott McGregor, Mike Caldwell and Mark Lemongello are the front four, Langford, Marty Pattin and Scott Sanderson in the pen. In near future seasons, Sanderson, Langford and Bill Lee step up to the starting rotation, Buskey returns from DL, and then Beattie steps in as a couple of guys have low IP.
This team looked for a while like it might not make it to the minimum of 40 wins game 120 to qualify for the first part of round 1 last season. Now I feel like it is a team.
Could it contend in the next few seasons ? Don't know but what was once a fairly identity-less team that never seemed to gel despite big-name pitchers, might now be improved and at the same time have a future.
And in 1978 there are still a few jobs left in Pittsburgh. No AIDS crisis yet, no War on Drugs, no war war, no union busting president. And I am just hitting my liberal arts college in the woods.
Things are lookin' up.