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SB-Nation 2015 off-season simulation: Day Two recap

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Welcome back to the SB Nation off-season simulation with President Hatfield and VP D-Russ.

On Sunday, we traded away a closer (Jake McGee) for a great contract for a starting catcher in Yan Gomes.

On Monday, we landed a new closer by offering four years and $22M to S Oh, in which we appeared to clearly be the highest bidder.

As it was astutely put by Sam Miller on this morning's Effectively Wild podcast:

"Say there's a move that you want to make that seems good to you, and 29 other teams wouldn't do it. Its really hard to know whether that means you should do it because you found a market inefficiency, or if that means you're an idiot."

Jake McGee has put up numbers in the past that are not all that different from what Craig Kimbrel put up in San Diego. Before that, though, Kimbrel was under GOAT status and Boston treated him as such in an IRL deal that trumps what we got for McGee. Who was right?

Tampa Bay signs Seung-Hwan Oh to a four year $22 million deal

Oh is an established international closer that has succeeded in Korea and Japan, can hit 97, works an elevated fastball and has an apparent mentality for the role. The Final Boss. The Stone Buddha.

Were we right to bet on him over McGee at the same AAV?

John and Ian wrote more about Oh, read there and let us know.

Just say no to the Cubs

Unfortunately that ends the major league deals from yesterday. There was more than 100 e-mails exchanged with the Cubs but the demands grew bombastic with time, including some real disconnect on whether Taylor Guerrieri's previous "drug problem" (smoking pot while recovering from Tommy John) meant he wasn't worth his ceiling.

Ambiguous mumbo jumbo like that. This is all a game, but we are more dedicated to realism this year and we hope you appreciate that, particularly when we turn down offers like this:

Cubs Get
SP Drew Smyly
SP Taylor Guerrieri
RP Brandon Koch
One of: SS Daniel Robertson, SS Adrian Rondon, SS Willy Adames, or OF Garrett Whitley

Rays Get
RF Jorge Soler
SP Bryan Hudson

We'll circle back with the Cubs today and see what might stick.

Wait, there's more!

The other big almost-moves from Monday were losing the bidding on Korean outfielder Hyun-Soo Kim and reliever Tony Sipp.

Our offer to Kim, one of our Rays targets this off-season, had $10M guaranteed with two options, topping out at 6/$18, but the Orioles gave him 4/$12 and he wanted the shorter deal for more money.

Sipp is another guy on my radar for the real Rays, but the Fake rays were not comfortable with more than a $4m AAV for the already 32 years old lefty. Houston wanted him back and gave him 3/$18.

Fortunately, three of our four minor league deal targets said yes!

  • Tampa Bay signs Jerry Blevins to a minor league deal
  • Tampa Bay signs Justin Maxwell to a minor league deal
  • Tampa Bay signs Brandon Beachy to a minor league deal

I really love all three of these moves for the real-Rays.

And here is the current state of the pitching staff:

SP1 Chris Archer $2,750,000
SP2 Jake Odorizzi $507,500
SP3 Drew Smyly $3,900,000
SP4 Erasmo Ramirez $2,800,000
SP5 Matt Moore $5,000,000
HL Seung-Hwan Oh $5,500,000
HL Brad Boxberger $507,500
HL Xavier Cedeno (L) $507,500
ML Steve Geltz $507,500
ML Jonny Venters (L) $507,500
ML Brandon Gomes $900,000
LM James Paxton (L) $507,500

You can check out all the moves up to this point in the simulation here.

And you can follow new moves going forward here.