Brooklyn still has the worst farm system in the BBA... but that's ok.
After a full year haitus, we are back! Well folks, the dust just settled in the great firesale of 2037 and we are starting to take stock of the situation. You would think that after the sheer amount of talent we have traded away... that our farm system would rank higher then 30th? Nope we are still dead last. But that's ok. That wasn't the goal. We weren't looking to achieve instant gratification. This is going to be a long drawn out, deliberate process in which we build the greatest organization of all time. But before we get ahead of ourselves. Let's take a look at the progress with the process.
Turning a Negative Into a Positive
While the prospect haul could and should be considered by most to be underwelming, the fiscal gain is monumental and much better then what was expected. Two factors lead to this occurance. The first is that my owner just flat out gave me $50 million dollars. I wasn't expecting this at all. I've lost money in the past and gotten some cash from the owner, but $50 million? That is insane. I honestly don't like this. Especially after I reverse engeneered what likely happened. I think there may be a trigger where if you lose more then $20 million, your owner will give you the cash to get back into that range. Maybe there is a variance based on his greed/tolerance.. whatever. I dunno. I feel sort of cheapened by this.
The second factor is the use salary retention in trading albatross contracts. In my last edition of this series, I stated that I was at peace with riding out Nightmare and Guerrero. I felt that they were untradeable. The only teams that would take a chance on them as a player would be contenders. And the only teams that could afford them were rebuilders. It was a conflict of interests that deemed them unmoveable. With the enabling of salary retention the impossible became possible. Suddenly a market opened up. This type of deal essentially wipes out most of the contracts, allows Brooklyn to use the upfront money to operate business again. Meanwhile the salary retention acts like a governer to prevent over spending in the next few years.
Before the playoffs started we were $80 million in the hole. Today we are at max positive with money in bonus funds for the first time since like 2028. I thought this process was going to take 2-3 seasons. One thing to keep in mind here is that we are still on the books with a lot of big money contracts and our fan interest predictably bottomed out at 55. We did not fix the finances, we just reset it. It's still a long road as we build up fan interest and work off these contracts.
Depth Over Top End
This was a conscience decision on my part. Pre firesale, our farm system had no top end talent nor depth. There were maybe 3-4 future BBA players at the time. And they were bullpen arms and bench bats at best. We deliberately traded everyone away. Half in part to "win now" and the other half because I wanted to start this with the worst farm system imaginable.
When all is said and done, I want to have the deepest farm system imaginable with a lot of top end talents mixed in. So what's the best way to achieve this? I guess I could have gone a few directions. But when liquidating my current team, I realized I lacked leverage. Everyone knew I was in firesale mode. I was basically auctioning off players and taking the best possible deal on the table. I'm pretty sure others knew this. There were some lowball offers and most teams specifically said players a,b, and c were off the table. Teams were simply not interested in giving future all stars away.
So I focused on a depth of players who I felt were a bump or two away from becoming much better then they appear now. For the most part... non injury prone players with good personalities. I also tried to dig deep into undervalued throw ins. 1B,DH,COF, and RP prospects tend to be looked down upon and viewed as easily replaceable. I'm in the take whatever I can stage because I know I have a lot of releasable players in my minors. So if I can grab that extra guy who might only be a RP or a DH, I'm going to do it. If nothing else it will help my minor league teams play better. Which I believe is more important then what most will say. It's just one more dynamic in the synergy needed to create an environment where players will bump more then lump.
The top end talent will start to trickle in as we go. The draft is obviously a good source for that. As are international players. We are expected to spend a lot of time studying what other teams are doing on the international front. There is definatly a big difference between the haves and have nots when it comes to finding players. We're also going to keep trading. Every player is up for grabs until further notice. As players get older we will do "turn back the clock" trades and keep rolling things over. We are bound to get some bumpers and we'll either slot them in as a future core or trade them for more talent. We are not going to stop until the talent level is ridiculous. And that is obviously still a long way away.
We Are Not Tanking....EVER
I do things to the extreme. So when I say keywords such as Firesale, Ultimate Rebuild or Ridiculous Farm System. One might assume that we are going to try to get the top pick in the draft. This is not true at all and will be evident as next season starts. This is our rock bottom moment and it is all up hill form here. Now, our BBA team is not going to be great for the next year or two. I suspect we will fall short of the playoffs. But I'm not tanking and will fight and claw to be the best team we can be with the players we have. I've won a Landis with "the worst team ever to win a Landis" and finished .500 in 2032 with a team that should have been one of the worst in the league. So I'm confident in my ability to over achieve. I'm actually getting excited already trying to figure out some platoons for next year and seeing what I need to add.
