Carter Stenberg
Written by: Im A Gausman
Sorry for missing the week there! Had some technical issues and a busy life schedule, but we will be back to regular programming moving forward in May. Next week there won’t be an article but I will make sure to double up on the 13th both Year 7 and Year 8. You won’t want to miss it!
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Quiet start to the off-season. Jose Altuve and Francisco Lindor retire at 39 and 35 respectively. Lindor was quite early but he ended his last season hitting .187 and generating negative WAR so it was reasonable to hang it up.
We get a 3 Year Extension from owner Zack Cone. His enthusiasm has dropped to Undecided which at this point is honestly a godsend for us.
One important decision I make this offseason is to move some of the walls in to make more room for seating as well as bring us a little closer to league parity. The 20-ft monster that is the color green remains but we increased the height a few feet in right and pulled them in a bit more. Perhaps Hyung-Cheol Kim can see more benefits of his power that only generated 25 HR last year.
No Gold Glove or Silver Slugger winners still unfortunately. Orion Kerkering who was traded to the Red Sox last offseason wins another Reliever of the Year award with his 1.23 ERA over 66 innings and 43 saves. David Hagan over on the Padres wins the NL award with a 1.26 over 71.2 IP. We are living in an age of the Reliever as these numbers are insane.
Rookies Nick Dumesnil and Rich Fahey win take home the prize for having the best freshman season. Fahey in particular was an 11th round pick in that 2026 draft. He has developed into the 2nd best catcher in Baseball and someone the Marlins will likely build around for years to come.
Yamamoto does take home the NL Cy Young award. Crochet gets us 3rd place in voting with 3 first place votes. Hoping a repeat performance comes next season even with the outfield adjustments. Christian Zazueta wins Cy Young in AL for the Mariners, acing their 1st place Runs Allowed squad. Finally dethroning runner-up Tarik Skubal from his reign of terror.
Are you ready for your MVPs?
CF Michael Harris of your WS Champion Atlanta Braves takes it home with his batting title and league leading hits and WAR. And in the AL, 24 Year Old Bryce Rainer of the Detroit Tigers. I was so baffled by this at first as 137 OPS+ and 5.1 WAR weren’t much to write home about, and he didn’t lead the league in any batting stats…
Then I saw this.
Bro is Shohei 2.0. I have no idea if in real life Bryce Rainer is supposed to be this 2-way sensation, but in OOTP he is hitting bombs, pitching a 3.10 ERA in 28 starts, AND is the 6th best defensive Shortstop in the American League. Very fitting when he retires, another rises to pick up the mantle.
I am not sure if this is new in OOTP to see players develop quite like this. 2-way prospects and athletes develop all the time in this game – but this is the first I have personally seen one put together a season quite like this.
We reach arbitration and get this bizarre new event.
This dude is about to be paid $55 million a year for the next 3 years and he declares bankruptcy. I feel like giving this man this large a sum of cash is likely a dangerous road. I hope he keeps his financials in check and not a distraction for himself on the diamond.
It’s honestly alright we don’t have a lot of money to play with this season – about $12 million after Arbitration – as the pool of talent is somewhat uninspired compared to last year. We were given a goal by our owner to improve at Catcher over the next year or so. Miguel Amaya and Campusano, both expansion picks, I did let walk this offseason. I am hoping Roemhildt will be ready to go this upcoming season to take on the roll but I might have to resign one of them if available closer to seasons end. Amaya is currently the franchise leader in games played at 604.
Most important this offseason is fixing our bullpen. We had way too many guys regress and have guys in AA with about as much skill as what we are putting up on the mound. Some of our prospects might be moving to bullpen innings to get into the Show, but I’d still like to get a decent setup guy to support our closer Cade Smith (who actually had an incredible debut season in that role).
A few days into FA, we get an offer for last year’s Rule 5 pick Brady Basso and a couple of relief prospects. Edgar Quero is a talented young catcher who doesn’t wow in any metric, but still put up a .316 AVG in 40 games last season. He was upset in Chicago and looks like we get a guy to slot into Amaya/Campusano’s role.
We get another deal shortly after from Houston giving us a 17 year old SP prospect for Nihei and a catching prospect. Nihei hasn’t panned out in 3 seasons with us, so moving on from him and shedding the salary is worth it at this time as we’ve got lots of players vying for his spot.
The next domino falls as we get catcher Drew Romo on a minor league deal. A defense first catcher, he should pair well with Quero in our split catcher system should Roemhildt not be quite ready.
Draft lottery comes and goes and we have the 4th pick. Detroit and St Louis both leapfrog us and the Rockies – those two cannot stop winning the top picks.
We bulk up and pick up Aroldis Chapman and Gregory Santos to fill out the bullpen. We’ve been dying for a lefty like him for awhile and hoping at 41 he still has gas to eat solid innings. He has a 1.29 ERA over 56 IP last year in Milwaukee which is actually insane. Look at Chapman’s history since the start of this chronicle. Saskatchewan will be his 13th team.
Rule 5 arrives and I plan to be quite aggressive on this one. I’m going to be taking 4-5 players to shore up our bullpen even more. I can release these players back in Spring Training if we need the roster room. We take pitchers Justin Lawson, Brayan Mendoza, and Jesus Gonzalez. I also pick up CF Slade Caldwell and 3B Davis Schneider. Slade can hopefully fix some of our shoddy defense and add some pinch runner utility. Schneider is struggling after missing last season after being cut by Toronto. I’ll see if I can get him some time at 3rd.
Looking at the FA signings, looks like Houston is loading up now that Altuve is off the books. Volpe, O’Hoppe, Greene, and Gimenez is a scary combo. A team that finished with 75 wins last year wants to turn this ship around.
Preseason hits and we get some sweet, sweet, financial support – Cone gives us the greenight for another $14 million in budget. I immediately use that opportunity to hunt the best remaining deliver out their, Mr Sam Hentges – who came off a career year in that legendary Mariners bullpen. Welcome back!
We get great updates out of Spring Training with all of our crew improving enough to make it to the show. Palmer Carriere in particular has the nastiest pitch arsenal I have seen yet – he just has absolutely no control over it. Let’s see if he can still deliver results while walking every 3rd batter.
Opening Day is here! Let’s see the rosters (spoiler alert, I had to cut every Rule 5 pick but Lawson)
We have 7 drafted players on this squad now, finally making it feel like our own team. It makes the owner happy, now let’s see if we can win some games. But first, compare your Portland Phantoms to the Saskatchewan Knights.
We lose the first 4 games of the year, swept by The Dodgers and then taking an L from the Cardinal before winning the last 2 games. Home opener against New York sees Jonah Aase go up against Dustin May.
We win it too! Lawson makes the save against the team he was Rule 5’d from. Must feel nice.
We win the series and have ourselves at 4-5 early. After sweeping the Nationals, the Knights are 7-5! A record for season winning percentage.
Draft Pool Announcement comes and the mock draft has us taking Canadian CF Dave Fermeyhough. His potential is insanely high and if realized would be one of the best players of all-time, not just in MLB today. Lots of things can change but a guy like this is worth taking a risk on after we way over stepped for Dave Payne last season.
Apr 26th 2030. The team is 18-17 and we just came off a series with the Padres where we scored 28 runs in 3 games. Our bats go all but silent against the 1st place Reds. Despite that, something incredible happens…
Jonah Aase pitches the first No Hitter in team history. He faces 28 batters, only walking Hector Rodriguez in the 5th. Jonah struck out 13 on 105 pitches. Truly a special performance, and a moment Knights fans will never forget. Hats off to you sir.
By the start of June, the Knights are sitting at 31-38. Aase is second in the NL in ERA, and Crochet is 2nd in WAR. Leading the team to the 4th best ERA among starting rotations (though Max Meyer has been moved to the bullpen after posting a 5.5 over his 12 starts. The defense and HR totals are still atrocious. Kim has regressed power wise which is unfortunate this early into his monster contract. He is still the best power bat on the team, but we were hoping to see more longevity out of his skill set.
By June 27th, we get this headline. We’ve lost 9 straight and are 7-17 in June. I can’t figure it out. I mix up the pitching staff, call up and down different players and can’t get things to work. We either lose 0-1 or 12-13. We can’t get things to work on the nights we need them to.
June 1st arrives and so to does the All-Star Break. Garret Crochet is our only representative this year as he leads the NL in WAR, Strikeouts, and FIP. Was sad to see Aase didn’t make it in the pitching staff, but he isn’t big enough of a star yet to get the votes he needs. Still he sits 4th in ERA.
41-57 is nothing to write home about, but it is astonishing how we got this way. We have good to middle of the pack batting and pitching stats. The team has far from lit up the league, but the record feels far worse than the team has performed. I’m confident out of the All-Star Break this team can at least get back to .500
The Draft comes shortly after and 6’6” RF John “Dragnet” Riley goes first overall to the Tigers. Followed closely by Steve Taggart and Sergio Estevez – all outfielders for the first 3 picks. And of course we continue that trend by taking CF Dave Fermeyhough with the #4 pick in the draft. We keep lucking out into hometown Canadian boys. This particular one looks super promising. He’s got a long road ahead to make it to the show, but his potential upside is off the charts in contact, speed, and power.
The Guardians take SS Matt “Big Boy or Pig Tiger” Tolbert
I have no words for this nickname.
We get to a 53-67 record come the trade deadline that honestly was pretty unremarkable. We got lots of offers that never really manifest into anything – the rest of the league looked to be about the same. Lots of prospect for replacement level guys, not much to write home to mom about.
Things go bad to worse as we get our monthly development report. Leody Taveras is now comparable to our best outfielders in Double A – and we still have him for $22mil for the next 3 years. Going to be the albatross around our neck for years to come I imagine. Luckily for us we have had some prospects develop to fill the void. 13th round pick from 2026 Pascal Grand was called up and is one of the team’s best hitters. Aase, Harmon, and Dominey are all in the starting rotation – though Big C has a 6.19 ERA and still figuring things out.
We put together a small win streak but then get the news our top hitter has a strained hamstring and will miss the rest of the regular season. Tough news for a 35 year old outfielder to receive.
In his first game in the 3 hole, Grand pops off. He hit 3 doubles and a 3 run homerun to push the Knights over the Giants. He now is batting .312 on the season in 52 games. At 22 years old, it’s great news for a team that desperately needs this power.
We are eliminated from the playoffs at 63-87, the day we reach roster expansion.Tough pill to swallow with the hope we had going into this year. Fortunately we are still on pace for our best season in team history. Not a high bar to cross but a small goal I’d like to meet.
That immediately falls apart. Crochet gets hurt in the last 2 weeks and Aase gets lit up. We finish 66-96. Hugely disappointing, but we do meet 3 of our 4 managers goals for the year including Upgrading at Catcher, more drafted players, and improve team chemistry.
Matt Roemhildt actually ended up being our MVP in his rookie season! Quero and him both splitting reps generated the 2 best players on the squad in terms of WAR. Granted Quero and Pascal glboth generated 1.8 in 86 games. Hard to be too upset, especially because we have this offseason to work and develop all 3 of these guys who are thankfully under team control for a long while.
Portland ended up finishing 3 games out of the playoffs with a 81-81 record, the first expansion team to a .500 record. 2027 #1 pick Gaby Helmreich is a big reason why as he takes in his sophomore season.
Let’s take a look at the rest of the top performers –
We are starting to see some new faces on top. 1B Rene Markwell was a Intl. Free Agent for the Rockies in 2026. He had a huge rookie season posting the league leading Avg, OPS, Hits, and Doubles – 48 two-baggers to be exact. Still rated as the #12 prospect, he is sure to be in contention for MVP.
Brent Rooker returns to 2025 form, smashing the American League with 48 HRs and .550 Slugging. Jason Dominguez seems to have picked up Aaron Judges crown and is leading the New York Yankees like many fans today hoped. The Marlins new young superstar C Rich Fahey also put up another incredible year smashing bombs.
Over in the pitching section, a Rockie got the ERA title… wow
Jose Butto, currently a Rockies bullpen pitcher, molded into a starting roll by 2028 – and 3 years on he is the ERA king. Awesome stuff to see. He likely won’t get Cy Young votes as Skenes, Sasaki, and our own Crochet make their cases for the hardware.
Bo Bichette led the entire majors in Errors. Probably should be looking to move him off Short. (Headlines in 2031 that make sense in 2025).
Let’s see how these playoffs shake out.
These are bizarre divisional series matchups. Both the Braves and Orioles look to make it back to WS this year, we shall see if they can overcome the surging young teams put in front of them now.
Marlins v Rockies. What an insane matchup between what are probably the league’s two biggest young stars in Rich Fahey and Rene Markwell. I’m sad to see the Jays get knocked off but Seattle wants to finally make a run at this thing after losing to those Legendary 2029 White Sox.
Unfortunately, it appears the Orioles are just to much for the Mariners pitching staff. The 110 win season goes down the drain after leading the league in runs scored and runs against. I feel like I’ve seen this movie before…
Regardless, the stage is set. Let’s look at these rosters.
42 Year Old Jacob Degrom is making the start in Game 1 of the World Series.
WHAT!
His career in this expansion has been crazy. He’s bounced around a lot and between starting and bullpen. But as a full-time starter at 42 he put together one of his best seasons since the Mets days.
As for the Marlins
Wait
No
That can’t be
ALEK GOD DAMN MANOAH?!
HE PUT UP A 2.86 OVER 78.2 INNINGS OUT OF THE PEN?
BRO IS GONNA GET A RING BEFORE WE EVEN GET A PLAYOFF GAME.
Well that never did come to pass.
But Degrom ends his career with a ring (despite the fact he blew out his shoulder after getting one out in that game. You still can’t take that 1 WS out away from him though.
Alek Manoah was the best pitcher on the Marlins for the series, not surrendering a run and getting 4 Ks over 2.2 IP. If we can, I might try and bring him back this offseason (I don’t know how to quit you).
Congratulations to the AL East Baltimore Orioles on their 2030 championship. We shall see you in 2031 for what I am predicting now will be our big first winning season!
