Looks like you got the better end of that deal.

That was definatley a great trade for you, however, the C you got is still too weak to get behind the plate for me. I only like using C's that have 70+ arm strength and arm accuracy & 75+ PC. If I were you, I would sign that Type A C. He is awesome defensivley and has a really good bat. Those guys are very, very rare. It sucks to give up the R1 pick, and pay him, but if you are a championship contender, he is an awesome post season C. Anyway, that's just my 2 cents.

That's a reasonable trade, both guys are somewhat dime-a-dozen.

The "Option 2" catcher is the guy you hope is an FA after you've already signed one type A, because you can grab him super-cheap at the end of FA signing and only give up a 2nd or 3rd. Even in championship contention, I wouldn't give up the 1st-round comp pick for him.

You can get a valuable player with the 30th pick in the draft while guys like Option 2 can be found in the 60-100 range.

Option 1 sucks, but I'd love to experiment with .900 OPS guy with a pitch calling in the 20s or 30s just to see how much damage the pitch calling did. With an AL team, it's not unreasonable to think that you could find a DH, 1B, LF, RF and one "skill position" (2B, 3B, SS or CF) who can all OPS .900+ and do so for under 27M. If you could add another guy who could OPS .900+ with pitch calling in the 20s, you're talking about a lineup that should be able to score close to 6 runs per game for 40M or so. I feel like that would be enough to make up for the ****** pitch calling.

Quote: Originally Posted By jtrinsey on 1/03/2010




<snip>


With an AL team, it's not unreasonable to think that you could find a DH, 1B, LF, RF and one "skill position" (2B, 3B, SS or CF) who can all OPS .900+ and do so for under 27M.

<snip>

I think that's a little unreasonable, or at least much harder to do than you make it sound.

I have two Worlds in ST, so can't check league leaders for them, but in my third World (Kinsella) the regular season is over. In that World, there were a total of 20 qualified players with an OPS of .900+. Only one team even had 3. If you manage to accumulate five of them (at any price, let alone $27M), use the .400 OPS defensive wiz catcher and win 100+ games anyway.

By "not unreasonable" I guess I should have said, "at some point over the course of 7 or 8 seasons you could be able to do it if you get a little lucky and sacrifice some defense."

I don't know how to post player links (probably posted somewhere prominent, I haven't been able to find it; wouldn't mind if somebody explained it to me real quick) but my team in No Quitters has a:

*DH w/ hitting ratings of: 95/94/89/69/85 (career 1.075 OPS, costing me 9.0M, got him in a trade for a good CF prospect)
*1B w/ hitting ratings of: 82/81/87/70/96 (career .909 OPS, costing me 7.8M, got him in a trade for a good 2B prospect and a decent RP prospect)
*LF w/ hitting ratings of: 75/73/80/84/72 (career .957 OPS, pre-arb was in A-ball when I took over the franchise)
*RF w/ hitting ratings of: 66/86/81/77/74 (career .912 OPS, signed him for 8.5M in free agency)
*2B w/ hitting ratings of: 76/89/44/81/85 (in AAA right now, was #4 overall pick the season after I took over)

In order to do that though, you are looking at having to almost certainly sacrifice some things in other areas. I am starting a SS platoon that features two players who were picked up off the waiver wire... so there are drawbacks I guess.

Realistically though, .900 was probably accurate for the steroid era, but since the update has appeared to have bumped SLG% down close to 10%, I guess .850 would be more accurate. They are OPS'ing between .863 and .971 this year, so .900+ is probably unrealistic.

However, if you really made a push at it and ignored some other things, I think you could find .850+ OPS at DH, 1B, LF, RF, 2B/3B and a ~30PC DH at catcher. I feel like that would make up for the other shortcomings your team would likely have.

OP, sorry for the hi-jack.

The thing I liked about option 2 is that his lack of Dur is somewhat made up for by his LH bat. You could use him as a vsR platoon, and find a pitch calling catcher with offensive ratings like 60-55-75-15-55 (guys like this can often be found for a similar price to a regular, no-bat PC Catcher) to play the other half of the platoon. But the guy you got is also a solid option.