Carter Stenberg
Written by: Im A Gausman
Catch up on last weeks episode and the 2026 season here! Thank you for following along, and let me know in the comments how you are enjoying the series. As well as any suggestions you may have or things you would like to see moving forward!
We start the 2026 offseason with the best news a real Jays fan can hope for. Fortunately for us, our ownership group is much happier with us as GM.
The offseason begins with our owner, Zach Cone, letting us know he is happy we met a pair of his ownership goals which were tied together in “Find a Top-20 Prospect” and “Build a Top-6 Farm”.
We nailed both of these as we are pleasantly surprised to see that Dave “Big C” Dominey is the #1 prospect in all of baseball with the release of the Top 100 Prospects list. Not just that, but pitcher Wilson Andersen we picked up in the 3rd round also finds himself at #8. It didn’t take long, but we already have one of the best farm systems in the entire league.
Either the algorithm changed or I got really lucky on this save file. Most times in the first couple years, my top prospects look a lot like Landon Harmon and less like “Big C”. At any rate, nothing is guaranteed and the depth of the development system here means that nothing is for certain. I could just as easily have the next Mark Appel as I could the next Paul Skenes.
This must be what keeps the fans attention to this mediocre team as our fan loyalty goes up even with the poor regular season results. Fans in Saskatoon are buying into what we are building and leaves me feeling confident going into this offseason that we are just a few years away.
Nick Pivetta decided to not opt out of his contract this season, leaving us on the hook for the next 3 years with another $55mil total salary. We only have about $6mil before Arbitration to play with but we can move some things around.
No awards for any Knight as of yet as the Good Glove and Silver Sluggers are announced. Marcelo Mayer and Sal Stewart win Rookie of the Year in AL and NL respectively.
Skubal and Kirby win your Cy Young Awards. Skubal returning to dominant form in Cincinatti takes home his 2nd Top Pitcher award. In a contract year, he pulled out his best season yet.
Judge was unanimous MVP in the AL as his trophy case grows enormous – where as Francisco Lindor finally gets his long overdue MVP award, as Ohtani seems to finally have regressed some – particularly as a pitcher having an ERA at 4.54 for the season.
Free Agency arrives! Headlined by reigning Cy Young winner Tarik Skubal who just won the Triple Crown for the second time in his career – making him the first person to do it in both the AL and NL.
As such – here are his starting contact demands:
It is a fairly weak free agency class outside of those top guys, but there are some decent pieces available that I’m gonna look to leverage both in trade to fill out our rotation and outfield.
We get a very interesting trade off middle of November that really throws me for a loop and I really sit on it before I make my inevitable decision to accept. The Rangers offer us Jonah Bride for Luis Arraez (retain 40%) and Kevin Mannell.
This deal seems great at the moment as dumping the Arraez contract seemed impossible. Retaining money feels awful this early into a game but we are gaining more to use this offseason while improving our infield even more. Bride batted .283 with a 126 OPS+ this year in 113 Games. He’s definitely someone we would like to have especially after the disaster that was Arraez time in Saskatoon. Mannell has already lost a lot of his development, and is expendable given the surprising depth of pitching prospects we’ve picked up in the draft and International Amateurs.
Draft lottery happens and Portland keeps the #1 pick. We once again fall back to #7.
The Rule 5 Draft comes along and there is not much exciting happening here either. With 2 new expansion teams coming into the league, an already pretty thin Rule 5 selection process now feels even more shallow. We skip out on taking a pick here as last year’s, Matt Canterino, pitched an 8.75 over 11 innings before I had enough and sent him back to Minnesota.
After the draft, the “Win Now” Cardinals come after Jose Alvarado. He was our teams closer until the acquisition of Sam Hentges made him a more expendable piece and we get 3 almost league ready prospects out of the equation along with freeing up another $7mil over the next 2 years. #stonks
Because OOTP doesn’t have a tie in with NPB anymore, the game will generate random international FA’s at the beginning of the offseason to simulate this experience – often consisting of Japanese, Korean, and Cuban players. I picked up CL Yoshihiko Niheo who has mediocre stat lines but a DEADLY one two punch of Slider and Cutter. I’d be interested in seeing how he does in spring and get him in the bullpen to see how his stuff translates to the Major Leagues.
To shore up the bullpen even more, we bring in Camilo Doval from San Francisco at 2 Years / $7.4mil. He fills the Alvarado hole and we got him at half the cost.
Taylor Ward joins the team as well to play Left Field. He had 27 HR last year with the Angels and was generally a little above league average. Picking him up for 1 year / $2.6mil seemed like a steal given the low risk.
On New Years Eve, the Phantoms decide to make their first major move – signing the veteran Chris Sale on a one-year deal worth $14.6mil. While definitely in his twilight years as a Starter, he automatically becomes the best pitcher on their roster and signs they don’t expect to bottom feed for long.
Because I don’t know how to stop myself, I bring back Nick Castellanos for one more year at $4.6mil. We had money to play with this season and the free agency choices weren’t high this late in the game.
International FA arrives and we use our $4.7 cap to pick up 16 year old CF Victor “Greenfield Jimmy” Lamas. Weird nickname, but huge bat potential!
I’m getting ready for Opening Day as spring training rolls along when suddenly we get a bombshell 6 days before the season starts.
Though the Yankees must not be that concerned as they picked up Skubal AND traded for Jordan Hicks shortly after the season ended giving them the last 2 NL Cy Young winners under now nearly unhittable Max Fried.
Opening day arrives so let’s look at what Year 3 has to offer for Saskatchewan Knights and the Portland Phantoms.
Portland:
Now us:
Alek Manoah gets the start at the home opener. He performed well – only giving up a solo shot to Turang in the 3rd, but unfortunately our bullpen gave this one. With our investments there, I hope this doesn’t become an issue all season long.
7-12 in the early part of the season before we get the Draft Pool Announcement. This one is particularly exciting as we get our first look at completely generated players CF DJ Shurman out of Ole Miss looks like a great pick up at the older age of 23. 5 Star prospect who is already almost MLB ready hitter. If we want to start building talent soon, these close to Show Ready guys are going to be key with the amount of 18-19 year old talent we’ve already amassed.
Horrible news comes up for us on the May 1st development report. Wilson Andersen who was the #8 Prospect in the MLB Pipeline a few months ago regresses back from a 5 star to 2.5 star. Another issue with all these young guys is that there is such a wide range of variables that can come up before they reach the show – if they ever do.
The team actually over performs in June with a 17-11 record bringing us up to 43-55 by the All Star break. It’s great to see especially with the team being 6th in Slugging Percentage in the NL.
Bo Bichette has come alive this year carrying the team with his .281 avg, 2.2 WAR, and another All-Star game appearance. Overall the HRs are up big time this year which is a welcome change. The pitching staff seems to have fallen off completely this season so I bring in a fresh free agent from Japan – Seito Komatsu – to see if he can stem some of the bleeding.
Portland sits at 41-58 at the break.
DRAFT DAY!
Portland picks first and it looks like they have their teams first franchise star in the making. 3B Gaby “Paulie” Helmreich. Great contact hitter – could be a perennial batting title winner if he develops as projected.
The Tigers go second and take the absolute units that is SP “Lumberjack” John Jamison. He is already MLB ready out of the University of Virginia and projects to have one of the most lethal Fastballs in the sport. Gonna be watching for this guy in Cy Young races.
Shurman ends up going 6th to the Astros – a huge blow as there aren’t a lot of high value position players left before we pick.
Lucky for us, when it comes out turn to pick, there is an extremely attractive pitching prospect, SP Palmer Carriere. Passing up a 1st round talent out of Ottawa, ON seems like a bad move for the fan base, so while we’ve got loads of pitching prospects, I figured one more can’t hurt to keep the fans happy. We also got another pitcher in Angel Cervantes in the 2nd as well. Praying we can put together a super rotation in a few years time.
Okay. It’s only one game but…
Komatsu might be the answer to our prayers. Incredible debut game! Can’t wait to see how he performs the rest of the year.
Trade deadline arrives and we are sitting 48-68. Things haven’t gone out way since the deadline. We’ve actually seemed to have shed out injury bug from the past few years with a healthy roster with no major losses of time – though it looks like the break helped other teams catch up.
The trade deadline was extremely tame since years prior, Kodai Senga being on the move to Arizona being the biggest transaction of the week. We make one small move with a couple of prospects but nothing to write home to mom about. If this team is gonna turn the ship around, it’s gonna be with what we got.
This game against the Brewers captures exactly what this season has been like. Just constant up and down with failure in every clutch situation. The bats do seemingly enough to squeeze by, but it blows up in our faces. Bichette, Amaya, Massey, and Torkelson all are having respectable seasons but the pitchers just can’t keep up. We need our boys to develop and fast.
The season ends and we fortunately avoid a 100 loss season with a 63-99 record. Porter Hodge avoids his 20th loss by pitching an absolute gem against the Padres in a 14k shutout game, setting numerous team records that will surely be hard to beat in years to come.
It was a hard year for him but he closed it out strong. In fact, the Knights went 8-7 in September which is a great way to close out a year and leave the fans (and management) optimistic for next year.
Bichette, Clase, Amaya, and Massey all had great seasons. Torkelson while gave some inconsistencies still lead the team in Homers and adding great value with his bat even though the defense was letting him down in terms of WAR. I’d like to see if I can get him into a DH spot more next year and upgrade off Castellanos on first as he was dreadful.
Milwaukee had the best record in baseball with a 102-60. The Dodgers finished 68-94 which was absolutely bonkers! Or at least it was until I checked their injury report.
Ohtani missed the entire 2027 season as did Freddie Freeman. Offseason acquisition RF Jo Adell led the team in Home Runs and WAR this year if that gives you an idea how this played out.
Lets take a look at the top performers in the league for this regular season:
Looks like we finally had a player lead the league in a counting statistic… unfortunately it is literally the last one you could ever hope – with SP Porter Hodge losing 19 games this year.
Skubal cleaned up with the Yankees, en route to what should be another Cy Young for him in his return to the AL. A much tighter race will come this offseason for the NL award.
Bobby Witt Jr put on an incredible MVP caliber season, but will conventional counting stats be enough to carry Judge to another MVP? Guess you’ll have to check out next weeks edition to find out!
Let us see how this years playoffs look:
The playoff stage is set. The Marlins making a debut for the series here is nice to see. Hopeful for Miami fans that there team will turnaround like this in real life. Here I am praying Milwaukee finally gets it done and the Yankees Three-Peat is avoided:
The Red Sox do the Lord’s work and kick the Yankees out in the Wild Card round:
Brew Crew get it done – going the full length of the series in both the NLDS and NLCS. I mustv’e forgotten to take an LCS screenshot, so my apologies for that. A very tight series between the Brewers and Mets took place, but Soto will be waiting another year it seems.
Can the Brewers get the monkey off their back and beat this Red Sox team?
No. They cannot.
The World Series stays in the AL East for another year. Congratulations to the Boston Red Sox – your 2027 WS Champions. Marcelo Mayer is your WS MVP.
