SERIES #3 vs TORONTO REDCOATS - Stouts Finally Win a Game. Pedro Injured.

The Stouts head home to the confines of Memorial Stadium after a HORRENDOUS opening road-trip which saw them lose all six games to open up the season.  In comes Thomas and  the Toronto Redcoats, who bring a 3-3 record into town.  Hopefully the home field will prove to be the elixer the Stouts need to get back on track.  Let's head to the action and see how it all shakes out.



Game 1
Memorial Stadium

April 8, 2014

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9		R	H	E
Toronto Redcoats (3-4)	0	1	1	0	0	0	1	3	0		6	14	0
Baltimore Stouts (1-6)	5	4	2	0	1	0	0	0	X		12	13	0
	W: S. Estes (1-0)   L: K. Rogers (0-2)

Ding dong, ding dong.  The bells have rung.  Baltimore is in the winning column for the first time, getting their first Millennium League victory in convincing fashion with a 12-6 drubbing of the visiting Redcoats.  This game was never in question as the Stouts scored five in the 1st inning and never looked back.  As a matter of fact, they were up 11-2 after three innings of play.  Toronto starter Kenny Rogers failed to record a single out in the ballgame, giving up three hits and a walk before injuring himself and having to leave the game.  Garrett Anderson one of the hitting stars, going 3-5 with a homer and five RBI.  Stouts starter Shawn Estes into the history books, picking up the inaugural win by throwing 7.2 serviceable innings.  Carlos Beltran goes 4-5 with four RBI in a losing cause for the Coats.

Game 2
Memorial Stadium

April 9, 2014

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9		R	H	E
Toronto Redcoats (3-5)	0	0	2	0	0	0	0	1	4		7	12	0
Baltimore Stouts (2-6)	5	4	0	2	0	3	1	2	X		17	23	0
	W: T. Stottlemyre (1-1)   L: J. Suppan (0-2)

SS Ricky Gutierrez launching his
second HR of the game

It's apparent that Baltimore likes the home confines as the Stouts once again get the bats rolling early and often, scoring five in the 1st for the second consecutive game and cruising to an easy 17-7 victory.  Another game that was never in doubt as the Stouts led 9-0 after two.  The hit parade ended with a tally of 23 hits for the victors, including unlikely power from SS Rickey Gutierrez who launched a pair of homers, going 3-5 overall with a walk and five RBI.  Starting pitcher Todd Stottlemyre got into the offensive action as well, launching a 418 foot HR blast of his own in the bottom of the 7th.  All told, the Stouts smacked four homers in the game, going 7-16 with runners in scoring position.  All eight starters had at least two hits in the contest.  That's 29 runs in two games following their shutout to end the road-trip.  Up next though is Pedro Martinez so the hit parade is likely to end.

Game 3
Memorial Stadium

April 10, 2014

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9		R	H	E
Toronto Redcoats (4-5)	0	2	3	0	0	0	0	0	0		5	3	2
Baltimore Stouts (2-7)	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	2	1		4	9	1
	W: P. Martinez (3-0)   L: K. Appier (0-1) SV: D. Veres (2)

The Redcoats salvage the last game of the series to avoid the sweep.  Starter Pedro Martinez leads the way, picking up his third victory of the short season.  Toronto jumped out to a 5-0 lead before the Stouts mounted a late comeback.  The Coats actually won this game despite only registering three hits in the contest.  Baltimore starter Kevin Appier actually retired the first five batters he faced.  But after walking Melvin Mora with two out in the 2nd, catcher Todd Pratt launched a 423 HR blast to get the scoring started.  Then with two out in the 3rd, Appier walked a pair before surrendering back-to-back hits.  The Stouts bullpen actually pitched well in this one, as four relievers tossed the final six innings without surrendering a single hit.

Pedro Martinez injured.
Will miss two weeks of action.

Game got interesting late as Pedro began to tire.  A pinch-hit single in the 5th by Eric Owens plated Ricky Gutierrez to get Baltimore on the board.  The Stouts scored two more in the 8th to cut the lead to 5-3.  Pedro opened the 9th with a strikeout of Lance Berkman, but back-to-back-to-back singles by Garrett Anderson, Rondell White and Gutierrez plated a run and put the game-tying runner in scoring position.  Martinez then struck out Charlie Hayes for the second out of the inning, but he was injured in the process and team doctors later revealed he will miss two weeks of action.  Thankfully for the Coats, reliever Dave Veras came in and got Fernando Vina to fly lazily to right to end the game, securing the save for Veras in the process.

PICK 1.11

Todd Helton, COL 1B
http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/h/heltoto01.shtml


The top of the draft went pretty much as expected.  All the good pitchers (Pedro, Maddux, Unit, Mussina) and the big sluggers (ARod, Bonds, Sosa, ManRam) were taken.  I struggled over this pick quite a bit.  It's hard when you're drafting players and you know their future careers in advance.  So many good players were available at this spot.  Jeter went two picks ahead of me so that eliminated one player off my board.  My strategy coming in was to grab guys at the scarce positions (C, 2B, SS, 3B).  Jeff Kent and Chipper Jones were still available and I almost pulled the trigger on both of them.

In the end I couldn't overlook the absolute monstrous numbers Helton put up, not only in the year 2000, but for the next several years.  In 2000 he was an absolute beast.  Not sure how he finished a distant 5th in the MVP voting that year.  He led all of MLB with a .372 batting average, led in slugging at .698, and led with a 1.162 OPS.  His lowest OPS for the next five years was 1.006.  Lowest batting average during that span was .329.  Lowest OBP .429.  Although there are quite a few very good 1B in this draft, Helton just stood out, not only for his awesome 2000 but for his continued excellence.  I'll try to lockup a #1 starter in the next round, or target one of the scarce positions.

YEAR 2000 INAUGURAL MILLENNIUM LEAGUE DRAFT

A little background to begin.  The Millennium League is a simulation baseball league using Dynasty League Online Baseball as its platform.  Dynasty League Baseball is from the designers of the classic baseball board game Pursue the Pennant.  This is the inaugural year of the league.  There are 24 teams in the league from all across the United States, with one team being managed from the UK.  The kicking off point is the year 2000.  All players are eligible to be drafted.  Teams draft 30 players per squad and keep 20 from year-to-year.  Draft is serpentine.  The Baltimore Stouts draft in the 11th spot, meaning in odd number rounds they have the 11th pick, and in even number rounds they select 14th.  Drafting began on Tuesday, May 27, 2014.  I will recap the individual rounds here.  For complete draft results, please visit the league draft page.

ROUND 1 RECAP

#1 Pick Overall

Top of the draft went pretty much as expected.  First four picks go Alex Rodriguez, Randy Johnson, Barry Bonds and Pedro Martinez.  Hard to argue with any of those.  First "surprise" came with the 10th pick when the Pittsburgh Crawfords selected Bernie Williams.  Obviously Bernie Williams is an excellent player, but his 2000 was nothing special, and he only has a couple more "good" years left in him.  To each his own I guess.

Another head scratcher was Mark McGwire by the St. Louis Sliders with the 22nd selection.  Home team pick maybe?  McGwire played in only 89 games in 2000 (albeit with a 1.229 OPS), then another 97 in 2001 before retiring.

2000 NL MVP

The best picks in my estimation were Vlad Guerrero by the Atlanta Stonecutters at 15, Chipper Jones at 18 by the Seattle Lightning, and Jeff Kent to the Arizona Apaches at pick 20.  Kent was MVP in 2000 and has a decided positional advantage at 2B among his peers in this draft.  Guerrero has an OPS above 1.0 for three of the next four years BEFORE winning the MVP award in 2004.  Chipper, coming off his MVP in 1999, has an OPS above 1.0 for four of the next nine years, only dropping below .900 once in that span.

It will be interesting to see how teams come back in round two.  If a team selected a pitcher in round one, will they try to load up their rotation in the second round with another?  Will a team select a couple bashers to stack their lineup?  We shall see.