With the off-season well underway, It’s time to document our last impressions of the season we had and close the book on it. Here’s the second half of my two part personal take on how the season played out. you can read part 1 here.
AL Surprise Team: Toronto Blue Jays
To be more accurate, Toronto Blue Jays’ offense. After a 75 win season in 2013, Blue Jays came into 2014 with a whole new philosophy: Screw Defense, Let’s hit home runs. During the regular season they scored 855 runs, 60 more than any other team in AL, and hit 234 home runs to lead the league. But they weren’t done. Blue Jays averaged 5.3 runs per game in their Pennant winning play-off run. To get a clear perspective of just how good the Toronto offense was, we have to look at Edwin Jackson’s record. The starter posted an ERA of 5.24, a disappointing mark by any standard, and still had a 10-6 winning record.
With all things said and done, Blue Jays were thankful the regular season ended when it did. They struggled through September as Boston was getting closer by the day, finally beating the red sox by just 1 game.
NL Surprise Team: San Diego Padres
They led the race almost wire to wire, but prior to the season I doubt many people gave the Padres much chance of winning the star studded NL West. It wasn’t done by splashy moves or magic tricks, just making small improvements and tweaks, and this attention to detail paid off for Tim in the regular season. A look at Padres’ transaction log shows how closely the minor leagues are monitored, in fact the team’s first trade in 2014, the one that brought in star OF Jason Hayward, didn’t happen until late June. The Padres however were just able to achieve one play-off win before falling to Braves 3-1.
Greatest Avoided Disaster: Overtrading
Not hard to imagine that in a one-day sim league, where there’s a lot of in-between time, people can get bored and tend to fight that boredom by moving pieces around just for the fun of it. This I believe can be a plague on a league’s house. Soon teams become unrecognizable and realism is out the door. I feel like I have no choice but to point at MLB-PRO as an example of this happening.
It didn’t happen here. Part of it is many GMs throughout the course of the season weren’t active at all, let alone overactive. But the good part, was that the GMs who were active, felt better off enjoying the subtleties of a realistic league than trading their superstars just because of the rush. I distinctly remember hearing Shane once saying that He feels a personal connection to his players which makes it not easy for him to trade them on the first impulse. That’s the kind of philosophy most GMs handled business in the league, granted with a couple of exceptions here and there. Moves were conducted with great consideration and solely for the purpose of changing one’s team for the better. Whether we can continue the trend in this young season remains to be seen.
Best Mid-Season Addition: Ben
A number of active and dedicated GMs joined the league mid-way through the season. No team gained more from the change in the front office than the Boston Red Sox. While a non-factor for most of the season, a number of smart trades close to the deadline shifted the momentum in their favor completely. Acquisition of Max Scherzer, Craig Stammen, Josh Johnson and Matt Carpenter, all for pretty good prices, changed the direction of a team that was already written off, at least by me. BoSox went on a tear in September, winning 21 out of 27, not only tying the A’s for the second wild card spot, but seriously challenging Toronto for the AL East title, eventually falling short just 1 game. It’s not hard to imagine that if the season of baseball was 164 games instead of 162, We’d have seen the Sox play a 5-game series this season.
Most Talked About Trade: Chris Sale Goes to St. Louis
The Jason Hayward trade might’ve had more influence on the baseball side of the league. It was after all a deal between two teams that made the playoffs, involving a player that ended the season with a .400+ OBP, but the trade of the year honors go to White Sox-Cardinals trade, because of its franchise defining nature. Jess, the white Sox GM, was showered with offers after he announced his intentions to trade Sale. The left hander was the biggest name to be made available in the off-season and people immediately started coming up with packages that could lure Jess. It may have been possible to interpret Jess’s decision to trade his ace as just a new GM demonstrating inexperience. But as the season went on the vision behind the trade became much clearer. To be a contender in the near future, he needed more than just one great pitcher. So he decided to trade sale for a group of young promising talent. It’s turned out well so far, Kolten Wong won the AL rookie of the year award and Wacha and Rosenthal are very likely to show improvement in the upcoming season. On the other side of the deal Sale continues to pitch great, being part of Cardinals’ league leading rotation, and now that Wainwright is gone probably headlining it for years to come.
Best friend: CBL
While not technically part of this league, the creation of CBL was another big event in the past season. Commissioned by Tim, CBL’s inaugural cast of GMs were all part of the MMB. The 16 team continues to thrive, and now has an identity of its own. A look at their website shows the high level activity. While not a member of the league for some time now, I still thoroughly enjoy reading the in-depth blog articles from time to time. Only downside? It’s reduced Tim’s presence in our league.
Best Sight on the Horizon: 2015
MMB is starting this season in much better shape than it did the last. There are already a good number of established GMs in place and the trials and errors of 2014 have turned the league into a better experience. For me the new season resolution is to enjoy the whole league as an alternate reality and find the drama in it, not just in my own team, but entire league. That’s what I’ve tried to practice by writing this article. The current state of the league leaves you nothing but optimistic about 2015. Of course there are many areas that can see further improvements and we can all do more to make this an enjoyable experience for each other, let’s hope that we will.
MMB Nation 
Finally got the chance to read Part 2. I was there when the Chris Sale trade went down! I was there when some of us talked of building up CBL during late nights on MMB! I was there when Ben came on!
I think the magic of something like this, is that you only get out what you put into it. Most of us have felt what it’s like to be fully immersed in this universe, no matter how long you’ve been here. But only after being here for this long a time can I really get a chance to look back on those things that you’re writing about; and be glad I was lucky enough to be a part of this.
At the risk of continually being cheesy, but I do hope what comes out of it this is long-lasting friendships. The league may one day no longer hold the same charm to some of us, but let’s try to have the best times with it while we can. #toystory3