OOTP Padres: 12 straight & a poll!

If you’ve missed any part of the story so far, you can always check here to see all of the posts I’ve written on Gaslamp Ball about this virtual San Diego Padres team I’m playing through with OOTP21.

Hi there! I’m going to try and make this post a little shorter than past ones because I have an important question I want to get to at the end. So, let’s get right into it.

Trade SZN: Wil Myers / Kirby Yates edition

After making a bevy of trades, my San Diego Padres team was already starting to look settled. I had my long-time full-time corner OFs (Andrew Benintendi and Austin Hays), I had most of my infield settled (Manny Machado, Fernando Tatis, Eric Hosmer) and was working with a solid catching platoon (Francisco Mejia and Austin Hedges).

Also, my pitching staff (which now includes Mackenzie Gore, Luis Patiño, and Chris Paddack) paired well with a bully of a bullpen. I was ready to ride out the rest of the season with these guys.

But...if my goal was to make the San Diego Padres good, I needed to keep an eye on the future as well. I had to get rid of either the Wil Myers contract or the Eric Hosmer contract (or maybe the Manny Machado contract?) or both, if I could. It was time.

Hosmer’s been really good and I don’t hate the Machado contract (yet), so I started seeing if anyone would take on Myers. I found a willing trade partner in the Cincinnati Reds.

The Reds ate 95% of Myers’ contract (and 20% of Hand’s contract), we swapped closers, and I threw in a really solid prospect in C.J. Abrams. I made the decision that acquiring Wander Franco last week made Abrams somewhat expendable. Maybe it was the right decision, maybe not.

But, in an earlier conversation, I nearly worked out a trade with the Washington Nationals that also would’ve included Myers. I had become smitten with Howie Kendrick, both as a player and a clubhouse leader, so I went back to them after the Reds deal was complete to see what it would take him get him.

Since Profar was really only starting against LHP, I was more than willing to give him up to get Kendrick. Maybin had been terrible in San Diego, so Stevenson was an upgrade that fit my team better.

Now I had the trading itch. What other values were out there for me? I dug around on the trade block and found a former star pitcher in the final year of his contract having a real bad time. The asking price wasn’t much, so...

The only gamble here is that James Paxton won’t continue to be terrible. I had faith!

12 game winning streak!

Whether it was the addition of Kendrick or the subtraction of Myers, I’ll never know, but the team immediately won their next 12 games after I made those moves. July was a good month:

Overview

On July 31st, my Padres are 68-42 and in the driver’s seat for the top Wild Card spot. My winning streak netted me exactly zero games gained on the Los Angeles Dodgers (currently 4 GB), so I have no hope of winning the division.

The strength of my team is, without a doubt, pitching:

The offense is good, though! Solid all the way through, which means I’ve made the best Padres team in probably 20+ years.

I’m going to ride things out with this team, yes even Juan Lagares as my starting CF, for the rest of the season and hope for the best. There are no big trade deadline deals coming.

POLL TIME!

I’ve gotten feedback! Some of you think me taking the GM’s keys and making the Padres better via trade is a fun thing to watch. Some of you hate it because you don’t find it to be a realistic experiment.

So, I have an idea.

I’m going to restart. I’m going to play as the manager of the Padres, but only as the manager. I can set the lineups, I can manage the bullpen, but trades and call-ups and free agent signings are out the window. I have no control over that and I just have to deal with whatever A.J. Preller gives me.

My only question is, should I restart now...or should I finished playing through the 2020 season with my current Padres team (trades and all) before restarting as the manager-only? Assume the latter would probably take another month or two.

I can’t wait to see the results on this one.