05/26/20

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live. Support the show by subscribing to Fangraphs! With a standard $20 membership, you help maintain and improve our database of stats and graphs as well as our staff of 8 full-time employees and over 50 contributors. The premium ad-free membership at $50 year supports site growth and also includes faster load speeds and better site performance. You can also support monthly for just $3.

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NOTABLE TRANSACTIONS/INJURIES/RUMORS

• 2020 Season Outlook

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If you follow me on Twitter, you’re aware of why last week’s article reviewing 2027 and updating on 2028 never got posted. Let’s take a quick look back at the ’27 season before diving deep into ’28.

2027 REVIEW

After an ugly 74-88 in 2026, we were demoted from Iron back to Stone and we took advantage of moving down a level with a robust 96-66 record. Unfortunately, it was only good for a 2nd place finish behind a 102-60 ballclub. In fact, the 96 wins would’ve only won one of the six divisions and not only did it fall a game short of the wildcard in my conference, but it would’ve been three games shy in the other conference, too!

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05/19/20

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live. Support the show by subscribing to Fangraphs! With a standard $20 membership, you help maintain and improve our database of stats and graphs as well as our staff of 8 full-time employees and over 50 contributors. The premium ad-free membership at $50 year supports site growth and also includes faster load speeds and better site performance. You can also support monthly for just $3.

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NOTABLE TRANSACTIONS/INJURIES/RUMORS

• 2020 Season Outlook

ADP FALLERS

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If you’ve been reading my Texas Red Bulls OOTP series, then you’re familiar with the Perfect Team mode. Every Thursday they release new content cards available in their packs and this week they let me curate the set! Kris Jardine is the content manager for Perfect Team so I sent him an insanely extensive list of players I’d be interested in and he pared it down to these 12.

Here are the 12 players and some insight into why I chose them:

Jose Ramirez 2016 – His breakout has been really fun to follow, and this season was the taste of it with a .312/.363/.462 line, 11 HR, 22 SB, and infield/outfield eligibility having played 3B and LF. This generated a really solid silver card that will be popular in tournaments and be a staple for teams in Rookie and Stone leagues. Strong contact, gap power, and ability to avoid strikeouts should play very well.

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05/14/20

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live. Support the show by subscribing to Fangraphs! With a standard $20 membership, you help maintain and improve our database of stats and graphs as well as our staff of 8 full-time employees and over 50 contributors. The premium ad-free membership at $50 year supports site growth and also includes faster load speeds and better site performance. You can also support monthly for just $3.

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TOPICS

• No WBC in 2021
• 1999 Re-Draft

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Transcript is available, thanks for coming out!!

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05/12/20

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live. Support the show by subscribing to Fangraphs! With a standard $20 membership, you help maintain and improve our database of stats and graphs as well as our staff of 8 full-time employees and over 50 contributors. The premium ad-free membership at $50 year supports site growth and also includes faster load speeds and better site performance. You can also support monthly for just $3.

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• @sporer – Host
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NOTABLE TRANSACTIONS/INJURIES/RUMORS

• Latest Season Proposal
• 5-Round Amateur Draft

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In the hours after the last update, the team started to turn things around. There was a 10-2 run over a 12-game stretch, but the surge was short lived. We finished 74-88, 5th in the division and actually got demoted back to Stone Level. We had a positive run differential in that update when we were 43-53, but it evaporated as we scored 749 and allowed 780.

2026 REVIEW

The offense wasn’t too bad with the bulk of the lineup toting a wRC+ north of 100, with Joe Sewell (126) leading the club in a part-time role (352 PA). Three of the four players who logged at least 600 PA were above average: Jackie Jensen (110 in 622 PA), Jerry Mumphrey (106 in 616) and Ray Durham (109 in 611). Derrek Lee just missed with a 93 wRC+, but he led the team with 686 PA.

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I knew I was a little behind on giving a Red Bulls update, but I didn’t realize the last one was April 17th! My sincere apologies for that. Anyway, let’s just get right into it, there’s a lot to cover.

2023-2024

In the last update, it was mid-August and we were 65-54, just 4.5 games back of the division leader and holding the second wildcard. We went 13-30 and from that point on in a total meltdown to finish 78-84!!! It was rough. This was the first year moving from Rookie to Stone level so it’s a tougher pool, but that’s still so brutal to have that kind of finish.

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Transcript is available below!

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