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The third day of the 2020 SB National Off Season Simulation was uneventful and saw the fake Tampa Bay Rays not making any moves despite making a few pushes to add to the roster.
Previously:
Final Roster
C Mitch Garver
C Jason Castro
1B Ji-Man Choi
2B Brandon Lowe
SS Willy Adames
3B Yandy Diaz
LF Randy Arozarena
CF Kevin Kiermaier
RF Austin Meadows
DH Yoshi Tsutsugo
UTI Mike Brosseau
UTI Nico Goodrum
OF Manuel Margot
SP Blake Snell
SP Tyler Glasnow
SP Chris Paddack
SP Ryan Yarbrough
SP Vince Velasquez
RP Nick Anderson
RP Diego Castillo
RP Pete Fairbanks
RP Jose Alvarado
RP John Curtiss
RP Ryan Thompson
RP Javy Guerra
RP Cody Reed
This is the final roster that I was able to collect coming in under budget at a total of $70,889,000. This includes paying Yonny Chirinos roughly $1.7MM in his first trip in arbitration and $2MM sent to the San Francisco Giants to help pay Evan Longoria.
Overall I am happy with how this roster turned out. At it’s base the roster is mostly the same outside of bringing in veteran catchers to replace Mike Zunino and Michael Perez. I think I upgraded at catcher and having a full season of Randy Arozarena should help the offense that was solidly above average last year.
With the starting rotation I chose to follow the path the real life Rays went and declined Charlie Morton’s option and this put my back against the wall and had to make a very big trade for Chris Paddack in order to feel like I brought in a sufficient replacement. It it very outside of the usual business for the Rays to pay up for pitchers in trade.
In hindsight I think I would rather just spend the money to keep Morton than spend the prospect capital that was required to make this big of an addition. I felt this was going to be a reasonable outcome as the economic realities of 2020 and 2021 weren’t going to effect the free agent decision making.
As is I do like the starting rotation and the Rays are in the enviable position of having a good Opening Day rotation while keeping high profile prospects like Shane McClanahan and Brendan McKay as depth options when injuries do occur.
In the bullpen I mostly went with the status quo. Javy Guerra who was a secondary addition in the Paddack trade throws over 98, so he fits in with the Rays collection of arms that can bring the heat. Pedro Strop signed a minor league deal, so he’s a guy that is probably next in line.
Prospects
I traded some high profile prospects like Vidal Brujan, Shane Baz, Josh Lowe, Joe Ryan, and Brent Honeywell to make the additions I was able to make. Thanks to the tireless work of the real life Rays I still have one of the top farm systems in the game.
Top 10 Prospects
1 SS Wander Franco
2 OF Randy Arozarena
3 LHP Shane McClanahan
4 LHP Brendan McKay
5 2B Xavier Edwards
6 RHP Nick Bitsko
7 RHP JJ Goss
8 SS Taylor Walls
9 SS Greg Jones
10 RHP Seth Johnson
Thanks to Max Rieper and the entire SB Nation Community
I had a lot of fun and have enjoyed all the comments surrounding moves I made or didn’t make. It was an enjoyable although very time consuming process to go through. I’d also like to publicly thank Max Rieper of Royals Review for running the simulation and going through the massive undertaking of playing agent for all the free agents and keeping track of all official transactions. Without his work this project wouldn’t be nearly as productive as it is!