I always wanted to be a GM...An OOTP2007 Dynasty
 

Ok, so you have to understand my story here. Before I even get started, I'll let you know that I've never played baseball. Ok, so there was that one year when I was 12 that I started a baseball league. But other than that? I stopped after that.

But what I always wanted to do was run a baseball team. Since the time I was a young kid, I just knew that was the thing more than anything that I was destined to do.

Ok, who doesn't though right?

Well, I got a little luckier than most maybe. I rushed through high school because I wanted to get to college, get a degree and then immerse myself in the national pasttime. At 15, I got my GED. I went to college here right at home and I worked. I managed to get a scholarship after my sophomore year and realized that if I took classes in the summer that I could graduate and get started sooner.

And I just swallowed up the game where I could. My school -- Metropolitan State -- didn't have a college baseball team. Silly, I know. But I just wanted a degree. So, I started working with a minor league team for a little bit.

That was ok, but it wasn't immersive enough. Or maybe too immersive. I know that wearing the mascot uniform twice a week during the summer wasn't what I had on my plan, so I decided to jettison that gig after that summer was over and started looking for links in big league clubs.

I know, I know. You're thinking, "kids these days. Never wanna wait for anything. Blah Blah." Well can it, pal. I had a gameplan and I knew what I wanted to do.

So anyway, I wrote to every big league club in the book. I told 'em what my goal was and how I wanted to do it. And I guess, someone decided to take pity on me.
---
In 1988, Major League Baseball had a dilemma. See, in the early 1980s, the third major leagues -- the PCL and Continental Leagues -- basically folded. And so, there were all of these markets that had been previously closed off to MLB, that they finally could expand to. But the owners took a few years to figure out their gameplan.

And in 1988, they decide to expand for the first time since 1961. By 12 teams. Overnight, the game was different. At least, in terms of its complexion of teams.

So a few random markets got teams, because the logic was to "spread the wealth" and to "keep the nation engaged" in baseball.

At that time, the sport was suffering - bad. It was teetering almost on the brink of being lower on the radar than any other sport and they knew with the US getting ready to host the World Cup in a few years, that people might start watching soccer and stop watching baseball.

So, they needed to do something.

Well, in 1988, I was only 9. So it didn't really matter to me.

But 10 years later, I got the opportunity of a lifetime.

MLB originally put a team in Billings, Montana. Yeah, I know. What were they thinking?! Well, a deep pocketed owner sold them on the idea of sellout crowds for an underserved region and desperate for a market on short notice, MLB took the bait.

The "Billings Experiment" is what it was called and it lasted from 1988 until 1997. They even managed a division title in their 2nd year.

But things got lean and while attendance wasn't terrible (average of about 1.7 million fans per season), ownership tried something new. So they moved the team south to Cheyenne, Wyoming and decided to give the region one last go before giving up completely.

But by now, ownership basically wanted to do what it could to win and win now, figuring that even if fans didn't come out to games, they were gonna sell the club to some lucrative market and be done with it.

And lucky for me, I got to be there to watch it go down. Well kinda. Let me explain...

In the summer of 1997, I got a phone call from Don Wold, owner of the Billings Mustangs.

"Hello?! Is this umm...Tristan Schofield?!"

"Yes, yes it is. Who is this?"

"Young man, my name is Don Wold. I received your letter about aspiring to be a general manager in the major leagues. How would you like the opportunity to work with the Mustangs organization?"

I had no idea how to respond. I mean, you have to understand that growing up in New Jersey, I had only heard of Montana in the same way you've heard of the American Revolution. You know it's there and that it happened, but..you can't be certain how it all went down.

Anyway, he obviously wanted an answer and so, without missing a beat I told him, "Wow sir. That would be quite an honor."

Well, good. You should be here on Monday. We'll sit down and talk and go from there.

::click::

I had no idea how I was supposed to get to Montana. I mean, sure I could get a plane ticket, but...geez if I knew how I was supposed to find a plane ticket that would get me out of here in less than 48 hours.

I had no idea where I would stay, what they intended to pay me (IF?) or any of that. I really wanted to call him back and hammer out the details.

But this could be my one shot. And not only did this guy not send me a ridiculous form letter saying that he wasn't interested, he called me up!

But what if it was one of my friends messing around?

I dialed *69 and when the receptionist answered "Billings Mustangs Baseball Club: 1989 American League West Champions, how may I help you?"

I just hung up.

It was real. This might really be happening.

I'd better pack.

Luckily, I don't spend a lot of money. So I had the savings to go and get a plane ticket on short notice. I called my dad. He was pretty excited. No, actually he was downright stoked.

Probably more than me.

Except for one thing.

"Son, where the hell is Billings? Is that a major league club?"

He insisted he come with me on the trip, because "you never know what those crazy people out there might do. I mean, don't they carry guns out there?"

He apparently knew more about Montana than I did.

1997 MLB ALIGNMENT

NATIONAL LEAGUE
East
---
Philadelphia Phillies
Atlanta Braves
Chicago Cubs
New York Mets
Buffalo Bisons
Pittsburgh Pirates
Brooklyn Dodgers
New Jersey Giants

West
---
Cincinnati Reds
St. Louis Cardinals
Vancouver Canadians
San Diego Padres
San Francisco Seals
Houston Astros
Los Angeles Angels
Colorado Rockies

AMERICAN LEAGUE
East
---
St. Paul Saints
Washington Nationals
New York Yankees
Toronto Blue Jays
Baltimore Orioles
Cleveland Indians
Detroit Tigers

West
---
Portland Beavers
Los Angeles Stars
New Orleans Zephyrs
Billings Mustangs
Seattle Mariners
Chicago White Sox
Texas Rangers
Omaha Athletics

1997 was the first year of baseball's expanded playoffs. It meant that the top two teams in each league not to win their division would be invited to the playoffs for the first time ever.

In 1998, the leagues realigned to a three division format.

So, you're probably wondering what happened to me.

I don't really feel like talking about what happened ten years ago. I mean, it was cool and all.

But I'm kinda more interested in what's been going on now.

Well the long story short is, the summer of 1997 was pretty awesome. I got hired to work in the front office. But it wasn't as cool as that sounds. I did some ticket work, I assisted the Assistant GM -- which meant a lot of coffee and all of that.

But they paid me. And I got to see the mountains. It wasn't that exciting, but..it was kinda cool for the first few months I was out there.

Anyway, the following year the team announced it was packing up and moving to Wyoming.

Mr. Wold asked me the most bizarre question ever.

"You wanna be GM next year?"

I looked at him like he was crazy.

"Excuse me?"

"Well, I figure this is what you came here to do, right? And most of the staff is leaving after this year. I don't feel like hiring somebody I don't know that well. And you haven't been here that long, but..I think I've got a pretty good handle on you. And it's what your dream was, right? Why not get a little on the job training?"

He was serious. I couldn't believe it. I think that entire year I expected to wake up in a dream, soaking wet in a bed with my own pee, with my friends standing around laughing at me for talking to myself in my sleep for hours at a time.

But it wasn't a dream. Or it was. I haven't decided yet and it's been a decade.

That whole year seems like a blur and yet, it wasn't all at the same time.

It was a ton of on the job learning. I didn't make a lot of the moves that the team made that year. Mr. Wold did most of that, along with the team president he brought in Sam Sheldon.

But..I did get to sit in on all the meetings and I worked pretty closely with all of the players.

They called me "Mr. Kid." They were really astounded by me at first, because I think they thought I was an intern. But when Mr. Wold introduced me as "the boss", they just tried not to laugh. But I loosened them all up, by simply saying in that first meeting down at the complex in Spring Training that "look, I don't have any illusions about anything. All I know is, if we're winning and I'm providing you all with what you need to succeed then we're all gonna be a lot happier."

That was a really fun team. We had Derek Jeter who we got in a trade from the Blue Jays, Nomar Garciaparra had just come off his rookie of the year season. And the first signing I managed to make was to get Kirby Puckett, who had been a mainstay with the Red Sox for 11 years to come play for us. he'd just come off a pretty terrible year (.239) he wasn't even playing full-time anymore. But I convinced Mr. Wold that having a guy like that in the clubhouse would be a huge shot for our credibility. So he took a gamble and we got him to sign on.

In that Jeter trade from Toronto, we picked up this kid - Nate Roberts - who I just knew would be a star. I just had a feeling about it. He'd only gone (2-8, 5.52 ERA, 59k, 66 BB) in his rookie year with the Jays, but..I just had a feeling that he was ready to breakout.

So when we pulled the trigger on that deal, he was the one player that if they didn't include him, we wouldn't have done it.

Everyone in the front office was confused as to why I was so high on this kid. But then he came down here and won 20 games in his first season with us and then they were looking at me like "aah, you were onto something.."

Anyway, needless to say that year was pretty magical. We had a heck of a year, going 94-60, winning the AL West for the first time since '88 and making it all the way to the World Series!

I went from wearing a mascot costume to the World Series in two years. CRAZY!

Well, that was just the start of the success for the Cavalry -- oh, I forgot to tell you, when we moved to Wyoming..we changed the name of the club to the Rocky Mountain Cavalry-- franchise.

But Mr. Wold wouldn't be around to see it. He died a few weeks after the World Series was over.

I was crushed. We all were, really.

The minority owners of the club cared very little for baseball, though that his buying a baseball team and sticking it in Mountain Time to compete with the Rockies -- who'd been here since 1988 -- was ill advised and they immediately started looking for a new market for the club.

I experienced the highs and then, I got to experience the lows. I was asked to resign by the club just before the winter meetings. They basically told me that they "appreciated my effort and would give me another position in the organization if I wanted one. But they were going in a different direction."

I said thanks and cleaned out my office a week later.

THe Cavalry would've made Mr. Wold proud. They went on to win four more AL pennants after that first won we captured. Even better, the team won three straight World Series titles from 2000-2002. But..not in the Rocky Mountain West.

The owners sold the team after the 1999 season for several hundred million bucks to an investment group from Riverside, California, who were looking to establish a third franchise for the Greater Los Angeles area.

So the team became the Riverside Cavalry and turned itself into one of the best franchises in baseball.

I really feel like I gained a lot during my magical season in 1998. I mean, it was really crazy how that all went down and I can look at that team and know that I had a huge hand in helping it develop the way that it did in the years after I was long gone from the club.

I decided to take a year off. I went to graduate school, proudly showing off my LCS championship ring to anyone who wanted to see it.

What's even cooler, when they won in 2000, I got a letter in the mail with a check from the players. They voted me a half playoff share from their World Series victory and it had a note.

"Hey Mr. Kid, we hope that you're not cluttering your brain in college so much that you can't come back and put together another World Series champion."

Signed --
Derek, Kirby and Nate.

I still kept in touch with them from time to time, but I'd never actually gone to a game the entire time they were in Riverside.

I have no idea how someone got me a World Series ring, but they did. I sent it to my dad.

"Billings was pretty far away, huh? Thanks for believing in me."

-Tristan

It's 2010. Baseball has expanded some, still three divsions and I haven't had a GM job since 1998. That's an eternity to be out of the game, but I was so young when I started..and I never really left the game.

I finished my PhD at 26. I taught at a junior college for a while and even got onto the field as an assistant coach of a college team. I didn't want to be the coach -- too much time committment -- but it was pretty neat to see life from the other side of the fence.

I was a part-time scout for a few teams at different points from 2008 until last year. And then it hit me, "I want to get back into the game."

I've always have offers to be an assistant GM, to work in player development. I've been an agent for a few guys in the past, too.

But I didn't want to get back into the game until I felt like it was right. Most people thought I was pretty goofy for that, but..I knew what was right for me.

It's 2010, Baseball expanded in 2008 by adding these cities:

Austin (Tex.) Aviators
Chicago Heartland Comets (They play in Kenosha, Wisconsin.)
Nevada Silverhawks
New York Rens (Short for New York Renassiance. They play in Harlem. This means there is now a team in four of the five boroughs.)

If you hadn't noticed, there isn't an anti-trust exemption for baseball. There is revenue sharing, too. Salaries didn't start to "explode" until the early 2000s.

The highest paid player as of May 2010 is Anibal Rodriguez of the Carolina Reds at $13,716,000.

The highest payroll is the New York Mets at $70.4 million.

So the new alignment is:

AMERICAN LEAGUE
EAST
---
Cleveland Bombers
New York Rens
Boston Red Sox
New York Yankees
Washington Nationals
Baltimore Orioles

CENTRAL
---
Toronto Blue Jays
Detroit Tigers
Kansas City Chargers (moved from New Orleans in 2003)
Chicago White Sox
St. Paul Saints
Chicago Heartland Comets

WEST
---
Riverside Cavalry
Seattle Mariners
Portland Bears
Los Angeles Stars
San Jose Athletics (moved from Omaha in 1999)

NATIONAL LEAGUE
EAST
---
Brooklyn Dodgers
Carolina Reds
New York Mets
Atlanta Braves
Florida Oranges (moved from Buffalo in 1999)
New Jersey Giants

CENTRAL
----
Chicago Cubs
Pittsburgh Pirates
Philadelphia Phillies
Austin Aviators
Houston Astros
St. Louis Cardinals

WEST
---
Vancouver Canadians
Nevada Silverhawks
San Francisco Seals
Anaheim Angels
Colorado Rockies
San Diego Padres

The most recent collective bargaining
Expansion has been done in 1961, 1988, 2008 and the next expansion will come in 2011.

The idea is to realign to four divisions of five teams each in baseball, which means we need two more teams in each league to get to that number. That'll probably open the playoffs up again, as we'll go from 4 teams in each league to 8. That'll be allowing 40% of the teams into the playoffs.

There have been all sorts of pundits complaining about it. But the bottom line, baseball is still competing in a competitive landscape that rewards teams for a good season. If baseball fails to respond, it will continue to be left behind.

We're still trying to work out whether the playoff series will be best of seven as they are now for each round or we'll shorten the rounds -- and I expect we will -- probably a best-of-five game series called the Wild Card Series to precede the Divsion Series, which will also be a best of five game series.

Some radical proposals have called for a one-game Wild Card Game before the Division Series, as a "winner take all" craziness that would get the playoffs really kicking, but..the problem with that is simple. "It'll cause great teams to risk losing early on."

Most of the owners have said they do not support this plan, but the vote will be taken around the 2010 All-Star break.

There is an independent league with 20 teams called the International League. The Triple-A and Short-Season Leagues are the only affiliated leagues in the minors, they are relatively new and don't have playoffs or anything.

The draft feeder league is now the National Collegiate Baseball Association, with teams across the country.
---
2011 EXPANSION CLUBS
New England Colonials (NL)
Arizona Diamondbacks (NL)
Miami Marlins (AL)
New Jersey Nine (AL)

NEW ALIGNMNENT FOR 2011 SEASON
AL EAST
New York Rens
New York Yankees
Boston
Toronto
New Jersey Nine (2011 expansion)

AL SOUTH
Baltimore
Miami (2011 expansion)
Washington
Texas
Kansas City

AL WEST
Riverside
Seattle
Portland
Los Angeles
San Jose

AL CENTRAL
Detroit
Chicago
Chicago Heartland
St. Paul
Cleveland


NL EAST
Brooklyn
New York
Philadelphia
New England (2011 expansion)
Pittsburgh

NL SOUTH
Atlanta
Houston
Florida
Carolina
Virginia (moved to New Jersey in 2010)

NL WEST
Arizona (2011 expansion)
Vancouver
Anaheim
San Francisco
San Diego

NL CENTRAL
Colorado
St. Louis
Chicago
Austin
Nevada

With expansion coming in 2011, I decided to go ahead and listen to offers for new jobs. I figured it would be worth my while to at least hear the teams out to see what they were talking before discounting them offhand.

The only teams that called were two from my birth area, the New Jersey Nine, who replaced the Giants a year after their move to Northern Virginia. But this Jersey team doesn't play in Newark, but right in the heart of the suburbs of Central Jersey. Smart move there.

The Hartford Whalers are trying to make folks remember the good ol' days of when Hartford had a professional major sports team. I wonder if this will work out for them well.

Someone seems to think so.

The Hartford gig was the most intriguing of the two to me. I didn't really have any strong desire to head back home to Jersey, though I do like the team's name. Simple.

Hartford officially offered me the job, a few days before the expansion draft.

But then, I got thrown a curveball that I thought was worth checking out.

I got a call from Peter Vincent, the Managing Partner of the Virginia Giants.

He wanted me to do him a favor.

Only problem is, I don't know him that well.

Or more like, at all. His friend, Tom Reynolds, was taking over the New Jersey Nine. He still had a great deal of respect for the people of New Jersey and wanted me to know that "moving the ballclub was really just a business decision and little else."

That's why he supported the decision to place an expansion team there right after the Giants moved south.

Ok, whatever. I'm wondering what the favor is.

"So you're probably wondering what the favor I want is? Well, I'd like to consult the New Jersey franchise as they head into the expansion draft. Not in any official capacity, of course. But when Tom calls you later today, I'd like you to take him up on his offer to help out."

I'm wondering what's in it for him.

"And then I'd like you to offer you the GM job with the Giants."

I almost dropped the phone.

I probably neglected to tell you that growing up, the Giants were my favorite team. It didn't matter that they stunk it up worse than the landfills people thought we had all over Jersey.

Since 1933 -- they didn't move to Jersey until 1950 -- the team has only been the playoffs three times. We're still mystified that the 2003 team managed to win a World Series. That was the beginning of the end, really. They drew 3.4 million fans, by far the most in franchise history and we knew they would try to sell the team almost immediately.

So needless to say, attendance dropped substantially when the announced it was moving just a year after they won the World Series. Those last five years in Jersey were the longest lame duck years anyone had ever seen. They went back to the playoffs in 2005..and well, that's it.

The team is in dire straits again. Four straight losing seasons and well, largely several eras of futility, with a World Series fluke that no one can believe happened and most of all, a new fan base that won't stand for over 50 years of losing like the faithful in Jersey did.

I told him I needed to think about it, but that the consulting gig for the expansion draft shouldn't be a big deal.

The New Jersey Nine war room was at a Bar and Grill in Westfield, New Jersey. I'm not sure what they were trying to prove by doing this, but that was their idea.

MLB stopped hosting live expansion drafts after the clunker of 1988 and instead, just does it on the internet live.

So our picks were made virtually and brought up on a screen for all to see.

The bar was actually packed, as everyone wanted to find out who would be the first members of their team. See, the founders of the club said they went with the name "Nine" for the ballclub, so fans could come up with their own nicknames for the team. The unofficial one that's on all of their promo materials for the first year says "YOUR Jersey Boys: The New Jersey Nine. Jersey Proud."

Unorthodox, but probably a smart move for a place that just lost its team a year ago and the rancor over the move was so silent that you could hear a pin drop.

Besides, everyone was probably too busy ranting and raving over the new darlings of MLB - The New York Rens.

It was a brilliant idea after all, putting a baseball team in Harlem after all of these years. There was some fight by the Yankees, but behind the bat of perennial MVP Ryan Howard, that team has the ghosts of Josh Gibson, Satchel Paige and all of those Negro League greats dancing in heaven. Just wait until they manage to win a World Series..

Anyway, back to what I'm doing.

The GM looked at his notebook and the first player he wanted to take was a New Jersey native. You know, set the mood off the right way.

I don't know if it was because the kid had a lot of upside, because he was cheap (always a consideration at these things) or a combination.

But Riverside OF Cullen McGuire was the first player to don the New Jersey Nine uniform and the crowd erupted when the pick hit the board.

Surprise, surprise. McGuire is a Westfield native.

Stroke of genius, stroke of genius.

After the expansion draft, I accepted the Virginia Giants job. To lie and say it was my dream job, would just be a lie. I mean, I grew up liking the team a lot. But they've left my home state...and they're not very good.

And the owner has already said he doesn't intend to break the bank.

The Giants rank dead last - yes, even behind the four new expansion teams - in spending at $22.5 million.

I've been told that we'll be able to spend a bit more, to get the team to about $31 million or so. That gives me a little ground to work with, but not a ton. I'm just trying to stablize the team, not trying to move mountains.

One of the good things is, we have the 5th rated farm system according to Baseball America. I'm going to focus on trying to balance the club with veterans to stablize us and get us to respectability and maybe even the playoffs.

The first move I made was to pay $2 million to acquire two Australian players - 20-yr old OF Axel 'Rose' Collingridge and a 28-year old pitcher Brandon Cashmore.

They've both most recently played in the Aussie League, but Cashmore has extensive minor league experience around the world.

He'll try to make the team, while Collingridge is probably the best young player out of Australia at the moment, so getting him was a coup.

I've identified a few players that I want to sign during free agency.

Payroll is currently at $17.4 million, the lowest in baseball. Cleveland has $56 million and leads the majors.

The highest paid player in the game is Anibal Rodriguez of the Carolina Reds who makes $14.5 million.

Revenue sharing is on, so teams share media money and currently each team gets $75 million per year in media revenue.

My first trade with the club came when we got an offer from Chicago Heartland. They offered up 1B Ken Harvey (16/44/.294) for a pitcher.

I changed the pitcher and threw in less than a million and they did the deal. I dealt them Matt Clement who had only been with Virginia for a season and is 7-26 over the past two years.

Harvey gives us a veteran bat at first base, where we were pretty weak to begin with.

Rather than bore you with all the negotiations of the off-season, I'm gonna try to draw this out like you would a fantasy team, just letting you know who we have where, what their role is and all of that.

The International League, an independent league that's been in existance since 1996 announced it was suspending operations this year.

Baseball's rapid expansion has left most cities yearing for Major League or affiliated teams, rather than independent ones and so, the league in the face of declining revenues decided to call it quits.

Heading into the 2011 season, we're faced with a new division and one main goal - get attendance up - ownership didn't move from Jersey to a gleaming new ballpark in Northern Virginia called Google Park at Diamond Lake to lose ballgames or to have people questioning why the team left a strong fan base -- even if the team wasn't very good for most of those years.

So, I went after high impact players that I thought would give us a good chance to win. Match that with the fact that this is the first year of the expanded playoffs and I figured that we had a pretty good shot to do well if the stars aligned the right way.

Along with the new four division setup in each league, note that inter-league play still has NEVER happened in the regular season and is not slated for anytime in the future.

No one has really ever considered it as something they'd want to see.

"The leagues are different. The rules are the same mind you, but the leagues are mostly distinct and it would be unusual to go messing that up by allowing them to play every year. It'd be very un-baseball like," said Richard Walters, a writer for the Rocky Mountain News out of Denver.

The new playoff alignment will feature:

Wild Card Series (best-of-3)
Division Series (best-of-5) previous best of seven
League Championship (best-of-7)
World Series (best-of-7)

The four division champions, along with four Wild Card teams will be thrown into the fray to make what promises to be what baseball officials have begun to call "Fall Madness"

"We want baseball to be on people's minds during October. That's the idea of instituting what we believe will become the most exciting playoffs on the planet, with non-stop baseball for an entire month, featuring the best teams around the major leagues. We can't wait to get started," said CEO of Major League Baseball Marketing Elizabeth C.K. Handall.

To increase the amount of foreign players through the pipeline, I added a European College Feeder League to go with the Australian one we inherited from the International League, an Asian HS developmental League, and a new HS league in the US.

We'll identify baseball "hotbeds" every five years to expand into in terms of player development.

Over the past decade or so, Ghana has emerged with Latin American stalwarts and Asian countries as the one new "hotbed" for talent. This comes largely after the success of Ghananian-American players who have succeed in the game and have provided a venue for the game's growth in that country, through development academies and Little Leagues sponsored by MLB teams.

The breakout success of Wosene "Hands" Lamaalem of the Boston Red Sox who in his second season in the majors hit 57 HRs and 150 RBI, has sent scouts scouring the countryside for the next great African baseball star.

"This kid is the real deal," said one scout about Lamaalem, who moved to America when he was seven and grew up in New Hampshire.

"All of the kids played little league and so, my mom thought this is what American kids did and signed me up. My father was skeptical at first, especially since he was a college professor and thought too much play would affect my schooling. But he met kids at the college who were balanced and well adjusted despite sports and so, he let me play.

Once I got good at it and they understood the game better, it was pretty fun because they were more into it than I was. My dad was one of those bookish types. He would come home with all of these baseball books to learn the sport."

One of the big problems of this past off-season was the fact that we literally had TOO many outfielders. I didn't even know where to start with them.

Overall, I think we improved the team a great deal. I don't know that we're playoff contenders, but..if things go right we should be right in the thick of the race all year.

We probably had the two biggest off-season signings of the year, inking the best two players available in closer Jake Smith, who spent the past six years in Vancouver racking up 185 saves during that time. He signed a 3 year deal worth $18.6 million.

But the major signing of the off-season for the Giants was the acquisition of 3-time All Star and 2-time Gold Glove winner Allen Carlisle. The 31-year old Carlise had spent the previous nine years of his major league career with the New York Mets and it took a six-year deal worth $69.4 million to bring him south.

The Colorado Rockies entered the pre-season with the top payroll in baseball at $73.2 million, while the Giants ranked 24th at $34.8 million.

The Boston Red Sox were last at $19.6 million.

After the team inked a deal for top closer Jake Smith, it was time to make a move for current closer Scott Andrews, a 22-year old Canadian who has been the team's full-time closer for the past two years.

And the club announced today that he would begin the season in the rotation, despite never having started a game in his career.

"We've talked to Scott about this for a while and he's known that it was a distinct possibility," said GM Tristan Schofield.

The team said that Andrews would begin the season in the minors before coming up sometime in May.

Google Park @ Diamond Lake - Home of the Virginia Giants
 

Here is the home ballpark of the Giants in Northern Virginia. The park is located in a completely new development built around the baseball stadium called Diamond Lake, Va.

2011 VIRGINIA GIANTS
 

LINEUP

The Giants have retooled a bit with new GM Tristan Schofield, who a precocious leader of the Cavalry over a decade ago and now resurfaces with a different mordibund franchise seeking resurrection.

Matt Hanson will start at Catcher, having been acquired in the off-season in a deal from Pittsburgh. He hit 19 HRs and 61 RBI last year for the Bucs.

At first base, Allen Carlisle was the top free agent of the off-season and no one saw him going south, after having good years with the New York Mets.

"You know, people talk about the money ($6 years, $69.4 million, the 6th year is a player option at $13.5 million) and the real deal for me, was about what the organization was trying to do here. They wanted to build something special and I wanted to be part of that. I mean, anybody can go be a legend with another franchise. But to be one of the all-time greats of the Virginia Giants? They've only been around for two years now...it would be awesome to be remembered as one of the best that ever played here.

He hit .329 last year with 39 HRs and 96 RBI, but the Giants hope he can provide more than just pop, but also veteran leadership.

"He's a winner. He's played in New York. I convinced [team ownership] that we needed to get a guy like that on board if we were going to truly provide that we weren't "those same ol' Giants" that people always talk about when they mention this team.

Rookie Ron Russell who was acquired from Nevada in the off-season moved from first base to Right Field when Carlisle signed, which tells how much the Giants are excited about what Carlisle brings to the table.

3B Garrett Atkins has been with the club for going on his sixth year and is hoping to have another year where he hits over .300 like he did last year.

The 30-year old Atkins says that his role as an unofficial team leader is one he relishes, but that it all comes down to production. "You have to do it on the field or no one cares what you have to say."

The Giants have a ton of outfielders, a lot of whom are younger players preparing to displace old vets, as well as a few ready to break out.

Aussie Axel Collingridge has made quite an impression in spring training. This rookie is hoping to make an impact on the field. "I just wanna get here and do what I've always wanted to and that's win a World Series," said the 21 year right fielder who was plucked out of the Australian League before the end of the last season, when that league became an official feeder league to MLB, after the International League folded.

Other young players to look out for include 22-year D.C. native Tyler James, a standout at UCONN, who was the 1st overall pick of the 2010 MLB Draft.

In Right Field, 4th year starter Lawrence Smiley, 29, returns after a 18 HR, 61 RBI season last year.

PITCHING

The team has a lot of question marks or at least, players they're hoping materialize. Leading the fray in his second year with the club is 24-year old Felix Hernandez, who two years ago went 12-11, 5.30 ERA with the Boston Red Sox. He was dealt to the Giants late last season and pitched in just four games.

Aussie rookie, 29-year old Brandon Cashmore said he "never thought he'd get a chance to play" in the major leagues, but was thrilled at the opportunity to play for the Giants. He boasts a hard slider and a fastball and is expected to be a solid contributor.

Jon Papelbon came over from Riverside in the off-season and was named a starter that day. They'll need him to adjust quickly in the rotation. He hasn't started a game since 2007, coming out of the bullpen for the Cavalry for the past three years.

One final question mark in the rotation is another converted reliever in the form of 23-year old hard-throwing Scott Andrews. The southpaw Canadian hurler will start the year in the minors, but should be up by early May to enter the rotation. No one expects him to have a problem adjusting.

"I think he'll bounce up quickly. He's got three solid pitches and he's working hard on a splitter that he started working on at the end of last year. I think he'll be the biggest surprise of anyone at how well he adapts," said GM Tristan Schofield.

In the bullpen, look for John Vaughan who came over as a free agent from Toronto and won 10 games as a reliever last year to feature prominently as a setup man to new closer Jake Smith who inked a big three year deal in the off-season, after spending the past few years as the closer with Vancouver.

PLAYERS TO WATCH FOR

New York is absolutely BUZZING with the crew of players that the New York Rens -- that's Harlem's own major league team -- have assembled. The most notable of them is Ryan Howard who is just dazzling baseball with his personality and skills.

A former 1st round pick, he was actually selected in the expansion draft (14th round) by the Rens in 2007. Ever since then, he's been absolutely on fire.

2008 AL Rookie of the Year and followed that up with back to back AL MVP Awards. The 26-year old first baseman is arbirtation eligible at the end of the season, but rumor has it, the Rens have already filed a huge contract extension offer that would keep him in Big Apple Red for a long time to come.

Last year, he hit .360, just .15 points away from a Triple Crown, as he led the league with 58 HRs and a staggering 171 RBI, breaking Rocky Colavito's 52-year old record of 169 RBI and was the first player since 1974 to register 160+ RBI and only the sixth in Major League history.

His 58 home runs were just three away from breaking Mark McGwire's all-time record of 60 set back in 1999. He is tied for 2nd all-time for single-season homers with Hall of Famer Mickey Mantle who hit 58 back in 1956 during his storied major league career with the Detroit Tigers and Sergio Perez, who did it back in 2006 with Colorado.

Boston's Wosene Lamaalem won the Hank Aaron Award last year as the American League's best hitter. He hit .345, 57 HRs and 150 RBI and should be a standout figure again going into the season.

AL reigning Cy Young Award winner Lyle Engle and the Yankees hope he can repeat last year's 22-8, 2.93 ERA performance and maybe increase his 188 strikeouts.

8-time All-Star, 4-time Cy Young Award winner and two-time defending National League MVP Felix Morin takes the hill for his 12th major league season and looks to improve on a year where he went 21-5 with a 2.11 ERA and struck out 295. The 32-year old Dominican ace has a career record of 206-66 and doesn't seem to be showing any signs of stopping. He's 7th all-time on the career strikeout list with 3,980 and looks to become just the 7th all-time with more than 4000 strikeouts for his career and by the time he's done -- he's the youngest player anywhere in the Top 10 -- he'll surely be the all-time leader in the category and will have a first class seat to Cooperstown.

SAY GOODBYE!
Tigers all-time great Todd Helton retired at the end of last season. Just three years removed from a Hank Aaron Award winning season where he hit .310 with 142 RBI and 37 homers, he closed the curtain on a career that lasted 13 seasons, 12 with Detroit. He hit 347 HRs, 1164 RBI and had a career batting average of .310.

He's a first-ballot Hall of Famer, that is, if he doesn't decide that 34 year old is entirely too soon to be retiring from the grand game.

FIRST HALF 2011 RECAP
 

The first half of the season started off pretty well for us. Despite a lack of playoff appearances -- just 7 in franchise history -- the team has seen a little success in recent years. Winning the 2003 World Series was probably the catalyst for what allowed the team to move south seven years later to Virginia after over 50 years in New Jersey.

We really retooled this club in the off-season and we've seen mixed results this far.

Attendance is at 1.3 million fans, ranked for 27th out of 40 in MLB. Last year, the team only drew just over 1.4 million the whole season, so we'll beat that number and we've doubled the number of fans per game from 19,356 to 32.407, so clearly we're making a difference and yet, ownership still believes we should be selling out every game.

Which needless to say, is a problem of philosophy and one of patience.

GOOD THINGS
21-year old Aussie rookie Axel Collingridge is becoming a solid contributor. He's showing pop in the bat and poise in the batters box. He's hitting 21 HRs and 71 RBI so far this year with a .356 batting average.

"I'm just trying to keep my head screwed on right and doing what I do everyday," he said.

Allen Carlisle has turned out to be quite the signing for the ballclub. Leading the team in batting at .370, his 17 HRs are 2nd most on the ballclub.

THINGS ARE A BIT IFFY...

On the pitching side of the house, it's consensus that the Giants need a bonafide #1 if they're going to contend down the stretch.

All of their starters have been average most of the year. Converted closer to start Scott Andrews has been the brightest star, going 7-2 so far this year with a 3.87 ERA. The rest of the rotation is average at best, with Aussie veteran and rookie Brandon Cashmore adjusting well to America at 8-7 with a 4.68, it's clear that pitchers are figuring him out.

Closer Jake Smith is having another solid season, already at 21 saves so far this year and seems well on pace for another 30+ save season.

As if the off-season wasn't enough of a splash for the Giants, the team pulled the trigger on a huge deal June 10th picking up Boston third baseman Wosene Lamaalem, along with another Ghanaian player, reliever Gildon Khalifa and shortshop Jake Moore in exchange for four players and cash, among the notables veteran third baseman Garrett Atkins and 22-year old pitcher Eisaku Watanabe.

Lamaalem signed a four-year extension shortly after coming over from Boston at 4 yrs and over $43.8 million.

In 18 games with the Giants, he's hitting .304 with 8 RBI and overall is hitting .292 with 23 HRs and 66 RBI on the season.

Veteran pitching coach Julius Thomas was named Manager of the Virginia Giants today, just a few hours after the firing of third year manager James Barnard by the ballclub. Thomas, 55, is a native of Jackson, MS and has spent over two decades around the majors and minors as a roving instructor. His most recent role was as Bench Coach in the International League with the Montreal Expos before that league folded.

GM Tristan Schofield things that Thomas is just what the doctor ordered for his ballclub. "We're fighting for a playoff spot and we need someone in here who can really bring the fire and intensity that we want our players to have every day." The team's new manager says that he looks forward to working with the team. "This is a lifelong dream of mine, to manage in the bigs. I hope to make Mr. Schofield and all of the management proud of the work I do every day.

In this year's amateur draft, the Giants had the fourth pick and selected Virginia Tech righthander Vance MacKnight. In fact, the first four selections by the Giants were all pitchers and all but six of the team's 15 picks in this year's draft were hurlers.

Other notable selections included fourth round pick, a hard throwing high schooler named Jay Smith out of Ohio.

Brooklyn native Miguel Pacheco spent four years at Alabama before being drafted in the 5th round by the Giants. The third base prospect has tremendous power potential and can also player at other infield positions.

The selection for most "intriguing" draft pick of the 15 round draft is Moldovan hurler Vladik Baskaev who was drafted out of the European Developmental League.

He's got a lot of work to do, but his upside is pretty remarkable. He's got four pitches and the potential for outstanding control and movement on his pitches and might be a likely candidate for the bullpen should he ever make it to the majors down the line.

The most notable contract extension was signed by New York Rens star Ryan Howard who inked a seven-year deal worth at least $131 million, with incentives it could get to over $148 million. Howard, 26, will become the highest paid player in baseball and should he make it the seventh year of the backloaded deal, he'll make $30.7 million during the last year of the deal. He also has a no-trade clause in his contract.

He leads the majors with 36 homers and is second with 88 RBI.

MLB STANDINGS AS OF JULY 4, 2011 (154 game season, trade deadline is August 1st) 4 division champs + 4 best records in each league advance to Wild Card Series.

Just read through this... Pretty interesting use of OOTP... I am enjoying it...

I'll be reading along, enjoying it so far.

Tell

Great read so far DC, keep it up!

Ditto, you have another reader here!

As we get nearer to the deadline, I had a frank discussion with management.

"I didn't come out of retirement or whatever the hell it is I was doing before...to run a team where there isn't a commitment to winning."

"Tristan, now you know we want to win. Look at what resources we've provided you to this point. We're committed to a winning product.

"Right and I appreciate that. But we need to do a bit more. I really believe this team is special. And we've got a good core in place that we can work from down the road. This team just won a World Series a few years ago, so it's not like we're some franchise that's on the rocks like others. But we have to get these people down here really excited about Giants baseball or we're gonna lose 'em just like we lost the last fan base. People are fickle..."

"Ok, so what do we need?"

"I need the green light to go after a player or two before the deadline. I'm exploring a few deals. I think we can make this work."

::pauses::

"Ok. I just don't want this to turn into one of those deals where you keep coming back for more and more. Make it happen now if you think you can ,but if your plans don't pan out the way you've slated them, I don't care if there are injuries or whatever else, you just have to make do. No higher than $42 million. That's about a $5 million cushion. Whatever you can't make work there, just won't happen."

"Alright, that's fair. I think I can work with that."

"I hope so...because that's all we can do."

GIANTS MAKE THE PLAYOFFS!!!!
 

Author's note:

That one-game playoff was crazy. I actually managed that game -- and I usually don't -- because I just wanted to be sure. One of my friends was sitting here and I was basically making him play manager. That kid, Tyler James is a D.C. native and is one of my favorite players (that's not him in the photo, that's James Smith..) and he really came up clutch and there wasn't really any reason to believe that was going to happen, especially with two outs.

But it was pretty exciting nonetheless.

I haven't even looked at who we have in the playoffs and I haven't written for that part of the dynasty yet, but I think that just making the playoffs when we were so close to falling by the wayside at the end there, is a pretty big deal to me and what's next ought to be interesting. Especially I don't know what's next at all.

BASEBALL'S FALL FRENZY--
Major League Baseball inaugurated the new playoff format with an entirely new marketing campaign called FALL FRENZY (tm) which is modeled (pretty heavily) after the March Madness model of brackets, office pools and really just an idea to get as many people into baseball as possible during the playoffs, when the best teams are being showcased.

Recent numbers have shown that attendance is up on most TV networks, but the playoffs are where most officials are hoping to "make their mark" and this year's playoffs are the first opportunity to do that.

"We think that with baseball on TV from the end of the September until mid-October is the perfect opportunity to showcase baseball and to reacquaint Americans with the national pastime," said J.R. Mulroney, VP of Marketing for Major League Baseball.

2011 MLB FALL FRENZY(tm)

DIVISION CHAMPS ARE AUTOMATICALLY 1-4 seeds based on records.

AMERICAN LEAGUE BRACKET
---
Los Angeles Stars (84-70) v. Riverside Cavalry (89-65)

Cleveland Bombers (85-69) v. Chicago White Sox (88-66)

Detroit Tigers (87-67) v. Baltimore Orioles (82-72)

Portland Beavers (89-65) v. New York Yankees (80-74)

NATIONAL LEAGUE BRACKET
---
Virginia Giants (81-74) v. Austin Aviators (92-62)

St. Louis Cardinals (82-72) v. New York Mets (83-71)

Pittsburgh Pirates (82-72) v. Florida Oranges (82-72)

Chicago Cubs (90-64) v. Vancouver Canadians (82-72)

FINAL REGULAR SEASON STANDINGS

PREVIEW: AUSTIN V. VIRGINIA

If I were scheduling this in real life, the best-of-three game Wild Card Series would be an entire road series for the team with the worse record. All three games if necessary.

But since I'm not, it won't be that way.

The Aviators and Giants tied in their season series at 3 games apiece. The Aviators feature a punishing lineup ranging from rightfielder Brendan King, who can do it all. He noticed 39 steals this year, hit 41 HRs and 115 RBI. In fact, the team has four players with over 100 RBI and two others with 50+ steals.

On the pitching side of the house, the Aviators team ERA of 4.81 was 2nd in the National League this year. Johnny Sampson, who played for Virginia last year and was traded after the waiver deadline (BEFORE I ARRIVED!?!) led the team with 165 strikeouts this season and 34-year old Rich Crockett led the team with 14 wins.

On the flip side, the Giants LED the National League in team ERA with 4.78, 2nd in Starters ERA and 4th in Bullpen ERA.

Offensively, the team led the league in stolen bases, but was at the bottom of the league in home runs -- making Tyler James' heroics in the one game playoff that much more remarkable.

The team will suffer with mashing third baseman Wosene Lamaalem out for the rest of the year with a ruputured disc in his back, but in only 79 games with the team his homers were off and he had 20 fewer RBI than in Boston.

The team's top players including Aussie rookie of the year candidate Axel Collingridge whose 34 homers led the team. Allen Carlisle was panned as some as being a 32-year old waste of cash, but for the Giants, he's been a true Giant. His 30 HRs, 104 RBI were among the tops on his team and his league leading .372 batting average is the highest of his career.

For those who say that April doesn't matter, it's likely that this team's 18-9 start is the only reason they're in the playoffs. Down the stretch, they went an just better than average 39-34 from July until the end of the season.

It'll be interesting to see how this first Wild Card Series plays out. Criticism of the entire format claim that the best teams will be shut out of the World Series, making the process less interesting to fans. But all indications so far as that fans across the country are excited, as more baseball teams in history are eligible for the post-season than ever before. And given that there were six teams within striking distance of the playoffs in the final days of the season, anytime you can have fans of a team engaged down to the wire of the season, it's a good thing.

For the record, I simmed all of these games..didn't play them.

GAME 1: Virginia 13 Austin 5
GAME 2: Virginia 8 Austin 1

It seems the story of this Wild Card Series was, offense, offense, offense.

The 8th seeded Giants needed a miracle just to get into the playoffs. But once they got their, the bats started working like they hadn't in several months and the team that Austin manager David Farley called "probably the most dangerous in the playoffs" proved him right as it sent the top seeded Aviators packing a lot earlier than they'd planned.
----
OTHER WILD CARD SERIES RESULTS
---
Riverside def. Los Angeles 2-1
Chicago def. Cleveland 2-1
Detroit def. Baltimore 2-0
Portland def. New York 2-1
New York def. St. Louis 2-0
Florida def. Pittsburgh 2-0
Chicago def. Vancouver 2-0

DIVISION SERIES MATCHUPS
(Sept. 23, 2011)

AMERICAN LEAGUE
---
Chicago v. Riverside
Detroit v. Portland

NATIONAL LEAGUE
---
Virginia v. New York
Chicago v. Florida

We're down to the final four in each league and when the dust settled, the AL's two best teams are still alive on opposite sides of the bracket. The Riverside Cavalry will take on the Chicago White Sox in their Division Series matchup and the Portland Beavers will accept the challenge in their best-of-five series of the Detroit Tigers.

In the National League, the Giants will be pitted against the NL East champion New York Mets. The Mets' Eric Gagne, who won 19 games for the team this past year got a huge blow when their ace is day-to-day with back spasms and might miss a start during the Division Series.

In the regular season, the Giants took 5 of 6 from the Mets.

In the other NL Division Series, the Florida Oranges will take on the Chicago Cubs

GAME 1: Virginia 6, New York 4 (10 innings)
GAME 2: New York 3, Virginia 2
GAME 3: New York 5, Virginia 2
GAME 4: Virginia 7, New York 3

Mets will have Gagne for Game 5
--
Mets starter Eric Gagne will return from injury to pitch in the decisive Game Five of the NLDS in New York.

Sylvain Belanger was on the mound for Game 5 of the Division Series versus the New York Mets. Give most pitchers, let alone a former Cy Young winner a 7 run lead going into the 7th inning and you're pretty sure that the game is going to get nailed down. But the Mets rallied in the bottom of the 7th, tacking on four runs. But the Giants added an insurance run in the top of the ninth and Jake Smith came on in the 9th and despite giving up two runs, nailed down the victory to get the save and to send the Giants to the NLCS for the first in eight years.

Meanwhile, a little bad news for the Giants as 1B Allen Carlisle was injured in the game after being hit by a pitch. and is reported out two weeks, which is a huge blow to an already battered team and that will reply on more of its depth down the road.

BASEBALL'S FINAL FOUR UNVEILED

The dust has settled and it's October 1st. The pretenders have gone home and we're left with four teams that will seek to call themselves World Series champions when it's all done.

In the American League, the Chicago White Sox continue their quest to repeat as World Series champions and claim their fourth title in eight years. Standing in their way will be the Detroit Tigers who last advanced to the World Series back in 1973 when they won it all over the Chicago Cubs.

In the National League, the Virginia Giants are looking to get back to the World Series for the first time since they won the title -- back when they were still in New Jersey -- in 2003. Meanwhile, their opponents the Florida Oranges have never appeared in a World Series since joining the NL back in 1988.

The Tigers and White Sox tied 3-3 during their season series, while the Oranges lost their season series to the Giants 3-5 during the regular season.

GIANTS SWEEP ORANGES, WIN NL PENNANT

Some fans have complained in recent weeks about the Virginia Giants wallop through the playoffs that it wasn't fair that a team that was only 8th in the National League qualified for the playoffs and now will make the World Series.

But even before the expanded playoffs in 2003, the Houston Astros made the playoffs with a 75-79 record and it took seven games in the Division Series for the Giants to send them home and that was a year in which teams with better records were shut out of the playoffs completely.

Under the new format, there is almost no way for that to happen.

"Baseball's regular season still means a lot," said MLB Executive Vice President Darryl Houston.

"People are getting bent out of shape when their team fails to rise to the occasion. But when you consider that there were very good teams that still didn't make the playoffs this year in either league, this isn't a situation like in basketball, hockey or football where teams with losing records routinely fight it out for the 8th spot in their league playoffs. Let alone do those teams contend for titles.

In the case of the Giants, I think it's fair to say that the team peaked at the right time. It's not as if the system is rigged towards bad teams winning or anything close. So I think those folks probably need to relax a bit and enjoy what most have said is the most exciting baseball playoff season they've ever experienced."

The White Sox might have won the battle, the Tigers have officially captured the war. After finishing a game ahead of the Tigers to lay claim on the AL Central title, the rematch of these two colossial opponents ended with the Tigers claimed their 13th American League title after a 10-3 victory over the Chicago White Sox.

It's quite a rebound for the Tigers who finished last season four games under .500 and fifth in the AL Central and last made the playoffs back in 2007 when they won the AL Central.

Meanwhile, the Giants have appreciated the rest that the seven-game series in the AL gave them after sweeping the Florida Oranges in the NL Series.

Their 2.8 million fans this past season is the most since their World Series year of 2003 (3.4 million) and third most in franchise history.

GM Tristan Schofield said he's surprised by his team's recent ascent, but not that surprised.

"We put together a team that we thought had a shot to do some pretty fantastic things. And they've managed to gel a lot sooner than I think any of us expected, especially given how we were clunking down the stretch. But in the end, we got wins when we needed them and were clutch when we needed to be and really, that's what it's all about at this time of year."

SP Scott Andrews and first baseman Allen Carlisle both came back from injuries this past week, giving the team a shot in the arm heading into the playoffs.

"To get your ace back and your best hitter just before the World Series, is a pretty big thing. It's especially interesting that we managed to do as well as we did in the last series without them. I think this team is just driven," said Schofield.

Detroit has home-field advantage in the World Series.

GAME 1: DETROIT 10 Virginia 0
GAME 2: VIRGINIA 6 Detroit 2
GAME 3: DETROIT 8 Virginia 4
GAME 4: VIRGINIA 12 Detroit 0
GAME 5: VIRGINIA 8 Detroit 1

Heading into Game Six, the Giants will be without Larry Brafield who was injured in Game Five. He'll be out the rest of the World Series. But with just one game left to capture their first title in eight years, the Giants are strictly business.

"We can't say that during the past few weeks of the year, we thought we'd be in this position. But we're going to go out there and do our best anyway," said pitcher Eric Broadhead who won Game 5, just his second start during these playoffs.

In Game 6, the Giants will face off against Detroit's best pitcher in these playoffs Albert Allen. The 23-year old Allen already has nearly half as many wins (6) as he had during the regular season (15), he's struck out 65 batters and it's not a stretch to say that without his arm, the Tigers would not be where they are right now.

The Giants meanwhile are sending their ace in Game 6, hoping that if he does what he's capable of, there won't be a Game 7. Aussie Brandon Cashmore is 3-0 this post-season, which completes a whirlwind tour of the world for the 29-year old hurler, who said his biggest post-season moment before this year was winning the Serie A1 baseball title in Italy.

"It was a good time, mate, lemme tell ya. But this...this is something else. I get goosebumps every few minutes."

Albert Allen showed why he's #1 on everyone's list for World Series MVP. In a duel of top hurlers, Virginia's Brandon Cashmore and his 13 strikeouts turned out to be no match for Allen, the Tigers lineup and 7 innings of 8 hits and just 1 run.

"We managed to get on base, but we couldn't capitalize," said Giants first base coach David Patton. The Tigers now have home field and a chance to win their first World Series since 1973 right in the crosshairs.

"We knew we could make it there," said Allen, "it's just about getting things right at the right time. We're not done yet though."

Game Seven is tomorrow night at Comerica Field in Detroit.

Axel Collinridge smacks two homers in a game that featured a combined 28 hits and 22 total runs, to lead the Virginia Giants to a 12-10 victory and with it, the 2011 World Series Championship. They were his fifth and sixth home runs of the post-season.

"This is an amazing turn of events for this ballclub," said GM Tristan Schofield about the club's reversal of fortune from needing to win a one-game playoff just to get into playoffs, but once they did they got hot and never looked back.

The Giants captured their first World Series title since 2002.

ESPN Exclusive: Jayson Stark reports that Schofield offered New York Rens job
 

NEW YORK -- ESPN's Jayson Stark is reporting that the GM of the World Series champion Virginia Giants, Tristan Schofield has reported been offered a four-year deal with the New York Rens to be their President of Baseball Operations.

No comment has been made by Schofield, the Giants or Rens officials, but according to Schofield's agent, he is still under contract with the Giants and has not discussed his plans with any team as of yet.

The Giants captured their fifth World Series title in franchise history Wednesday after knocking off the Detroit Tigers in Game 7 of the 2011 World Series.

Schofield, 32, was eleven years removed from his last World Series appearance back when he was the precocious GM of the Cavalry before they moved west to California.

Giants GM Tristan Schofield has denied reports that he's leaving Virginia. "I don't know where that came from. No one from New York -- or anywhere -- has called me about anything," he said Sunday in an interview on Versus Networks' Most Awesome Sports Show Exclamation Point.

"It's awesome to call yourself World Series champions. I had no idea it would feel this good and being away from the game in this capacity for as long as I had, I didn't really think about it much. I just went to work everyday knowing that the team we'd built [in Virginia] was special and that awesome things could happen if we put our minds to it. But wow, this is even beyond anything I expected."

When asked whether he'd consider another job, mum was the word. "I'm really enjoying this right now and I'm the general manager of the Virginia Giants. Anything else, isn't really on my radar at the moment."

The shortened amateur draft is no more. Citing a lack of development in the two divisions of minor league baseball, MLB has announced plans for the 2012 Amateur Draft to go 100 rounds.

"We're just not developing the types of prospects we'd like to. We're looking at creating another division of the minors at some point (currently there is only a Triple-A and a SS-A division) and we need to get teams the ability to have more players in their systems.

It's expected that at least a Double-A league affiliated with MLB will be added in 2012.

Author's note: The players in most of the minors were terrible. Now that I'm actively playing, even seeing a glut of one-star players on bad teams was getting really old. I was always a fan of the fact that baseball's draft was far longer than any other sports and I think it's a necessary thing. Especially now that the game isn't generating real life players.

NEW YORK -- Major League Baseball has announced plans to attempt restarting the World Baseball Cup during Spring Training next season. The tournament's teams have not been announced yet, but recognizing the 'growth of the game throughout the world,' MLB executives have decided that "a worldwide showcase of the game is in order, featuring the best players from all over the world."

As many as 24 nations might be invited to the tournament, that if it is successful will be played annually.

MLB Senior Vice President Marc Mienkaas, who was born to American missionary parents in the African country of Zambia and who went to university in South Africa, having a World Cup on par with what sports like cricket and rugby have in their World Cup.

"I don't think we'll get to the level that soccer has theirs, because it's just a different sport with a different following and all of that. But the fact that you have kids literally all over the world actually playing baseball is huge for us and we really are thrilled about that prospect," he said.

A recent survey of "baseball playing nations" by the International Baseball Federation showed the number of top prospects around the world growing in places that would have been unthinkable just a decade ago.

"Ghana is churning out legitimate major leaguers, while places like Pakistan and India are in an Asian arms race to see which can develop baseball players faster than China or Japan. And those countries have had a huge head start. It's amazing," he said.

Crediting a recent growth in the number of middle class families in India and the number of dot-com era companies that continued to launch and develop there by US educated Indians, baseball grew leaps in bounds in that country in the past few years, leaving many to wonder how the new 'global' game will be received by Americans who are still very used to a game that doesn't say, resemble a sport like hockey where the best players are usually foreigners.

"It'll be interesting to see as time goes on how it will all play out, but we're hoping the World Cup makes it even more interesting for fans."

Prior to the World Cup showcase, a showcase of the best prospects under the age of 25 will take place in Arizona. The Continental Fall League will feature four continental teams of the best players from around the world under 25 from Africa, Asia (including Australia), Europe and North America.

This 28-game league will be a preview of the showcased talent around the world and a precursor to further international development.

The World Cup probably won't happen this next year. I want to do it, but it's hard to run a team and set that up, at least...for me it is because of how much I want to develop my team. So, I think the fall league will be it for now, mostly to make sure that the way I want to develop it - using existing players - will actually work the way I hope it will.

Without much fanfare, I'm going to GM in the Continental Fall League this season. With Team Africa. The purpose of the fall league is mostly to take a look at young players who are doing well. So I'll just profile players I notice throughout the league.

NOV. 21, 2011

So far, the story of the Continental League has been the underacheiving Team Asia and the success of Team Africa. While the Team of the Americas (12-1) was obviously going to dominate, the big question was whether Africa (7-6) had enough firepower to keep up with the Asians (6-7). And so far, the two teams are battling it out for the coveted 2nd place spot, which will give the team that gets there at the end of the season, the opportunity to play in the Under 25 World Series in December.

"We're hoping to keep our noses to the grindstone," said Team Africa GM Tristan Schofield, who said that his team's pitching (2.53, 2nd in CL) has been its biggest strength.

"If we can keep that up, we're going to be a force to be reckoned with."

The Continental League regular season ends on December 6th and here are the records in the league:

Americas 21-3
Africa 13-11
Asia 13-11
Europe 1-23


Who was Europe's one victory against? Surprisingly enough, the Asians dropped a victory to them.

America's three loses have come from Asia (2) and Africa (1)

Africa's last four games are against Asia (2) Europe (1) and Americas (1), so the right to advance to the U-25 World Series is likely to be decided amongst those two teams in the regular season.

December 3, 2011

Africa 8, Asia 7 (10 innings)
Americas 4 Europe 0 (PERFECT GAME!)

December 4, 2011
Americas 7 Africa 0 (NO-HITTER)

Surprising those were the first two no-hitters of the Continental League season, they just happened to be back to back.

The real story of this league is what I knew from putting the teams together. That Europe is still quite a ways off from developing any major league level talent. Asia's talent is just scratching the surface and Africa is doing pretty well, but the game will need to grow beyond South Africa and Ghana for that level to be sustained.

I'll reveal an emerging prospects list at the end of this, because a lot of the kids on some of the teams -- mostly Europe -- are still young players in college or maybe low minors at best.

December 5, 2011

If Asia lost to The Americas (as was expected) and Africa beat Europe, Africa would've gone into their regular season ending game with a one-game lead. But the Asian team proved clutch and beat the Americas 6-4 in 10 innings. With Africa's 8-2 win over Europe, setting up a Tuesday showdown with the winner clinching a spot in the U-25 World Series against the mighty Americas team.

Africa holds a current 5-4 edge in the season series against Asia, but Asia had a better record against the Americas team (3-6 v. 1-8 for Africa)

"It'll be a huge boost for this team just to make it to the final, so we're really going to do our best to get there. But really, it comes down to doing what we've done the whole season," said GM Dark Cloud.

Asia won 1-0 over Africa to capture in 10 innings to advance to the Under 25 World Series

One of the things that I've learned just from doing this winter league -- which was a success, it's just tedious to move the players from team to team -- is that you get a pretty good handle on who is in your league. Which is kinda nice, because it's often difficult to get a handle on anyone but the top players. But with this, you get to really scour the universe and see the types of players and more specifically ,where they play.

It's still a bit overwhelming if you're running a non-traditional universe. But still...it's a useful tool I'm finding.

Just a month after denying reports that he would accept the job with the New York Rens of the American League, Virginia Giants GM Tristan Schofield announced late today, after leaving the Continental Fall League's Under 25 World Series, that he would be accepting the job in New York with the Rens.

"It's a great fit for me at this point in my career. It's no doubt a rebuilding job, but they have a great core of players that I'm really looking forward to working with. It would do my heart a lot of good, having won a World Series now, to build a perennial winner in Harlem," said Schofield in an interview with the New York Sun.

Giants officials said they heard the news late last week and had no comment.

Meanwhile in New York, Rens management were ecstatic at the move as the club prepares to celebrate it's fifth anniversary in 2012. The team finished 70-84 last season, 10 GB in the American League East.

"We're really thrilled to have a proven winner in Tristan [Schofield] joining the Renaissance organization. We're delighted that he's accepted our offer to become our new President of Baseball Operations and we're looking forward to putting a winner on field next year and in years to come," said Team owner and Harlem native Colin Powell.

Heading into New York, the goal is to win and win now. I think that the people in New York are going to get really tired of a third team there really quickly if they're not a winner early, that it's going to get tough for the new kid on the block.

But while we do that, I want to develop the minor league system to make sure that down the line we have a host of prospects that might pan out to be useful starters, so we can have players that are home grown. Because spending money isn't going to work forever.

So we'll see how this pans out. I don't really know yet.

Starting in 2012 (and with the new patch) I added the Japanese & Cuban major leagues to the universe. I think I'll probably create an independent US league as well.

I just ran the amateur draft. I lowered it to 40 rounds, because I thought that was more than enough. I'll do a team draft recap in a little bit.

Here are the currently active leagues in the universe:

Major League Baseball
- Triple-A Baseball
- Double-A Baseball
- Short-Season A Baseball
- National Collegiate Baseball Association (College feeder)
- Louisville Slugger National HS League (HS feeder)

Nippon Professional Baseball (Japan)
- Nippon Triple-A

Cuban Baseball League

Canadian Baseball League (12-team independent circuit)