FanPost

2014 Winter Meetings Simulation Review

Hey everyone, last fall I was asked by Max Reiper at SB Nation's Royals Review to play the part of Yankees GM during his annual Winter Meetings Simulation. Being the baseball nerd I am, I though this would be a fun thing to participate in. I was given a hard salary cap of $178 million - this was back when Plan $189 was still a thing. Had I been given a more unlimited budget, I would've made some different decisions. With that said, I think I did a pretty good job, and put together a team that is cheaper, and has performed better this year.

Here are the players I signed, with their contracts:

I also made some trades:

  • Traded Ichiro Suzuki for Mike Adams. This was a trade from a position of depth (OF) for a position of weakness (bullpen) at the time of the winter meetings. Figured OF was covered between Gardner, Soriano, Wells, Almonte, and another guy I picked up.
  • Traded David Phelps and Dan Burawa to the Athletics for Dan Otero, Seth Smith, and $300,000. Again, build up bullpen, and get a good bat to help in the outfield. After signing three starters, Phelps is expendable.
  • Traded Ivan Nova, Eduardo Nunez, and Francisco Cervelli to the Angels for Chris Iannetta, Robert Coello, Zach Borenstein, and Andrew Romine. Again, Nova was expendable (rotation of Sabathia, Tanaka, Colon, Feldman, Pineda), Nunez and Cervelli were salary dumps, all to get a young, cheap, good catcher, and add some minor league and bullpen depth.

With these players added to existing contracts, and major league minimums filling out the rest of the roster, I came out to $177,150,000, just under the $178 million budget. Another bonus, I kept three first round draft picks. At the end of the mock winter meetings, here was my projected 2014 opening day roster:

C: Iannetta, Murphy

1B: Teixeira

2B: Cano, Nix

3B: Uribe

SS: Jeter, Ryan

OF: Gardner, Smith, Soriano, Wells, Almonte

SP: Sabathia, Tanaka, Feldman, Colon, Pineda

RP: Robertson, Otero, Adams, Kelly, Betances, Coello/Claiborne/Cabral, Warren

Players the real Yankees added that I didn't: Ellsbury, McCann, Beltran, Kuroda, Roberts, Johnson, Thorton. Here's how the additions I made have done compared to the addition of the real Yankees:

Mock Yankees Average WAR
Real Yankees Average WAR
Robinson Cano 3.6 Jacoby Ellsbury 1.85
Seth Smith 2.75 Hiroki Kuroda 1.45
Chris Iannetta 1.75 Brian Roberts 0.9
Juan Uribe 1.7 David Phelps 0.8
Dan Otero 1 Brian McCann 0.75
Bartolo Colon 0.95 Ichiro Suzuki 0.55
Scott Feldman 0.4 Kelly Johnson 0.4
Mike Adams 0.35 Matt Thorton 0.3


Francisco Cervelli 0.15


Ivan Nova -0.45


Carlos Beltran -0.75




Total WAR 12.5
5.95

That is an additional 6.55 WAR, or about 5 wins. So, just curious, what do people think of this team. Do you like it better than what the real Yankees did?

Also, here are a list of links if you want to peruse the discussions during the process:

www.royalsreview.com/2013/11/11/5087240/sb-nation-winter-meetings-simulation-debriefing

www.royalsreview.com/2013/11/6/5071812/sb-nation-winter-meeting-simulation-thread-part-ii

www.royalsreview.com/2013/11/4/5061824/sb-nation-winter-meetings-simulation-open-thread

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