2031 Madison Wolves Preview

[udlb58]

2031 Madison Wolves Preview

2030 At A Glance
A year ago the Wolves still finished 3rd in the FL in runs scored, despite the loss of superstar Savage Salazar. Even though they scored nearly 5 runs a game, it wasn't enough to finish above water in run differential and their 822 runs allowed was the 3rd most allowed in the entire BBA. An experiment to try three career bullpen arms in the rotation failed, and 10 different Wolves started at least 4 games, highlighting the struggles of the rotation (and staff as a whole).

Record: 69-93
Attendance: 3,738,275
Runs Scored/Allowed: 780/822
Batting Leaders:
--AVG: Dusty Rhodes, .341
--OPS: Luis Barrera, .898
--HR: Jon Mick, 32
--RBI: Jon Mick, 118
--SB: Manuel Freyta, 40
--WAR: Luis Barrera, 6.2
Pitching Leaders:
--W: León González, 12
--ERA: Brooks McHall, 4.03
--SV: César Martínez, 13
--K: León González, 135
--WHIP: León González, 1.30

2031 Preview
Additions: Luis Soto (FA); Derek McLaughlin (FA); Mark Weber (FA); Francisco Ruiz (FA); Mike Love (FA); Bo Jordan (FA); Jose Lara (Rule 5)
Losses: Cesar Martinez (FA); Timmy Moulin (FA); Josh Resser (FA); Jose Martinez (FA); Quinlan Upham (FA)

Starting Lineup
The Wolves sport a top 5 lineup in the entire BBA and it is arguably the best lineup 1-4 in all of baseball with phenominal table setters like Rhodes and Dempsey in front of talented young sluggers like Barrera and Mick. The rest of the lineup is very good as well, with Draper and Raider combining to make arguably the top offensive middle infield combo in the league. The lone hole at this point appears to be 3B. The one real weakness in the lineup is defense though. With Raider forcing Draper to short, the only above average defender appears to be the one weak hitter (McLaughlin).

C: Luis Barrera (7/8/7/6/7 Ratings): 2030 Gillstrom winner has quickly established himself as one of the top 5 hitters at his position.
1B: Jon Mick (8/7/10/6/7 Ratings): Has the potential to be one of the 5 best power hitting righties in the league, but has not lived up to that potential.
2B: Mons Raider (8/6/1/8/8 Ratings): Rookie with .300/.400/.400 bat and 40+ steal speed; range will limit his defensive effectiveness, but he does have a reliable glove.
3B: Derek McLaughlin (6/6/2/3/5 Ratings): Defense-only player has always struggled with the bat.
SS: Don Draper (9/6/5/6/9 Ratings): Former 3rd overall pick had a breakout 2030, he'll need to keep hitting as he is a below average defender at short.
LF: Chris Tovar (7/6/7/6/8 Ratings) / Mike Love (5/7/4/8/9 Ratings): Young Tovar can hit (121 career OPS+) but is lost in the field (-22.3 ZR in LF in BBA), Love can still put the ball and get on base, plus he can play competent defense, even at 39.
CF: Manuel Freyta (7/6/4/7/6 Ratings): Solid CF who won't wow you in any area, but won't embarrass himself in any area either.
RF: Steve Dempsey (10/9/2/4/10 Ratings): Great contact and gap hitter with speed and arm; lack of power, eye, and range have limited his overall value and kept him from becoming a star.
DH: Dusty Rhodes (10/3/6/6/10 Ratings): Arguably the best pure right-handed hitter in baseball. Astounding 4% career strikeout rate.

Rotation
Soto is the best starter the Wolves have had in years, but will his addition and the development of Dietz be enough? Soto was solid in the middle of the Blazers' rotation, but he's never been asked to take the hardest assignments. He's good, and the best Madison has, but he's posted a sub-3.70 ERA just once in his career with just 4 sub-4.00 ERA seasons (and the FIP numbers are worse), and his two best ERA seasons have been with abnormally low BABIPs. McHall can eat innings, but if you're counting on him in big games, you're going to be in trouble. The 27 year old Villegas has been a big disappointment to this point and the potential #3 pitcher needs to break out. Dietz has a deep arsenal and looks like he could be a good #3 very soon, dominating AAA as a 20 year old in 2030. Gonzalez is fine as a #4/5 and Pena could also see a few starts through the season.

Luis Soto (9/7/7 Ratings)
Brooks McHall (6/6/8 Ratings)
Marcos Villegas (7/7/9 Ratings)
Leon Gonzalez (8/6/6 Ratings)
Tommy Dietz (8/7/7 Ratings)
Alberto Pena (7/6/7 Ratings)

Bullpen
Vargas is a true closer and I expect him to bounce back from a poor 2030 campaign. Sanchez has an overpowering fastball and Chaves can shut down lefties. The rest of the pen is fine, but they aren't exactly going to turn any heads this year (though Lara could be pretty good down the road)

Manny Vargas (8/8/9 Ratings)
Emilio Sanchez (10/7/6 Ratings)
Pedro Chaves (8/7/8 Ratings)
Tomas Suarez (6/8/7 Ratings)
Jose Lara (7/8/5 Ratings)
Chris Harris (7/7/7 Ratings)

2031 Prediction
Entering the 10th year of the rebuild, GM Chris Wilson has to decide if the pitching will be able to improve enough to compliment the lineup, or if another retooling is in order. The lineup is amazing, even without Salazar and Grant, and they can certainly slug their way to some wins and potentially even top 800 runs. The rotation looks to be improved, but is the improvement enough? The defense is also a question, which won't do any favors for the pitching staff. Still, I think the additions of Soto and Dietz will be worth a couple of wins. I'll say they'll top 70 wins for just the 3rd time in 9 years, but I think the losing season streak will extend to 10 years. 72-90, another 5th place finish.

Prospects to Watch
C Allan MacHugh (6/6/7/9/4 Talents): It was found that his birth documents were falsified, and it has been huge for Madison. He's now a decent righty platoon option and 'only' 26.
CF Luis Maldonado (6/6/9/5/8 Talents): Power lefty bat, who needs to improve his range to stay at center.
SP Denis Pham (9/8/6 Talents): Great fastball/slider combo, will need the changeup to improve if he is going to be anything more than a good bullpen arm.
SP Armando Rodriguez (7/7/8 Talents): Lefty who looks like he could be a solid #3/4.
SP Harold Lane (7/6/8 Talents): Lefty who could be a #5 right now, but doesn't have a high ceiling.
SP Jose Feliz (9/6/6 Talents): Intriguing cutter, needs some bumps, but interesting prospect.
SP James Robinson (8/6/6 Talents): 6th round has had bumps and is very developed for 18, can he continue to bump?

[bschr682]

Madison is in a tough spot. Clearly great offense. Habitually short on pitching. Some of those great bats are about to need to get paid and that may just slam shut the window before it ever even opened.

[udlb58]

Madison is in a tough spot. Clearly great offense. Habitually short on pitching. Some of those great bats are about to need to get paid and that may just slam shut the window before it ever even opened.

Eh, I don't think they are that bad off. Draper and Mick will certainly be getting more expensive, but they are under team control through 2034 and 2035. Barrera has another year of league minimum and 3 arbitration seassons still. Dempsey and Rhodes are both under contract through 2034 (Dempsey through 2037).

Decisions will have to be made on Freyta and Villegas though as both are coming up on their final arbitration season and the price tag may be more than you'd want for the production.

Everyone of consequence is under contract in 2032 and there's still $20M left under the cap. Though, most of that would go towards the one or two top pitchers that need to be added.

[bschr682]

Madison is in a tough spot. Clearly great offense. Habitually short on pitching. Some of those great bats are about to need to get paid and that may just slam shut the window before it ever even opened.

Eh, I don't think they are that bad off. Draper and Mick will certainly be getting more expensive, but they are under team control through 2034 and 2035. Barrera has another year of league minimum and 3 arbitration seassons still. Dempsey and Rhodes are both under contract through 2034 (Dempsey through 2037).

Decisions will have to be made on Freyta and Villegas though as both are coming up on their final arbitration season and the price tag may be more than you'd want for the production.

Everyone of consequence is under contract in 2032 and there's still $20M left under the cap. Though, most of that would go towards the one or two top pitchers that need to be added.

Well I sorta agree with all that and still I think my point is valid. Louisville, Yellow Springs, and now Des Moines are all better than Madison if you ask me. They will not have the money to add if they keep everyone they have long term and the farm has now graduated all of their blue chippers so I don't know how they jump up. That's more of what im getting at.

[udlb58]

Madison is in a tough spot. Clearly great offense. Habitually short on pitching. Some of those great bats are about to need to get paid and that may just slam shut the window before it ever even opened.

Eh, I don't think they are that bad off. Draper and Mick will certainly be getting more expensive, but they are under team control through 2034 and 2035. Barrera has another year of league minimum and 3 arbitration seassons still. Dempsey and Rhodes are both under contract through 2034 (Dempsey through 2037).

Decisions will have to be made on Freyta and Villegas though as both are coming up on their final arbitration season and the price tag may be more than you'd want for the production.

Everyone of consequence is under contract in 2032 and there's still $20M left under the cap. Though, most of that would go towards the one or two top pitchers that need to be added.

Well I sorta agree with all that and still I think my point is valid. Louisville, Yellow Springs, and now Des Moines are all better than Madison if you ask me. They will not have the money to add if they keep everyone they have long term and the farm has now graduated all of their blue chippers so I don't know how they jump up. That's more of what im getting at.

Ah, yeah. It will be tough, but I think the only option is to try and trade/sign/get lucky to get the final pitcher or two. Outside of Draper, I think the other top players will be hard to move due to their position. When it comes to Dempsey, Rhodes, Mick, Soto, Villegas, etc, the trade value probably doesn't equal their potential production.

But I do get your point. Louisville is smack in the middle of the window, as is YS9, and Des Moines is looking to come into their own (plus Fred and Omaha)

[RonCo]

Chris will probably disagree with me, but Madison has been dealing with ramifications of Salazar's contract for some time. I think it still echoes in the depths of the organization.

As far as YS9, we're playing a give and take game...pushing our dollars into pitching while we have young cheap hitters, and planning to have a batch of cheap good pitchers come up when we need to start paying out hitters. If it works our "window" will extend for some time. Technically, the goal will be to swing things back and forth over time. That's been the plan since the beginning, and we're in the middle of the first pivot.

We'll see how well it works.

[bschr682]

Chris will probably disagree with me, but Madison has been dealing with ramifications of Salazar's contract for some time. I think it still echoes in the depths of the organization.

As far as YS9, we're playing a give and take game...pushing our dollars into pitching while we have young cheap hitters, and planning to have a batch of cheap good pitchers come up when we need to start paying out hitters. If it works our "window" will extend for some time. Technically, the goal will be to swing things back and forth over time. That's been the plan since the beginning, and we're in the middle of the first pivot.

We'll see how well it works.

I totally agree. Salazar killed him. In a salary cap league, their really is a limit on how much you can pay one player and not kill yourself.

[RonCo]

Baca's deal "proves" that in the right spot you can do it for a year, but Savage's deal sucked up resources for three seasons while Madison was bad. Again, Chris will almost certainly not agree with this, and he's closer to it than either of us.

[bschr682]

I'm not entirely sure this is possible but itd be awfully interesting to see if there is any sort of link from player salary to team success. As in what is the max salary a team can give to a single player and still form a successful team around them. Sample size alone probably kills any chance of it having any sort of meaning but itd still be interesting.

[RonCo]

I think it depends on the players already there. YS9 had a large number of good, cheap players already in the pipeline, so one mega-year didn't totally disable to club so much as the attempt to tank another season.

[RonCo]

And, in all seriousness, if Baca had turned out to be even 90% of the player Salazar is, there's a reasonable chance the team would have a Landis or two in the war chest even with the tank year. Baca's salary killed the team for one year, in which it wasn't doing anything anyway. It hamstrung us for another year, but that was as much about budget than anything else, and if Al/Avery hadn't tanked the year previous, the budget might have been heading north and made that less problematic.

I'm pretty familiar with this game theory because I had rights to Salazar and decided my entire goal was going to be to make MAD overpay for three seasons (huge for year one, then $30M+ for each), primarily because I didn't see that the Wolves had the infrastructure in place to be competitive if they signed him. So this approach meant I was removing a division rival from the picture for at least five seasons.

[RonCo]

Last point here...Madison's Budget/Payroll value is .938 (their payroll is currently at 93.8% of budget). This is 27th worst in the league, behind Carolina's. This means that relative to the rest of the league, they have very little wiggle room and even less room to deal with mistakes. Unless they win a lot, their budget is probably not going to grow in the near future. Add to this the dynamics of their young players needing to get paid, and you have a very tight design box that is tough to deal with.

The fact that Madison never played above .500 ball with Salazar on their roster was a financial disaster. If they had won enough to grow their budget, then yes, they could have probably survived that mega-contract.

I think there's a place for signing a total over-spend, but the situation is quite rare.

[7teen]

Thanks for the preview. Sorry been very busy weekend of youth baseball. Hoping your 72 win prediction is wrong. Haha

[Ted]

I think the answer is only one or two, but how many of those Salazar season's were with OOTP 17? A very critical reason some of the rebuilding teams have failed to get going is the inability to build revenue that was caused by 17's fan interest bugs (fa signings and trade acquisitions didn't increase fan interest). While you guys are probably right about Salazar's contract being an albatross, it's critical to remember that rebuilding teams trying to build fan interest and thereby revenue aren't going to be extending too many people. Their young guys are team controlled, and that's the bulk of their popular players. For OOTP 17, that was pretty much the only way to increase fan interest in the offseason, and thereby generate revenue.

[7teen]

Just to jump in on the rest of the discussion, I think it is hard for me to deny that the Salazar contract didn't do us in based on the fact that his rookie season we finished with a net loss of $44 million that season which put our team budget into a tail spin.

But I don't think that signing was the reason. I think a large reason was that was the season I opted to turn the off-season over to Dan Fiscus (the ASST GM/AI) to see if by chance the computer could make some good roster moves for me. I can't recall the team but one team turned their off-season over to the AI and it seemed to make some good moves. Well it didnt' work out that well as we were signing a ton of guys to 1-2 million dollar deals that I eventually had to eat when these guys had to be released due to 40-man roster restrictions. I want to say I had well over 50 guys on teh 40-man roster and some had to be let go without ever playing a regular season game.

The game allowed me to sign Salazar because I had the funds to do so. What it didn't account for was me also accepting the Rule 6 offer on Alaniz that was pushed through because of the way it was set up. I basically stole two EBA guys that season and Alaniz's contract was automatically pushed through the game. So it was probably a factor of all 3 of these events: The Salazar signing, the matching of Alaniz's contract, and giving Fiscus off-season control after that.

My finances do appear to be back on the upswing thanks to lowering ticket prices and increasing attendance. OOTP18 also seems to be way more generous with Fan Interest like Ted indicated. My fan interest has climbed substantially this off-season with the extensions of Rhodes and Dempsey as well as some of the other off-season moves I made. But like Brett indicated, it may be too late for these guys by the time the finances are straighted out. We will see.....

[udlb58]

I think the answer is only one or two, but how many of those Salazar season's were with OOTP 17? A very critical reason some of the rebuilding teams have failed to get going is the inability to build revenue that was caused by 17's fan interest bugs (fa signings and trade acquisitions didn't increase fan interest). While you guys are probably right about Salazar's contract being an albatross, it's critical to remember that rebuilding teams trying to build fan interest and thereby revenue aren't going to be extending too many people. Their young guys are team controlled, and that's the bulk of their popular players. For OOTP 17, that was pretty much the only way to increase fan interest in the offseason, and thereby generate revenue.

Which is why I like to extend my arbitration eligible players, even if I don't get them on anything but their arbitration estimate. Free FI bumps

On a tangential note, OOTP 18 seems to be VERY generous with FI. My trade for Medrano boosted our FI nearly 15 points.

[Ted]

I think the answer is only one or two, but how many of those Salazar season's were with OOTP 17? A very critical reason some of the rebuilding teams have failed to get going is the inability to build revenue that was caused by 17's fan interest bugs (fa signings and trade acquisitions didn't increase fan interest). While you guys are probably right about Salazar's contract being an albatross, it's critical to remember that rebuilding teams trying to build fan interest and thereby revenue aren't going to be extending too many people. Their young guys are team controlled, and that's the bulk of their popular players. For OOTP 17, that was pretty much the only way to increase fan interest in the offseason, and thereby generate revenue.

Which is why I like to extend my arbitration eligible players, even if I don't get them on anything but their arbitration estimate. Free FI bumps

On a tangential note, OOTP 18 seems to be VERY generous with FI. My trade for Medrano boosted our FI nearly 15 points.

Yeah, I think they overreacted to the problems in 17. Picking up Boogie got me around 15 or so as well. All they had to do was fix the FA signing and trade stuff.

[udlb58]

Well, I got the 90 and the 72 right, just in the wrong order

I had Madison as a top 5 offense, but didn't see them being the #1 offense in the Frick (by 35 runs); nor did I see Soto putting up a career best FIP, over 3/4 of a run better than his next best season.

[allenr]

Stupid Soto not signing with me