2005 @ The Break

[umd]

Team stuff:

Who is your 1st half MVP?

Who/what is your biggest surprise?

Who/what is your biggest disappointment?

What is the best move (FA, trade, waiver) you made?

League Stuff:

Biggest surprise in IL/DL?

Best team in each league?

New Brew first half? IL/DL

Best pitcher first half? IL/DL

Best hitter first half? IL/DL

GM? IL/DL

[Delandis]

Who is your 1st half MVP?
Gotta be the rook, Danny Martinez. He pretty much usurped the spot from Barrios. Probably the only reason we have a puncher's chance of taking the wildcard.

Who/what is your biggest surprise?
This time its Dave Crews. I picked him up with a minor league contract really just to find some type of offense from the 5th outfielder position. Dave has taken the reigns and earned a spot as an everyday starter. He's probably our most consistent offensive threat when you look at hitting against both lefties and righties.

Who/what is your biggest disappointment?
Has to be Rueben Mendoza. I really thought he'd ratchet up the play after he played so well his rookie year. Unfortunately he can't keep the ball in the park or stop walking hitters. He'll probably spend the rest of the year back in Annapolis (AAA).

What is the best move (FA, trade, waiver) you made?
Alvarez seems to be showing signs of breaking this first half slump so that deal isn't as bad as initially thought, but the best move so far has to be grabbing Crews on that minor league deal.


Biggest surprise in IL/DL?
I know conventional wisdom says DVS but I'm going to go out on a limb and say Dallas. They've had a very solid year and there is no way I would have seen them where they are now.

Best team in each league?
The IL is pretty cut and dry for me. Windy City just has too many weapons from top to bottom. The DL is a little more complicated but I'm going to have to say New Orleans. Their pitching is back to the level we expect from them and Fujiyama has to be the best underrated superstar since Jose Guzman.

New Brew first half? IL/DL
The DL should forfeit the award this year. If I had to pick, I'd go with former Bulldog prospect, Shane Giles. You already know who I think is the frontrunner in the IL (Danny Martinez).

Best pitcher first half? IL/DL
-Mejia
-Guiteirrez (he's thirty what and still doing this...?)

Best hitter first half? IL/DL
-Mr. Caplan? Big Stud called. He wants his top spot back.
-Yamamoto
GM? IL/DL[/QUOTE]

[umd]

Team stuff:

Who is your 1st half MVP?

This is tough, I will go with Ian Reynolds for the first half. He leads the team in HRs and RBIs and has been the protypical clean-up hitter behind Watts, Cash and Salcedo.

Who/what is your biggest surprise?

Travis Hoffman. We got him off waivers 2 years ago as filler, maybe a #5 starter. He's been so much better than that with 7 wins and a strong ERA.

Who/what is your biggest disappointment?

Agustin Perales. He's played better of late, but I expected more I think.

What is the best move (FA, trade, waiver) you made?

FA - Alex Torres - we paid him a ton to fill out the top of the rotation and I think he's dont that. Is he worth $20m? No, but he is doing what I needed him to do.

Trade - Manhos and Poe I think I got the best deals on. Reynolds and Fajardo worked out well too.

League Stuff:

Biggest surprise in IL/DL?

DL - Dallas - Sully has really put together a nice first half run despite starting a rebuild.

IL - How big the gap is from the playoff contenders then everyone else.

Best team in each league?

IL - New Orleans - They have the best Top 3 pitchers. If they add that bat they'll be extremely dangerous.

DL - Lead the conference in everything. Best pitching, best line-up.

New Brew first half? IL/DL

Not sure, need to do some research.


Best pitcher first half? IL/DL

IL - Heberholz WC
DL - Guitierrez MAI

Best hitter first half? IL/DL

IL - Robles WC
DL - Jones IND

GM? IL/DL

DL - Sully
IL - Jistic

[funclown]

Team stuff:

Pawtucket 47-41 at break. I swear its almost the same record as last season. Makes no sense. 5 out of division, 2 out of the wildcard. Not a bad spot actually. We've seen worse.


Who is your 1st half MVP?

1B Baltesar Babilo. We traded Jon Montalvo for a second rounder & Gomez and all we hoped for was Babilio to OPS to Jon like numbers (.750 range). Career high of 27 homeruns and has 24 at Allstar break. Yeah, the gamble paid off.



Who/what is your biggest surprise?

Overall starting rotation. Pawtucket thrives off backend starters and this year has been no different. Cosio made the Allstar team and Roldan gave a us a respectable first half. Even Gomez seems to be getting it. Aparacio the one hit wonder is in AAA where my scout bumped his ratings again??



Who/what is your biggest disappointment?

Quinn easily with Lucca and Dave Miller as honorable mention. Simply put, if Quinn does't snap out of his first half funk we are doomed. Didn't expect the same 04 numbers from Lucca, but least a .280 ave/ .800ops would be nice. Dave Miller...yeah he learned what happens when you don't perform in Pawtucket.



What is the best move (FA, trade, waiver) you made?

Lol, Bablio and Pat Gould easily outperforming who they replaced. Can't say we didn't put our money in the right players. Gaston we won't know the impact until this second half, but it would be a minor shock if he doesn't improve our road record.



Biggest surprise in IL/DL?

Easy ones, Dallas DL & DeathValley in the IL. Sure, I expected DV to improve alot but come on!!! Great season so far. Dallas amazed you can scrap it out against the top two in the Pilsner. See what happens when the game resets after allstar break. Not sure that will hold, but crazy things tend to happen.

Best team in each league?

Windy City in the IL and then a whole bunch of teams in the DL. In the DL very common for the teams in first place at the break NOT to be in first place come season end. Even rarer if they hold wire - wire. The IL races are over already. Windy City is just screwing around.



GM? IL/DL

I'd say UMD walks away with it in the IL and going to go with Jimmy in the DL. Any guy that can trade Johnny Morris away and still be in the thick of things at Allstar break gets my vote. That and extra pts for stealing a top 10 first rounder next season with another trade.

[funclown]

Best team in each league?

IL - New Orleans - They have the best Top 3 pitchers. If they add that bat they'll be extremely dangerous.

Hmmm.

[Matt]

Who is your 1st half MVP?

SP Ron Burton: Really though we brought him up too fast as he went 3-7 with a 5.04 ERA last year and had a horrible spring training. He's played lights out though, is 6-0 in his last 7 games, and my scout think he can get better.

Who/what is your biggest surprise?

Our pitching. To have the #2 ERA for SP and #1 ERA for our bullpen has been the difference.

Who/what is your biggest disappointment?

The wonder twins...Jon Gutierrez and Jon Montalbo. For both of them we paid a 1st, 2nd, SP, and top 15 prospect. Both of them have an OBP under .300 and a combined 198 K's. My scout still thinks they are dominant players so maybe they will pick it up in the second half as they both had horrible June's.

What is the best move (FA, trade, waiver) you made?

As much as I'm disappointed in them it's bringing the Bash Brothers to Batavia. With nearly 100 RBI's and 36 HR's they are winning games for our pitchers who aren't allowing many runs. We have never been a HR team and our highest in team history was 136 in 1994, so it's been nice to see the long ball.

Biggest surprise in IL/DL?

- Hartford won 47 games last year...they are at 43 now...in the toughest division in the BLB.
- DVS goes without saying.

Best team in each league?

Maine and Windy City. Once again Maine wins out for playing in the Ale and Windy City is just dominant from top to bottom. In the playoffs it's anyone's game but they have 58 wins and are -7 in Diff.

New Brew first half? IL/DL

SP B.J Carpenter in Indy and OF Tom Gibson in Davenport. BJ is going to be lights out and is showing it already. Gibson is a former 1.3 pick and will be just as good plus he's playing against both lefties and righties.

Best pitcher first half? IL/DL

- SP Fernando Hernandez in Maine...guy put up a 4.10 ERA last season, cost a lot of money, and Maine paid a lot to get him. He's now playing very well and making Z look like a star.
- Pick any of WC's top three.

Best hitter first half? IL/DL

Jonathan Morris for NO. Fujii for Cali. Morris always seemed like a guy who never played to his ratings but looking at his history it's hard to argue with a lifetime .300/.400 hitter. Fujii has been the best hitter in the IL since 2000.

GM? IL/DL

- I'll go with Z in Maine. A very tough division and he's 16 games over .500.
- UMD in DVS is once again the obvious choice...but Squid in Carolina is the future of the IL. We haven't seen a 300+ point system since the last time Carolina did this.

[mwetts]

We haven't seen a 300+ point system since the last time Carolina did this.

Don't forget about Pitt...

I think we hit 319 at one point.

[Delandis]

2005 @ The Break

but Squid in Carolina is the future of the IL. We haven't seen a 300+ point system since the last time Carolina did this.

I think Ive seen this movie before. I'm pretty sure squid gets everybody killed in the end.

[funclown]

Don't forget about Pitt...

I think we hit 319 at one point.

Yeah that was scary at the time.

[Jimmy]

I think I was at 300 in '95 with Simmons, Alvarez, Burley, Webster and "Grinder". That didn't last long.

[Jistic]

We haven't seen a 300+ point system since the last time Carolina did this.

Just sayin...

<table style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: medium; margin-bottom: 12px;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tbody><tr><td colspan="4">Minor League Systems</td></tr><tr><td>#</td><td>Team</td><td style="padding-right: 20px;">Points</td><td>Top 5 Prospects</td></tr><tr><td>1st</td><td>Windy City Playboys</td><td>308</td><td>CF J. Caplan (2nd) , P T. Neal (3rd) , P E. Mejia (4th) , SS T. Krummen (17th) , P T. Oshman (21st)</td></tr></tbody></table>

[Delandis]

Just sayin...

<table style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: medium; margin-bottom: 12px;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tbody><tr><td colspan="4">Minor League Systems</td></tr><tr><td>#</td><td>Team</td><td style="padding-right: 20px;">Points</td><td>Top 5 Prospects</td></tr><tr><td>1st</td><td>Windy City Playboys</td><td>308</td><td>CF J. Caplan (2nd) , P T. Neal (3rd) , P E. Mejia (4th) , SS T. Krummen (17th) , P T. Oshman (21st)</td></tr></tbody></table>

Neal doesn't count.

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[Jistic]

Do the 10 other top 100's we had at the time count?

[Delandis]

Just sayin...

<table style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: medium; margin-bottom: 12px;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tbody><tr><td colspan="4">Minor League Systems</td></tr><tr><td>#</td><td>Team</td><td style="padding-right: 20px;">Points</td><td>Top 5 Prospects</td></tr><tr><td>1st</td><td>Windy City Playboys</td><td>308</td><td>CF J. Caplan (2nd) , P T. Neal (3rd) , P E. Mejia (4th) , SS T. Krummen (17th) , P T. Oshman (21st)</td></tr></tbody></table>

Let's go ahead and throw them out too while we are at it.

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[Sully]

Who cares? Of all the teams bragging about their prospect ranking, how many have won a championship since?