2008 Regular Season SIM 5 Complete - Next SIM Tues 9/9

[Matt]

Next SIM: Tues 9/9

- Files due by 8 am ET | 5 am PT, any later and you run the risk of missing the sim.
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- DFA: Los Alamos (placed AAA Adil on IR, moved to AAA)
- Roster:

[Jake]

Swept Death Valley.... swept by Morgantown. Just what I expected?

[Guest]

Dead last in power rankings, right where we belong. haha

On the bright side, last year's #1 pick for us, Xavier Milledge is tearing up single A and might be moving up.

[umd]

Bad week. First one. Good series Jake and Carlos.

[Pat]

4-2 week! And they said it couldn't be done!

Surprisingly, facing the DC3 and the Dallas Snappers, the Bats went 2-1. Robby Duffy outdueled CJ Skinner and the Bats got a little help from a Sully snafu...I don't think he updated his interleague lineups so we didn't have to face BJ Jobe or Antonio Cardenas as starters. The Bats then traveled to Indy and went 2-1, with the one loss being a 3-4 extra innings heart breaker.

[Z]

3-3 sim. We swept Davenport then got swept at Windy City. A little surprising considering it's a down year for the Playboys. All the games in that series were close.

River Ross signed a contract extension. Andy Beniquez agreed to a minor league contract.

We're 24-8 and lead the Ale by six games.

[Carlos]

Bad week. First one. Good series Jake and Carlos.

We ended up winning that series on a hit by pitch in the 9th inning.

Denver BC was 5-1. We move 2.5 back of Syracuse who needs to stop sweeping us for that to matter.

Pat Verba seems to be warming up a bit. I guess he's more of a .250 hitter with a 6 in contact because it's OOTP and why not.

I'm trying to build this team on speed and power and we did that this week. 12 stolen bases and 7 home runs. I approve.

This is one of those rare weeks where every single one of my "top" hitters performed well. Cole (.869 OPS), Leo Martinez (1.083), McInturf (.920), McPherson (1.053), Perkins (1.157), Henry Rodrigues (.839), Verba (.813).

Not going to have many .893 Team OPS weeks. But it explains a 5-1 week.

[Jimmy]

5-1, Nice bounce back. It was all offense this week, the BP got beat up and the starters were so-so. Lona responded to his benching, we got Gutz back(he going to have a big season) OF Brendan Lawyer was huge, winning player of the week. Low risk FA signing, he may just stick the year out in the bigs.

An unfortunate turn of events in AA. The Fort Lee Generals were off to an impressive start to the season offensively with 6 players hitting over .300. Those types of starts worry me as the game will eventually take players out who are playing over their heads. Sure enough, three position starters down in one week.

[Delandis]

Wow. 6-0 and straight to the top of the Power Rankings. We were dead last in it after the first week.

Looks like almost everyone is starting to settle in offensively. As expected, the combination of Hamilton and Chiba is explosive. Hamilton is leading the BLB in OBP while Chiba leads the BLB in average and OPS. Chiba is destroying anyone that pitches in Phillips Field right now: lefties, righties, young and old. He just doesn't care.

However the real unsung heroes of this early offensive explosion are Ron Wessel and Kunhiro Inouye. Wessel came over from Indy this past off-season with little fanfare in the trade forums, but has had a huge impact hitting over .350 with 6 stolen bases as a leadoff hitter. Quietly, Inouye made the IL All-Star team last year, but was hit by a pitch and was out for 6 weeks with a broken tibia. He struggled to start this year, but has found his groove of late. And when that power comes back, look out.

Our only real issue right now (outside of Alex Gomez falling off the proverbial cliff), is our bullpen. Normally very solid, we're sitting down around the bottom of the IL in bullpen ERA. We may be in the market for a few cheap, more reliable arms if things don't turn around in that area soon.