bhurst99

Good luck (except when you're playing Toronto)

Well, the Cubs weren't fooling around and blew our offer out of the water. I didn't get a chance to make even a counter offer. Lesson learned. Don't be insulting the free agents with short deals.

Yep, still running it. I actually like this more than MLB 13. Likely a slider issue. I can't get sliders I enjoy with MLB 13. There seem to be less replays in MLB 13 which really bothers me.

Nah, too old for a starter. CTRL + Q to Enable/Disable GoPhoto.it

Well, this is strange. I thought we picked up the club option on Rod Barajas but here he is in the free agent list. If Barajas wants out of here so bad that the club option doesn't work so be it. Let's make an offer for Paul Lo Duca. Wasn't he good once upon a time? He only hit .218 last year so we make him a low ball offer for $3.9 million over two years. We'll wait and see if he takes it. Time to take a look at starting pitchers. Not sure what happened but Jeff Weaver didn't pitch last year. Maybe he spent the year in the minors. He's got some good ratings so we'll make his agent a pitch to come to Toronto. He's considered the second best pitcher out there. We offer three years and $11.2 million. It's a pretty weak free agent group for pitchers. Claudio Vargas? An ancient Tom Glavine? Yikes. Maybe it's better to groom one of our existing young pitchers.

Time to look at the free agents. Our biggest needs are a second baseman and a power hitter to replace retired Frank Thomas. We don't waste any time and immediately make an offer to the best second baseman out there, Placido Polanco. We make a three-year, $27 million offer. He had a great season last year, hitting .324 with 15 homers and 87 RBIs. We'll wait to see if he accepts our offer. Time to look for a power hitter. Let's take a look at other positions. Chone Figgins would be an interesting option at third base. But he doesn't have the power we need. We'll look at other players and delay making him an offer. Nothing here that would unseat Vernon Wells as our starting center fielder. Jose Guillen? No, thanks. Sammy Sosa? Too old. Hmm, Jason Bay is Canadian. Maybe he'd like to come home and play in Canada. With 27 homers last season, he might be the best power option out there. We'll see if he's willing to take a home country discount and make him an offer of $21 million over four seasons.

The only other draft pick worth talking about is Kelley Valentine. He's certainly a big dude at 6-3, 212 pounds who can apparently blow people away according to his strikeout-to-innings pitched rating. He could develop into a decent reliever.

Here's who we drafted in the Amateur Draft. If you ever see any of these players get in a game for me then you know I've been playing this game far too long. This was the best player left in the draft when it was our turn to pick at 30th overall. He's got some good power and speed ratings. It's just too bad his contact rating is so bad he'll never get on base. I kid. He's only 19, lots of time to boost those ratings. He certainly has a Major League ego as he demands and gets a pretty hefty three-year contract. Our second round pick is this catcher. With both of our existing catchers past their prime, it was time to look to the future. He's going to need to improve a lot. He must know it because he practically begs us for a contract.

Whoops. It's actually time for the Amateur Draft first.

Marco Scutaro had an enormous playoffs for us. His 26 RBIs in just 196 regular season at bats wasn't too shabby, either. We re-signed him to a one-year deal for $390,000. Obviously, he has the worst agent in baseball. Especially when you consider ... ... it took us $400,000 to sign Brandon League who was awful last year. He got hit like a pinada at a children's birthday party. He ended the year in the minors. Still he got more scratch than Scutaro. We exercised the club options on catchers Gregg Zaun and Rod Barajas. They're the last players of note we re-signed. Onto the free agent crop!

Jesse Litsch rebounded from an early season injury to become number three in our rotation by the end of the season. We need to improve our rotation next season but we'll take him back at a salary of less than a million per season for the next seasons. Scott Downs bounced between the rotation and the bullpen. He was either very good when he pitched or very bad. I'm willing to give $5 million over three years for a left handed pitcher with an ERA of 4.48.

It's time to re-sign players before hitting the free agent market. The team's needs are a bigger power bat to replace Frank Thomas, a second baseman and a quality starter. Holy cow. I have $92 million under contract already for 2009 but I have a total budget of $162 million, leaving us with $70 million to spend. It's good to be World Champions! First thing I do is blow $9 million on a two-year deal to resign second baseman Aaron Hill. He was awful last year with just two homers in 270 at bats. I realize as I'm posting this that was a bad deal for the team. I should have cut him loose. I guess I got blinded by his ratings and how much money I have. Second order of business is to resign Lyle Overbay to a three-year, $10 million contract. In real life that would be nuts. But in this dynasty Overbay won the batting championship and finished with 102 RBIs despite missing the last month of the season. I fleeced him and his agent.

Oh my, Gregg Zaun! It might be time to start that television career. He drops five points after a very good 2008 season. His battery mate Rod Barajas actually went up a point at age 33 despite seeing little action. I'm surprised Shawn Marcum didn't get an increase. Brian Tallet and Brian Wolfe were nothing special and deserve their drop. Overall, I'm pretty concerned with the number of players who have seen their ratings drop.

Despite turning 32, Lyle Overbay gains three points after winning the batting championship. Joe Inglett and Jesse Litsch also increase two points. David Eckstein drops four points.

Whoa. Lots of players' ratings are falling. B.J. Ryan takes a huge hit. I can't believe Alex Rios has the highest overall on the team. I barely played Aaron Hill but the plus 3 to his overall is one of the biggest gains on the club.

We made $46 million this year?!? Time for a free agent spending bonanza!

Love the old retro teams. Must be fun playing with all those old Yankees stars.

Thanks man. I appreciate people following.

Thanks! It was such an enjoyable game (once I had the sliders set) that I had a great time with this dynasty.

I accomplished three of my goals on my four-year contract. I crushed the goal of having three players hit .280 or better and finishing with a win percentage of .470 better. I almost blew the division with my late season collapse. It's kind of strange one of my goals wasn't winning the World Series within my four-year contract but I guess that's a reflection of poorly the Jays were playing in real life before the 2008 season. Thought I had a chance with a major individual award but Frank Thomas and A.J. Burnett fell short. I never came close to a 10-game winning streak.

Nope, no awards for any Blue Jays

Other Notable Retiring Players ATL-Mike Hampton ARI-Randy Johnson CLE-Jose Contreras DET-Kenny Rogers FLA-Luis Gonzalez HOU-Omar Vizquel LAA-Vladimir Guerrero NYM-Pedro Martinez NYY-Mariano Rivera SEA-Miguel Batista SEA-Arthur Rhodes SD-Greg Madduz FA-Mike Piazza FA-David Wells