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Post by David_ExposGM on Feb 2, 2017 11:35:16 GMT -5
It makes no sense to me why my fans would be upset. His national and local popularity is insignificant. Rumour has it he has interest in Atlanta's (insert the name of the most popular "gourmet burger, fresh cut fries and brew-on-tap" restaurant here)! It's not always about baseball... Extremely hard to write a joke about a place you have never visited, but gave it a shot!
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Post by Dustin Ackley on Feb 2, 2017 13:38:22 GMT -5
Ive been to Atlanta once. I spent a 4 hour layover at the airport. Other than that.. Ive never been either
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Post by David_ExposGM on May 28, 2017 7:22:21 GMT -5
Quite clearly I have not kept this thread up, but would like to add a couple of items. Here's the profile of my Owner: Russell is only 59, so still has many years ahead of him. He is happy, as you can see, and tolerant of my rebuilding work in Montreal, which is a good thing! His involvement in the team is normal - my understanding is that some Owners can meddle to the extent they take it upon themselves to randomly sign players (usually broken down vets with whom they might be fishin' buds) in the off-season, so I thank him for being normal. And his priorities appear balanced, as opposed to a fanatical winner (which would not mesh with our current outlook). Of note is the word next to "fiscal personality". Russell in a bit "controlling" with his wallet. What does that mean? The Expos of 2042 showed a final total balance of $14M+, which was due to some fiscal responsibility on my part as we attempt to dig out in Montreal. That was far better than the previous season and, thankfully, so was our team. That prompted Russell to raise our budget from $57M to $61M. It doesn't seem like a lot, but it does two things. 1) It elevates us from the PBL budget basement (only to #31 in the league, but it's a small step up). 2) It gives us a bit more money to play with this off-season. I do not see us signing an Ace with the extra $4M, but it helps! What is a real PITA is the number in the RED SQUARE below, which is the "Cash From Owner" line on our budget. Russell, admittedly after years of pouring cash into the franchise, has taken out $14.3M+ from our profits, leaving the Expos with starting cash of $4M. "Controlling" is an accurate assessment of his fiscal personality! And I love it! Just another challenge about this game and this league to overcome. I really hope that once (not if) we turn the corner and start competing with the players in the NL EAST and the rest of PBL, Russell will see the need to leave some more money in the team. But until then, it's just a hurdle!
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Post by David_ExposGM on Aug 13, 2017 6:48:08 GMT -5
END OF SEASON 2043 - UPDATE!
Time for an update to this story! We have just completed the 2043 season and while I had higher hopes, we actually pulled back a bit in 2043 from our record in 2042. I think I can attribute that to a couple of things. First, while there were some high points, we didn't really see our youth step up in a big enough way collectively. We do have some very promising players that will play a roll going forward and I was quite happy with what I saw from SP Theron Law and also from SS Michael Flagell. Law was quite clearly rushed to the majors (and that cannot be faulted as this team needed an early hero with some future) and, as a result, has taken forever to develop. BUT he has always kept his potential at a very high level. Hopefully his actual development is now catching up to his potential and he will be a major mart of this team moving into 2044. He basically lead the team in every pitching category this season and at 26 and just heading to his first arbitration hearing, hopes continue to be high! Flagell was much more quick to develop and while he too was a bit rushed and his bat isn't quite where we want it to be yet, he has stepped up this season to play a regular role. The former 2039 first round pick (as was Law the year prior) has another year on his entry level contract and we expect him to take another big step next season with both glove and bat. We also have some other players that have contributed this season. While he's not flashy and wasn't expected to play a major role, 1B Luis Sanchez has been solid. 3B Paco Pongo was signed as an IAFA and he was expected to play a role for years with this team. Just does his thing! And we hope there is some more talent that will join this very young core next season so that the Expos can finally take another step int he right direction! And second, the free agent pieces we signed in the off-season were moved (and thankfully for better pieces) at the trade deadline so we can continue to build for the future. That obviously cut into what success we might have had in August and September, but that's what you do! Among those that were moved SP Billy O'Herlihy to CAR (where he unfortunately is shelved), SP Fernando Maldonado to COL (where he went 8-2 down the stretch and at least helped them to the post-season), 2B Mike Brown to LAD (bench bat that will see the post-season). 3B Jose Pineda and RP Roberto Martinez were also claimed off the waiver wire late by BAL. Not sure they made a difference for them, but BAL is also part of the post-season. Had we retained some of that talent, our record might have progressed this season, but none of the above would have seriously been part of the future, so best to move them for more pieces.
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Post by David_ExposGM on Aug 13, 2017 6:58:31 GMT -5
Let's evaluate where the team is a couple of years after my taking on the General Manager role in Montreal. The record is still a little red. We made a slight push in 2042 and hoped to build on that, but (as mentioned previously) we dropped back a bit in 2043. It's all building for the future and hopefully the red ends next season! We are much further ahead with stocking the organization through the draft after the past couple of years. If you are not going to be successful, then you better build up your talent base. One of our "Owner Goals" has been to develop a "Top 6" farm system by 2044. While it fluctuates from time to time as talent elsewhere comes and goes, I am happy (and so is my Owner) with where we sit: The slight challenge is that none of the players you see above is PBL-ready, so they are still our future. I am hoping that we do have some talent coming however that will pave the way for the names on the list above to push up over the top in a couple of years. It's about time we finally did something other than lay the ground work. It's fun, but it's also nice to see some kind of payoff, eventually...
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Post by David_ExposGM on Aug 13, 2017 7:05:22 GMT -5
Oddly enough, the Montreal market has not changed AT ALL in my first couple of years. Sure it has been a little up and down, but this chart is exactly the same as the day I arrived (except for one key number, that being attendance): Through managing our ticket prices, we have built on the number of seats that have visited our park. That is a good thing! And, in turn, that leads to having some more money to work with as we continue to build something in Montreal. Our budget has turned around from a low point of $55M when I arrive, to $70M this past season. While we remain tied for last with STL and TOR at that number, we are headed in the right direction and I fully expect a jump of at least a tiny amount to play with in 2044. We're still nowhere near the upper level budgets of LAD, BAL and PIT, but every penny counts when you're bringing up the rear and we plan to use that money wisely this next season!
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Post by David_ExposGM on Aug 21, 2017 6:31:00 GMT -5
We have come to the end of the 2043 season and, much like last year, my owner has decided to retain some of the money that I have made for him (probably muttering another "finally" - under his breath this off-season, last he was pretty much in my face with that comment at full volume)! As you can see above from my (hidden to you) accounting page, the Expos took in $14.2M this past season - far better than the red ink of several years ago (and I hope we have forever turned that corner). The number immediately below that is the "revenue sharing" number, from teams that have gone well over the league average salary and have been taxed. Thank you! That means we took in a combined $17.7M dollars. Not bad. But the highlighted number just below those two is what my owner has taken out of the business -$12.7M, leaving me $5.1M to work with for this year! Can't argue the point, this team has sucked him dry for years, but it's still far less money to work with, which means our rebuilding process will be just that - bringing up prospects that are hopefully ready and NOT diving into big money free agents. I cannot argue with the man on that either. We will simply have to use our money wisely in 2044 and hope eventually he let's us keep a bit more when the time comes to start signing some of these good, young players long term. Oh, and that top number above is our new budget for the coming season! The GOOD news is that it's gone up to $71M. The STILL NOT QUITE GOOD NEWS YET is that it's still tied for lowest overall budget in PBL (with STL).
That said, just prior to last season my owner did ramp up our projected budget for this past season from $61M to $70M in the pre-season, so hopefully he feels as generous this year and bumps it again? His call. But we are slowly digging out in Montreal!
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Post by David_ExposGM on Nov 30, 2017 21:12:35 GMT -5
End of 2044 Season UpdateClearly things did not go as planned this year in Montreal. While we are certainly not ready to "compete" I was hoping we could take some positive strides with our crop of youngsters, and minimal veteran presence, and get closer to the medium term goal of playing .500 baseball. My owner also was hoping for a little bit more from both the team and me. Specifically his end of season message went kind of like this. And because we didn't seem to make quite enough progress, I also received this gem as we hit the off-season. Oh goodie! Our fan base has gone from Below Average to simply Poor. I'm sure that cannot help our push for some kind of respect in the PBL?
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Post by David_ExposGM on Nov 30, 2017 21:26:45 GMT -5
This is the "Meet The Team" snapshot of my Owner. NOT complaining, because we clearly haven't given him a lot to get excited about, but EEEK, this looks like even more of a challenge now, all uphill! And while, during the season, I did see the number $72,000,000 as a potential budget for the coming year, over our $70M last season, we seemed to have slipped a bit, down to only $71,000,000. Again, just another in a long line of challenges. The "good" news (and the word is very, very relative in our case) is that the Owner has been a little kinder with our budget forecast for the coming year. Previously, if you care to go back over some of the previous posts in this series, he would pretty much take all that was created and leave us with a handful of money. That has perpetuated the vicious circle of not having money, not making money, and then having the owner take money, so we do not have money all over again. Here is the "good" news for the coming season. I should confess that we ended the season with a "Season Profit/Loss" deficit of $714,309. I tried very hard to get that into green, but a combination of a dropped contract and just not being that good, cut into our revenue and we come up short. My fault! We did however end up with a positive balance on the year, the number $3,285,691 seen above. The number below it is our revenue sharing (which is painfully small considering some of the budgets at the top of the league, but...). And normally the owner would pretty much swallow all of that, but this season (in hopefully what might be a final turn to a more positive support of the franchise) he decided to only chip of slightly more than the revenue sharing figure - the highlighted number. We start the off-season with just under $3M dollars. Honestly, we'll have to make some very tough decisions about where to put our money this coming season, but it certainly will not be into free agents of almost any kind. We will continue to hope development comes from within and our youngsters continue to improve and compete! Good times.
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Post by David_ExposGM on Jan 11, 2018 7:56:37 GMT -5
Opening Day - 2045
Is this the year we see some progress? ANY progress?
After working hard over the Winter to evaluate this young team, add a few pieces (mainly just to be able to send down some of the youngsters so they are not quite as rushed as some already here), I think we are in decent shape. And by "decent" I mean a semi-competitive squad, given the 32nd budget in the league and living within our means to hopefully keep edging it in the right direction (if only $1M/Yr at a time, which is the forecast). On any other team my "Ace" might be a younger 4th or 5th starter, still trying to find his groove. But there is no time for that in Montreal, SP Theron Law is that guy! He's a first round pick from 2038 that has had to grow up in Montreal. With an early injury that cost him some development, and simply being thrust into the rotation long before he was "ready", his development has finally come around to the point where he actually looks like he should be here in the Expos rotation. As a result, just prior to the 2045 season, he was extended and will be counted on to anchor the Expos rotation. Along with Law, We have teamed lefty Jake Sims, who was picked up on waivers from TEX. He buys us some time and is on a shorter-term deal, so can hopefully be a competent place-holder until more youth arrives. The remaining rotation pieces are youngsters and, quite frankly, I plan to move them in and out, as performance dictates, with some of the other youngsters I just sent down to AAA. All of this geared toward the future. The bullpen is in somewhat similar condition. We do have veteran John Miller (who was actively shopped over the summer and would likely be first-moved when someone needs bullpen help elsewhere). After that, we have a combination of youth that will be part of our future and some veterans, like Linares and Cannon. An interesting pickup that I do hope pans out for us is James Keller. I think SEA was trying to sneak him through waivers, or simply has a much better staff, but he is getting his major league debut in Montreal this season and will hopefully hold down a spot in the pen. IF he expands his role in the future, that's gravy! In terms of bats, really the same philosophy applies. Send down the raw youth and add some pieces to hopefully allow us to at least look competitive (even every third week). Among the veterans that will be asked to lead the group, DH Jared Harris 41. He cam over from LAA and I just hope he has some gas in the tank and some pop remaining in the bat for us. 1B Calvin Lister is still a young man, but has shown a knack for getting on base. He was brought in to lead off and give us some relatively veteran leadership, from DET. C Darrel Brooks was the last add to this team prior to Opening Day and strictly for his "Captain" qualities and as a veteran backup in our catcher spot. Again the idea was to send down some of the other catchers to develop further in AAA. Is this the right approach and combination of talent to finally not hug the basement the entire season? We'll see. Is this a combination that will rival perennial favourite Pittsburgh and their new rival New York in the NL East? Doubtful. We just want to point things in an upward trajectory and hope we can continue on that course in 2045.
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Post by Commish_Ron on Jan 11, 2018 22:11:45 GMT -5
Moved out of archive because this awesome content is still coming in!
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Post by BlueJaysGM_Fin on Jan 12, 2018 19:51:02 GMT -5
I always had high hopes for Keller to make the bigs. I had to deal him in a deal with Seattle, as many more arms were advanced than him. He was always 'slow' to develop. But he looks like he can stick in your rotation, so i will be watching with interest!
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Post by David_ExposGM on Mar 12, 2018 6:57:58 GMT -5
2045 Season Re-CapWell, here we are. After some restraint and patience to, hopefully, allow the youth to bloom a bit, the Expos are slightly better than they were a year ago. While not yet challenging for anything in the way of a post-season berth, that is better than last season, so I consider it yet another step in the right direction. We ended the year 67-95, which was only a win away from the best record (68-94) I've had with this team. Not losing 100 again felt good - ya gotta have goals - but the wheel spinning simply has to stop. By the way, we ended the season 36 games back and THAT, believe it or not, is BEST in over a decade. Such is the NL East competition. Despite actually making more money over the course of the season, having a slightly better record than last season, and ranking #1 in "cost efficiency" in every stat but one, our budget was actually reduced for the coming off-season by $1M. We remain the lowest budget in PBL at $70M. You can see the lower third budgets below. The contrast to the top budget in PBL, the world champion Dodgers, is staggering. They have $274M with which to play again! Wow. With a budget of $70-Million, you certainly cannot "buy" a team. Again to contrast our team to the LAD, their three highest paid players make $93M, which exceeds the entire team budgets of the bottom SIX teams. And I am certainly not assigning blame in any way, LAD is full value for their success and resulting ability to get even better. It's just that the contrast is rather large! As a result, speaking only for myself, the challenge is to draft and develop. IF I see something on the waiver wire, or can sign someone that seems to be a "bounce-back" candidate, I may take a tiny chance and spend some money. An example this past season would have been taking a chance on Jake Sims for the rotation. A contract of two-years at $5M seemed reasonable. That actually bought me 5 games, 15-innings and an almost 10 ERA when he went out with arms issues. His team option will not be picked up. Another annual challenge for this team is the annual budget: The owner, and I am not blaming him - clearly this must be a game mechanism to still be penalizing a bad team, has again taken virtually all of our profit off the top. Not sure when (I have heard some interesting stories about this being an entirely fruitless challenge from some people familiar with the inner workings of the financial part of the engine and that this will NEVER, EVER improve), or IF we will eventually have far MORE of our profit to work with in the off-season? But it would be nice to get into a steady budget increase year-over-year and start to get out of the hole. As you can see above, we made just over $11M, combined with $4.7M in revenue sharing (thank you), but $10.7M was immediately clawed back by our owner. Maybe once HIS books balance and we have re-paid him enough for him to finally show some ROI on his Expos, he will loosen things a bit for us. If anyone else has money problems with their owner, bookmark this post!
I'll reallocate my funds for the coming season, again be VERY conservative in my off-season moves, and field an even better squad in 2046 to see if we can break the cycle and finally get closer to .500 and into some budget. Wish us luck!!!
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Post by sansterre - Milwaukee Brewers on Mar 12, 2018 18:07:47 GMT -5
I love this series. It makes me want to walk away from my A's to take over a rebuilding project. Maybe when I finally win one
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Post by David_ExposGM on Apr 16, 2018 6:13:37 GMT -5
Opening Day - 2046
The bar has been raised!
The Expos were pretty quiet over the winter. We have the lowest budget in the league, therefore little flexibility to make splashes of any kind in free agency. And we also have the second lowest payroll in PBL to start this season (staying to budget). That said, the mandate over the past couple of years has been top let our talent develop and hope that we take the next step. I really think this might actually be the year that we have enough ducks in a row to show some progress. THEN I glance at the competitors, specifically in the NL East, and wonder if we will indeed ever get to another level. Ha! The financial picture has some key points. Feel free to compare this graphic to your own team and you will see the challenge(s) in Montreal. The Market is "Small" and that will take a while to push to another level. Only once before did I pilot a team with a smaller market (tiny) and it was about the same kind of penny-pinching, you are never getting out from under, challenge. But WINNING cures a lot of things and if we can push to .500 or better this season, maybe things will start to happen? The fan interest is something you can alter slightly faster. Again a few more wins would go a long way, but I have also been quite deliberate in making sure we have some leadership on the team this season. The fan loyalty can pretty much only go up from here (but I have also been saying that for some time). And before you start targeting the Expos with your stinky contracts because we "seem" to have some extra dollars, just keep in mind I am trying to turn a profit so that my budget will actually go UP. The slight financial cushion you see will be used for two, and only two, things - 1) Any player opportunity that might come up to economically enhance our team with talent (like a great waiver claim or possibly a trade) - and 2) a positive balance to hopefully move the needle on our budget. To this point, a couple of years of moderate profit haven't, but eventually my owner will come around and see that I do want this team to get better! How have we worked this off-season to take a "next step"? Our very young pitching doesn't seem to be improving fast enough to make a difference. We still have plenty of "potential" but not enough "current overall" to make that big a difference. So, like the past couple of seasons, we targeted a relatively cheap option to bolster the rotation. The only move we made was to secure the services of SP Woody Richardson. The Angels have openly gone into rebuild mode and put their veterans on the block. Richardson seemed to be a decent enough option to plug in and not hurt us longer term. He will get a shot with (what hopefully is) a slightly better situation behind him to see if he can turn things around and produce for us. On the position player side of things, with the resources available, my only target was a team "Captain". They certainly do not grow on trees and, while I'm told players will develop into that role, I don't think I have seen it yet. So, C Alberto Diaz was the choice. I do have a young catcher, with power, that is not fully developed and I have been pushing on the ML club. He will be sent down to AAA in favour of the captain role in Diaz. Diaz has bounced around on some far better teams, so hopefully he has absorbed some attitude that may benefit my youngsters? And he is comfortable leading from the bench, so I think it's a good move for the leadership he will bring to the team. Outside of that, the youth dominates our roster and will hopefully be in a better position, with each new season, to make some noise!
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