Rounding Out The Season As A Rebuild

 What to do at the end of the season when you’re a rebuilding team? You’re not in the race, so this part of the season tends to drag on with 3 sims in the month of September. Yet, I find a lot of excitement, even as a rebuilding team.

First off, I love micromanaging and ever developing or changing my future plans. As I’ve shown in an earlier blog I like to chart out ALL of my players for where I think they’re going to be for the next several seasons. September is the time of year that I re-visit my projections and make edits. Maybe a guy is progressing faster than I anticipated, so I speed up his time table to the majors. Or maybe he’s developing slower, so I adjust his ascension to a slower pace.

Secondly, it’s a time of the season to give some prospects a look. If they’re ready or you plan on them being in the majors for Opening Day of next season, it’s a very good idea to stick them in the Lineup/Rotation/Bullpen for the entire month. As long as they don’t already have time in the majors, it’s almost impossible that they’ll play enough (130 at-bats or 50 IP) to lose their Rookie status for next season. Even if you think they might be a season or a jump (and a mid-season call-up), it might not be a bad idea to have them up for a sim or 2. With sims only being 10 days long, you aren’t doing much to hurt their Arbitration clock. Mogul tends to stifle players in their first season or two, so these September cups of coffee could mean when you’re competing, they’re playing at their full self down the stretch instead of still being broken in.

With August being the final month of minor league play, September is the time of year that I look at my minors and go ahead and promote guys through the system that’ll be there next season. It’s a great way to see where you may have deficiencies or open spots for the draft next season. It also guarantees that you won’t forget to do it and leave a player in too low of a level to open that following campaign.

Lastly, it’s the time of year that I start to look towards re-signings. Who do I want to extend, offer Arbitration to, who gets released, and do I have any Compensation candidates?

For many rebuilders, contract extensions aren’t likely unless the player is young and you’re about ready to compete. Getting a head start on planning for quality and consistent veterans can be a big plus in steady performance instead of breaking in a roster that’s a majority of first or second year players.

Who to offer Arbitration to? That’s a good question. You may like a guy and want him back, but it’s possible that be releasing him, you  can get him back at a team friendly $1M/2 or $2M/2 contract, which is probably a better deal than the year-by-year Arbitration process. However, if you like the guy, it’s possible that someone else likes him too, so maybe agreeing to a $2.5M Arbitration contract isn’t the worst thing since all it takes is 1 person liking him and now you’re paying him $5M/3 just to get him back. I would usually err on the side of offering Arbitration to know that I have the player and not worry about Free Agency bidding wars.

Onto Releasing/Compensation. Sometimes an Arbitration eligible guy takes too much to re-sign and it’s time to cut bait. You could always offer Arbitration and hope that you can trade him, even if it’s just for a 5th round pick, but you’re gambling on a market being there.  If there’s not, then you’re stuck with that salary and that money might’ve been able to buy you the pick you would’ve dealt him for in the first place.

I feel Compensation becomes easier as a rebuilding team. You don’t likely have a high Payroll and can absorb a higher salary if the player comes back to you.  At times it seems people don’t care about the cost of Free Agents since cash is aplenty, but other times people can be quite astute and not bite on the borderline Compensation players. But I do think the one mistake many make is becoming too greedy. $16M/2 is a high price to pay for a player and while Type A Compensation sounds very appealing, Type B still nearly guarantees you a top 75 pick. If ever there’s doubt, I just offer Type B and know I’m either getting a pick or only having to eat $8.5M instead of potentially $32M. Going from a likely low 80’s peak to a mid 80’s peak prospect just isn’t worth the risk unless you know for certain the player will be signed.

So, maybe micromanaging isn’t exactly your thing, but I would bet all of the successful GMs here at FCM do it to some degree. Maybe they don’t project out prospects and detail finances like I do, but they certainly have a plan in place and are constantly looking for ways to better their franchise.