Long Beach Press-Telegram - 2004 on the Farm

[jcrmoon42]

The club sent fantastic prospects to the major leagues this season, particularly Homicide Carver and Roo Schmidt, but they still maintain the #1 farm system in the game according to Baseball America. That's the fruit of a whole lot of years of suck. Let's see how the youngsters did.

Three of their minor league teams, at AA, A, and Rookie finished in first place with a combined record of 223-86, although none of them won their championships.

Pop Guzman, the first baseman drafted #1 overall in 2002 continued his march to the majors with OPS of .891 and .893 at AA and AAA respectively. Under a major league contract, he is out of options, but he is ready for the big leagues, even if he's not quite ready to take over from Ted Sale as the starter.

Lee "RVD" O'Herlihy, last year's second overall pick, spent the season in A ball and made good progress, showing he's ready to move up a level next year.

The club has a few good catching prospects, but the best of the bunch is 22-year old Chuck Bowers. Released by the Crawdads in 2000, Bowers has been developed by the Long Beach minor league coaches to make him one of the better catching prospects around. He hit well in both A and AA this year, with OPS above .940 at both levels and is likely to be in AAA next season.

#1 pitching prospect Brad Mooney still has a ways to go at age 22, but he did have a really good year between Rookie and A ball with ERA's below 1.90 at both levels.

Former top prospect Dave Santry is 26 now and has stalled a bit in his control development but still maintains top potential in that area. He struggled out of the major league pen but performed acceptably at the AAA level and is still considered part of the future in The Beach.

[bschr682]

Well now that the season is over how do you feel about our Orm, Mooney for Poc trade? I love what Poc did for me but Orm really did well for you and Mooney might just be pretty good too.

[recte44]

Guzman should be a factor next season. Glad to see the development bell is quickening a bit.

O'Herlihy= FL be scared. Be very scared.

[jcrmoon42]

Well now that the season is over how do you feel about our Orm, Mooney for Poc trade? I love what Poc did for me but Orm really did well for you and Mooney might just be pretty good too.

I'm good with it. Worked out well for both teams. Mooney's not a star, but he will be good enough. Orm lumped a little after the trade but is still good enough considering how stellar the glove is. Nice when a deal works out for everyone.

[Al-Hoot]

"A whole lot of years of suck" is gonna be my new plan to rebuild Hawaii. It's the only way to go, when one has so little talent base to build on.

[bschr682]

if it makes you feel better, so far in OOTP 13 the drafts are way, way deeper. You have guys in the tail end of the second round that are still 4.5 to 5 star prospects. So you wont have to suck so bad to get good draftees. Altho that means we really need to get on the same page as a league come draft time or some guys are get really screwed.

[Al-Hoot]

if it makes you feel better, so far in OOTP 13 the drafts are way, way deeper. You have guys in the tail end of the second round that are still 4.5 to 5 star prospects. So you wont have to suck so bad to get good draftees. Altho that means we really need to get on the same page as a league come draft time or some guys are get really screwed.

Yeah but do we know if that is a generic function of v13-or specific to some leagues played on v13? Besides I am not sure I'd want multitudes of supercharged talent coming in.

[jcrmoon42]

I like the idea of there being "talent" available further in the draft. If all of that talent develops to its full potential, then we have a problem. However, the game seems to take care of that.

Therein lies the problem. The game doesn't always distinguish who it lumps when it is evening things out. So, your top draft pick can more easily turn into crap. This makes it twice as hard for bad teams to move in the right direction.

[bschr682]

Everything ive seen myself and read on the forums suggests that we will see a large increase in the number of legit prospects but at the same time the game engine does a pretty good job of not letting them all reach their potential. I like this a lot. It should increase the number of trades that are possible for one. Also I have always thought that prospects in OOTP were far too sure a bet to make it. Granted injuries knocked some prospects out but not enough. It will make the drafts a very important and stressful (but rewarding) time.