Vlad Responds to Boskoe100 Over Casanova 2X Fake Rumor ...

Hello everyone and welcome to another update of Adopt A Prospect! I apologize for the only one update this week, as I mentioned in my last update, I had Extra Life over the weekend, a 25 hour gaming marathon, which I spent a lot of time with my friends doing. I came home on Sunday and slept about 8 hours, and woke up at about midnight going into Monday incredibly sick, went back to sleep and spent most of Monday bedridden. I probably could've rushed out an update on Tuesday, but didn't want to do that as I still had a fair bit of simulating and screenshots to do, and then Wednesday I got distracted with League of Legends preseason starting and my friends wanted to hang. So...now that I've given you EVERY excuse under the sun, we'll get back to two updates a week next week, and let's get on with this long overdue update.
Missed Any Updates?
Follow this link to a Google Docs spreadsheet that has links to all the previous posts for the Adopt a Prospect series. You can use this to catch up on updates you might have missed OR you can use it to reminisce about old times, like "Remember when U-turn pitched that perfect game in the World Series? I do." So go check it out if you'd like.
Discord!
Do you use Discord? Would you like to talk to fellow Out of the Park players on it? Want to make my life significantly easier for tracking you down for contract decisions? Then come join the OOTP Discord! We're only about 20 people right now, but looking to get together with more people!
Here's the link to the discord if anyone is interested: https://discord.gg/uUkKHZP
We have a role in the Discord for people connected to the Adopt a Prospect series, ask a Discord admin to put you in that group if you'd like to be notified when I post updates or if you just want to chat with other people about it!
And with THAT done, on to the update..
Offseason 2004!
I'm gonna be honest, I simmed this offseason a week ago, the day of my last update, so forgive me for not remembering everything. I changed how I did Free Agency this year to speed up the process a bit, if a team that was at the top of someone's priority list offered them a contract, I would write down the contract and assign them to that team in the editor so I didn't have to spend 4 weeks in game time cancelling contracts. The effect this causes is they will not show up on the FA Signing list, and in their profile it says they were traded instead of signing. But know that the contracts they have were the ones that they were offered.
Step 1 of the Offseason, retirees! This year's group of retirees is headlined by Jose Mesa and Jeromy Burnitz. I would say Trevor Hoffman was a noteable retiring also, but he ended up a shell of his real life self saves wise and will not even come close to sniffing the hall of fame. Speaking of retirees, no Hall of Fame entries this year. Roger Clemens (70.0%) and Cal Ripken Jr. (69.6%) came the closes, but no one hit that 75% mark that they needed.
And as always, with people leaving the league, we have to have fresh blood coming in to compensate and keep the league going. Let's see who we have this year. This year's amateur draft is headlined by Justin Verlander. Other names on this list include Matt Garza, Johnny Cueto, Jered Weaver, it's a very big pitching draft. But there's also Dexter Fowler, Ryan Braun, Brett Gardner and others to round out the position players side. As it seems to always be with these, the player projected to be the best prospect does NOT go first overall. With the first pick in the 2004 MLB Amateur Draft, the Los Angeles Angels select: Ryan Braun, 3B. Verlander is not even the first pitcher taken in the draft, falling all the way to 10th overall, taken by the San Francisco Giants. Maybe one day the Giants will actually be good, but at the rate they're going, my hopes aren't high.
Step 3 of the Offseason, trading. There were a few trades that went down during this offseason, the White Sox picking up Mo Vaughn to bolster their lineup, and Mike Sweeney, and some money. The Indians came upon former Rookie of the Year, Ichiro Suzuki. And Nick Leach is continuing to get passed around worse than the chicken pox in a public school. But there is the complete list of trades that we had this offseason.
And finally we get to step 4, Free Agency. We had a couple of prospects hit free agency again this year, maybe one year I'll luck out and not have to pay so much attention to it, but hey. Here we are. Let's run down the COMPLETE LIST OF FREE AGENTS.

• Luke Morricone signed with the Toronto Blue Jays, 3 years, $21.7 million
• Alex Bandwagon signed with the New York Yankees, 5 years, $24.5 million
• Sean Waxman reunites with Daniel Collins, signing with the Cleveland Indians, 5 years, $39.9 million
• Andy Pettitte signs with the Atlanta Braves, 2 years, $38.4 million
• Mark McGwire signs with the Los Angeles Dodgers, 1 year, $12.8 million
• Shane Reynolds signs with the Atlanta Braves, 2 years, $24.2 million
• Greg Maddux signs with the Atlanta Braves, 1 year, $3.92 million
• Russell Branyan signs with the Cincinnati Reds, 7 years, $79.2 million
• Roy Halladay signs with the New York Yankees, 5 years, $74.5 million
• Scott Rolen signs with the Detroit Tigers, 6 years, $70.2 million
• Keith Foulke signs with the Chicago White Sox, 2 years, $25.8 million

That's all the people who were signed to $10 million+/year contracts.
And that wraps up the Offseason, so let's get to player coverage!
The Players
Alex Bandwagon
Midseason / End of Season
Bandwagon went to the Yankees and started tearing it up! Won 20 games for the first time in his career, ERA was a whole point lower than his career best, 1.65 lower than his career ERA, only walked 35 batters, another career best. He led the AL in wins (22) and BABIP (.209), I'm hoping that this is Bandwagon really coming into the prime of his career and that this is how he'll be for years to come. He started off the season 10-0 in April and May, 10 wins in 11 starts. Right handed hitters only hit .190 off him all year, maybe going to the Yankees was the best move for him. Hoping he does just as well next year.
Daniel Collins
Midseason / End of Season
Another year, another 20 win season for Collins, who looks like he's gonna become the Greg Maddux of the 2000's. A final record of 21-2 with a 2.32 ERA, a WHIP of only 0.76, and over 300 strikeouts again, he fell one win short of another pitching triple crown, (He can thank Bandwagon for THAT). Opposing batters only hit for a line of .175/.231/.301 against him in total, and God forbid if he gets ahead in the count, that goes to a .103/.141/.188 line. I could sit here and write about all the amazing things that the Maniel has done this year, but it's all stuff we've heard before from him, and at this point, I almost feel like it's expected. The Cy Young race will be very close between him and Bandwagon, I feel.
Trey Gordon
Midseason / End of Season
Trey Gordon starts his 5th season as a Boston Red Sox...Boston Red Sock? Trey Gordon starts his 5th season as a member of the Boston Red Sox. And while the record wasn't so great... he had some positives to take away from this season. Career low ERA, lowest starter WHIP since 2001, and those are the fundamentals that a good record is built upon. The 12-13 isn't bad by his standards, and he should just be coming into the prime of his career, hopefully. He DID however fall 1 game short of his 100th career win, which is unfortunate, but still.
Valentine Grisham
Midseason / End of Season
Valentine does not like it in KC, it seems. Sure. There may be a smile on his face on the morale, but the comparisons to his seasons in LA say otherwise. He finished 9-11 with a 4.47 ERA, over a point higher than his two years on the Dodgers, and he only made it through 175 innings this year. He struggled a bit in July, going 0-4 with an 8.22 ERA in the month. The other bad news for him is that he suffered a horrific injury in September. Doctors diagnosed it as needing Tommy John surgery, he would miss 13 months, missing the entire 2006 season. But then, through the magic of some back alley magician, his problem was cured! But the problem is, the back alley magician didn't know the problem was a problem until the season was over, so he still missed the last 4 weeks of the season. ........But he's cured! ....Magic!
Hans Jerkins
Midseason / End of Season
Jerkins power seemed to have taken a bit of a hit this year, still hitting 41 hoe runs, but when you compare that to the 54+ he's had the last 3 years. The average is still a desireable .334, still an over .400 OBP, and still knocked in 136 runs. So it wasn't a BAD season for him, just power wise, not up to expectations. Home runs, Triples, and Doubles were all down. One positive is that he did hit .418 with runners in scoring position. He DID hit his 300th career home run this year, though.
Manfred Manfrengenson
Midseason / End of Season
Everyone's favorite left handed Mets player with 75 contact and 75 power had another great year. 42 home runs, (his 6th season in a row with 40), 106 RBIs, .313 batting average. Any time you can have a home run hitter who can still hit over .300 is a good thing. Manfrengenson is most dangerous in the late game, hitting .373/.471/.712 in innings 7-9, and in the field, he commited only ONE error all year, making him a probable shoe-in for his 8th Gold Glove award. July saw him with his best month, batting .364/.432/.745, with 10 home runs and 21 RBIs. He did turn the big 3-0 this year, so he may start slowing down soon, but that remains to be seen.
Luke Morricone
Midseason / End of Season
Luke Morricone did not get as many starts as usual as he suffered an injury in June, a Strained Biceps that sat him for 5 weeks. All in all, it wasn't a bad season, he had the lowest ERA of his career, a slightly below average WHIP, and finished with a 14-7 record. On the downside, his strikeouts were considerably down, only 127 of them. To get back to the positives, batters only hit .199 off of Luke with runners in scoring position, right handed hitters only hit .228, but left handed hitters hit .296, almost .300. Luke had 3 months in the first 4 where his ERA was under 2, 1.34 in April, 1.82 in June, and 1.62 in July. This was sadly ruined at the end of the season by a 4.19 ERA August, and a 5.21 ERA September.
Steve Nut
Midseason / End of Season
Steze continued to do what he does best. An OBP of almost .500, led the league in stolen bases, led the league in walks, and a .361 batting average. When he manages to get ahead in the count, he has an OBP of .760! Steze's kryptonite, though, seems to be the postseason. He bats under the Mendoza line at .167/.375/.167 (granted that's only across 4 games), but even last year, he bat .160 over 7 games. Though with all that withstanding, he is still probably the most consistent threat to get on base in the MLB today.
Sister Ray
Midseason / End of Season
Ray took his 3rd season with the St. Louis Cardinals seriously, performing about the same as last year. 1 less home run, 1 less RBI, 5 points less on the batting average. Yet with those similar numbers, raised his WAR by a whole point to 6.2. He's good at drawing the walks though, when he's ahead in the count, he has a BA of .167, but an OBP of .702. The problem is when he falls behind in the count, his line plummets to .168/.182/.263, an OBP over 500 points lower. And he's falling behind more than he's getting ahead. Also worth noting, the 30 stolen bases this year for the first time in his career.
James Russell
Midseason / End of Season / Fielding
Brussell Sprouts won his third straight NL Batting Title this year, finishing with a line of .389/.450/.713 and managed to hit 46 home runs for himself while driving in 132 runs. One positive to look at is that he hit .407 with runners in scoring position. He also shows an idea of not wanting games to go longer than they should, batting .474/.615/1.105 in 26 plate appearances in extra inning situations. Fielding wise, this was one of his weakest years when it came to catching runners stealing, only catching them 37.5% of the time, but he still made only 2 errors this year, and only had 3 passed balls credited to him in 133 games. So that's good!
Jared Sabor
Midseason / End of Season
2005 was Sabor's 5th in a Yankee uniform, and he continued to play as the Yankees have expected him to. He led the AL in OBP at .462, drew 118 walks, and still managed to bat .326 when he wasn't drawing all those walks. 43 home runs, 104 RBIs, 20 doubles, an OPS+ of 181, it was a very good year for Sabor. His big weakness came with runners in scoring position. When you puts runners on either 2nd, 3rd, or both, his average plummets from a .326 to a .242, a drop of 84 points. But maybe that's something that he can get himself over next year. He did have the longest hitting streak of his career during this season, though, a streak that spanned 16 games. All-in-all a year that we expected from Sabor.
Schoonie Singleton
Midseason / End of Season
Schoonie had a bit of a rough go this season. Around the beginning of September, he was relegated to the bullpen by Oakland after starting the season 11-7 with a 5.68 ERA. He was then moved to the bullpen, where he would make 6 appearances, going 11.0 innings and giving up 16 runs for a 13.09 ERA. He had a lot trouble keeping runners of the basepaths, with opponents batting .295/.376/.488 off him, and after the 5.83 ERA performance last year, I'm worried about him. He also just turned 30, and I'm worried he may be past his peak already. We'll see if he recovers next season, I really hope he does.
Mattford Stafhew
Midseason / End of Season
This year was Stafhew's 8th on the main roster of the Texas Rangers, and he played about where you expect Stafhew to play. Average around .350, OBP well above .400, but not particularly hitting for a lot of power, with only 18 home runs. He hit left handed pitches well, hitting with a line of .350/.456/.439, and really made a difference in late game situations, batting .366 in innings 7-9, .382 if the game was close at that time, and .500 in 20 PAs in extras. He's bat in 7 different spots in the lineup over the course of the year (the only two he hasn't bat are leadoff and 7th), but sees most of his time in the 3rd spot. I don't want to see that was a quota year for Stafhew, as in he did what we expected, but didn't really do anything drastically amazing, but that's what it feels like.
Sean Waxman
Midseason / End of Season
The Waxitaxi reunited with Daniel Collins in Cleveland over the off season and he had a career year this year. A batting line of .391/.421/.676, which won him his first batting title, a league leading 273 hits, 147 runs, 158 RBIs, this was a true breakout year for the Waxitaxi. He hit for a .411 average off of right handed pitchers and hit .380 with runners in scoring position. When it got to late game, innings 7-9, he hit .431/.472/.775. When he got ahead in the count, he hit an astounding .527. I could go on for hours, but I won't. Just know that it was indeed a career year.
Fei-Hung Wong
Midseason / End of Season
The Hometown Hero participated in his second year as a member of the Red Sox, and had a pretty good year. The 15-11 record is good, the 3.49 ERA is loads better than what he was doing just 3 years ago, his strikeouts are down a bit, but he also posted the lowest WHIP of his career, so if he had to sacrifice the strikeouts for that, that's a sacrifice I'd be willing to take. He did see two streaks this year that were the longest of his career, a 9 decision winning streak from July to the middle of September, and a 13 game undefeated strike around that same time period. He should be entering the prime of his career right now, which hopefully he'll round out to be great.
Jory Young-Davis
Midseason / End of Season
Well the Junkyard Dog isn't back up to his usual shenanigans yet, but he managed to post a better record despite a significantly worse ERA. He posted a really good stats line in June, 4-0 with a 2.67 ERA, 32 strikeouts with only 3 walks, a WHIP of 0.98, unfortunately he didn't really have another month as great as that one. His contract with the Phillies is up this year, maybe being on a team that doesn't, for lack of a better word, suck, will do him some good.
Our Pitchers vs Our Batters
Have you ever wondered how your prospect fares against the other ones? Maybe your prospect has faced another pitcher enough times that it can almost constitute a little mini rivalry. Well, I'm not gonna post this EVERY year, but I figure this is something I'll check in on every 3 or so years. I present to you:
The Adopt a Prospect Pitchers vs Batters Chart
If you will look here, you will see every prospects batting average and home run count against each individual pitcher. It only shows those four columns because, well, that's all they provide. But it's a nice little window into the matchups. You'll see that the pitcher with the most success against the prospects is Daniel Collins, which I don't think is really a surprise to anyone, with our prospects hitting only .211 off of him. The batter with the most success against the pitchers is Sean Waxman, which did admitedly surprise me a bit. The Waxitaxi is batting .410 over 139 at bats against our prospect pitchers, including 14 homers.
See if there's any pitchers YOU'D like to start a friendly rivalry with.
Oh, How the Mighty Have Fallen
I wasn't sure where else to throw this in the update, so I'm throwing it here. We've talked a lot about Greg Maddux in this series, to the point where we changed the name of the Cy Young Award to be named after him. But now, I am here to announce the official decline of Greg Maddux's career. As seen here. Relegated to the bullpen, where he threw 61.1 innings with an ERA of 6.02. I foresee him retiring soon, but let us not forget that Maddux shaped the way that pitchers pitch in this league.
In Memoriam
As we all heard earlier this week, pitching great Roy Halladay passed away WAY too young. There was a post on this subreddit, asking people to post about how he's done in their sims, as a means of remembering him, and I plan on honoring that here. Here is Roy Halladay's career so far. Sure, he doesn't have the Cy Young Awards, or even all the All-star appearances of his real life counterpart, (I attribute that to being in the same league as Collins and Pettitte.) and sure his last year wasn't the best, but at least in this sim, Halladay got the World Series ring that I think everyone would agree that he deserved in real life.
I will update Halladay again when his career is over, but for now, this is where he stands. RIP Doc Halladay, you will be sorely missed in this world, and you left us too early. Whether you liked him or hated him (if he was a division rival with your team), this man will hopefully deservedly go into the Hall of Fame in 2018, where he will be remembered as one of the greats, and one of only two men to pitch a no-hitter in the playoffs. But for now, let me try to continue on...
Batting Leaders
AL / NL / MLB
On the AL Side, it is the Waxitaxi EVERYWHERE. He finished 6 home runs off of the AL Triple Crown, but still finds himself at the top of 9 leaderboards. Sabor, Stafhew, and Waxman are 1,2,3 in On Base Percentage, Emil Brown (who I feel I should note hit only 59 home runs in his 10 year career in real life) led the league in homers at 51. Cristian Guzman hit for 63 doubles, only 5 off of the Waxitaxi's record. On the NL side, James Russell covers the entire top row of the leaderboard with the exception of OBP where Steze beat him out by 46 points. The home run leader in the NL was J.J. Jurries with 55, (I feel I should once again add that he never even MADE the majors in real life). Steze ran away with the stolen base category, as if anyone is surprised.
Pitching Leaders
AL / NL / MLB
The AL side is all Collins. The Maniel holds the lead in 10 separate categories. Bandwagon, as mentioned before, stopped the Maniel's quest for another Pitching Triple Crown by leading with 22 wins. Troy Percival led the league in saves with 41. And Bandwagon actually had the most innings pitched, which innings is an issue we've had with our starters in the past. On the NL side, Andy Pettitte continued his pitching dominance, despite being in a different league nowadays. He led the league in ERA and Wins but unfortunately was NOWHERE close on the strikeout side to quest for the Triple Crown. Despite leading in ERA and Wins, Jake Peavy actually led the league in WAR, and Matt Riley (who made a career 18 starts in the majors in real life) led the league in strikeouts.
Standings
What's in a name? The Washington Nationals can tell you that. You change your name away from the Montreal Expos and BOOM! First place in the NL East. The Yankees finish first in the AL East, tied for the best record in baseball, as if that's a surprise anymore. The A's win the most uninteresting division, with every other team finishing below .500. The Blue Jays finish third in the AL East for the first time in as long as I can remember. The Giants are still awful. I'm just jumping all over the place now, but these are the things that stick out to me looking at these standings. With the exception of the Royals winning the Wild Card, this playoff structure is starting to look familiar, but here it is, anyway. Let's get right to them!
Playoffs 2005!
Division Series Results
ALDS 1: Kansas City Royals vs Oakland A's / ALDS 2: Cleveland Indians vs New York Yankees / NLDS 1: Atlanta Braves vs Washington Nationals / NLDS 2: Houston Astros vs Los Angeles Dodgers
The Division series were a bit one sided this year compared to the last couple of years, seeing 2 sweeps and the other 2 series going to only 5 games.
Our first series saw the Oakland A's and the Kansas City Royals duke it out. The first game was a close 1 run contest, and the rest of the games were blow outs, 7-3, 7-2, 10-4. The highest scoring offense in the American League was put silent as the A's scored run after run on them, ending the Royals miracle run. Mark Kotsay takes MVP honors with his .421 average in the series.
The second series sees the Indians and the Yankees vying for a chance to face the A's. The Indians took Game 1 to try to make a statement, a close 7-6 affair that went 12 innings. The Yankees answered back in Game 2, with their own win in extra innings. The Yankees would go on to win the next 3 games and take the series, 4-1.
Our third series saw playoff mainstay Atlanta take on the freshly named Nationals. This is another series that ended in a sweep, and it went the way of the Nationals. There was one close one run game in Game 4, but the rest of the games were handily won by Washington. Nationals 1B Roberto Petagine takes the MVP.
Our final Division Series saw the Dodgers and the Astros duke it out. The Astros managed to make the playoff despite being in the bottom half of the National League in runs scored, and that kept that average of about 4.7 runs per game intact, and that was all that they needed to beat the Dodgers. The Dodgers were able to brute force their way to a win in Game 4, 11-3, but couldn't keep putting that kind of offense up across the whole series.
Championship Series Results
ALCS: New York Yankees vs Oakland A's / NLCS: Washington Nationals vs Houston Astros
The Championship Series were significantly closer than the Division Series, so let's jump right in.
The ALCS saw a matchup between the A's and the Yankees. The series went the full 7 games, with back and forth trades of the series lead happening every other game. First the Yankees went up 1-0, then the A's went up 2-1, then the Yankees went up 3-2, until the A's finally won the series 4-3. The Yankees entered the 9th inning of Game 7 up 5-3. Mark Kotsay led off the inning with a double, Beltre and Casanova get out, and then with 2 outs in the 9th, Emil Brown hit a single driving in Kotsay, Brad Wilkerson hits a triple, scoring Brown to tie the game, and then Juan Gonzalez hit the walk off single to score Wilkerson and end the game 6-5, and end the series.
The NLCS had the Astros and the Nationals facing off. This series ended up going 6 games, and like the other series ended up being a bit of a back and forth. Nats won games 1, 3, and 5, the Astros won games 2 and 4. The problem is, the Nats decided in Game 6 they wanted to just break the chain and win that game too, robbing the world of another game 7, and taking the series 4 games to 2.
World Series!
World Series: Oakland A's vs Washington Nationals
I actually took the time to watch this World Series, and I'm glad I did, it was quite a good series.
Game 1 - This game was rather uninteresting at the beginning, with a home run in the 2nd by Juan Gone being the only score. But then we get to the 7th, and Washington gets runners on 2nd and 3rd with no one out. Billy Butler ends up hitting a 1 out double to left field, scoring 2, followed up by Esteban Guzman hitting another double to score another run. A's 1B Morgan Walker cut the lead to 1 in the bottom of the 8th with a solo shot and then things fell apart in the 9th. 4 time defending Reliever of the Year, Robb Nen, throws a wild pitch with a runner on third to give up a run. Shortly after, another runner gets to third, and Nen throws ANOTHER wild pitch, scoring that runner too. The Nats go up 5-2 and never look back, winning by that same score. Nats up 1-0.
Game 2- After losing Game 1, Mark Kotsay is done with these shenanigans and hits a lead off home run in the bottom of the first to give the A's a 1-0 lead. The A's pitching keeps the Nats off the board with a bit, with the 2-2 Vlad Guerrero being the only two hits the Nats have after the 4th inning. The A's tack on another run in the 4th, and ended up loading the bases with only one out. Wigginton lines back to the SS and Walker hits a shallow fly ball to squander the opportunity. Raul Casanova hits a 2 run home run in the 5th to put the A's further up 4-0. In the 9th, Ben Grieve leads off the Nationals 9th with a solo shot, but that is all the offense the Nats would muster, as the rest of the order goes out with a whimper. Oakland wins, 4-1. Series tied at 1.
Game 3 - I had to skip this game shortly after starting for time restraint reasons. So I didn't get to watch this one. Nationals win, 3-0. Nats up in series 2-1.
Game 4 - A's get on the board fast again with Kotsay drawing a leadoff walk and then Beltre hitting a 2 run home run to put them up 2-0, quickly. Stephen Drew ends up knocking in another run in the 1st to end it, 3-0. Not satisfied with their 3-0 lead, Brad Wilkerson hits a solo shot in the 3rd to go up 4-0. In the bottom of the third, the Nats get their first two runners on, and Harang ALMOST gets out of the inning, striking out the next 2 batters before giving up a three run shot to Mendy Lopez, A's lead, 4-3. There would be a lot more scoring by the A's, and not a lot more by the Nats, in the interest of time and space, I'll just fast forward to the end where the A's win 10-5, tying the series at 2.
Game 5 - The Nats jump to a quick 4-0 lead in the 2nd inning, which consisted of an RBI line drive by the pitcher, a bases loaded infield hit that no one got out on, a wild pitch, and a regular RBI. It was quite the inning. Oakland finally gets on the board in the 4th with an Emil Brown RBI single, but squander a bases loaded opportunity to cut the lead further, 4-1 Nats. Roberto Petagine hits a 2 run home run in the 6th to put the Nats up 6-1, Ty Wigginton responds with an A's home run in the next half of the inning, but it was only a solo shot. Washington puts up another 4 in the bottom of the 7th, going up 10-2. Now this is where things get crazy. Top 9, down EIGHT runs, the A's offense finally starts to wake up. They get 2 outs very quickly with Wigginton and Drew getting out to start the inning. Juan Gone walks, Morgan Walker doubles, Kotsay singles scoring Gonzalez, Beltre singles, scoring Walker, 10-4. Raul Casanova hits a 3-run home run, 10-7 Nats. Emil Brown walks, before finally, Brad Wilkerson flies out to second, ending the 5 run 9th and squashing the rally. Washington wins, 10-7. Washington goes up in the series, 3-2.
Game 6 - Adrian Beltre once again gives the A's an early lead with a solo shot in the bottom of the first, the amount of first inning home runs for the A's have been insane this series. Bot 4, Beltre decides, "Hey that first inning home run was kind of cool, let's do it again!" He hits another solo shot, 2-0 A's. The top of the 6th is where the wheels kind of start to fall off for the A's, giving up a 2 run home run to Roberto Petagine to tie the score. The Nats would put up another run in the 7th, and another 3 runs in the 8th to make it 6-2. The first two outs in the bottom of the 9th come quickly, and with the A's season down to their last out, Brad Wilkerson tries to start a rally with a solo shot to right field. The problem was... Juan Gone then flew out to right as the very next batter to end the game, AND the series. Washington wins, 6-3. Washington wins the series, 4-2. The Washington Nationals are your 2005 World Series Champions!! Roberto Petagine takes the World Series MVP award.
End of Season Awards
Reliever of the Year Award: AL: Robb Nen (OAK) / NL: Akinori Otsuka (PHI) Rookie of the Year Award: AL: Stephen Drew (OAK) / NL: Tadahito Iguchi (COL) Maddux Award: AL: Daniel Collins (CLE) / NL: Andy Pettitte (ATL) Most Valuable Player Award: AL: Sean Waxman (CLE) / NL: James Russell (FLA) Gold Glove Award: AL: C: Jared Sabor (NYY) / NL: C: James Russell (FLA), 1B: Manfred Manfrengenson (NYM), RF: Sister Ray (STL) Silver Slugger Award: AL: C: Jared Sabor (NYY), DH: Sean Waxman (CLE) / NL: C: James Russell (FLA), 1B: Manfred Manfrengenson (NYM)
Transactions
Here's the Trade Log for this season.
Note: The T.Gordon that the Giants received is TOM Gordon, not Trey Gordon. The big surprise trade for me here was the Blue Jays giving up 3.5 star LF Rondell White to the Phillies for practically nothing, just a 1/1 Center Fielder. Oh, and the Braves gifting Shane Reynolds to the Tigers for two 1.5/1.5 players. And.... the Rangers giving 4.5/4.5 Pitcher John Lackey to the Indians for a 1/1 Center Fielder... what's with these trades?! Are teams TRYING to stay bad? Anyway... let's move on.
Player Accomplishments
There were a LOT of accomplishments this year, so here we go, listed in chronological order:

• Kevin Young hits 300th home run
• Dave Nilsson hits 300th home run
• Richard Hidalgo hits 300th home run
• Kevin Young hits 2,000th hit
• Manny Ramirez hits 2,000th hit
• Jose Offerman hits 2,000th hit
• Craig Biggio hits 2,500th hit
• Vladimir Guerrero hits 2,000th hit
• Garret Anderson hits 2,000th hit
• Bobby Higginson hits 300th home run
• Richie Sexson hits 300th home run
• Jeff Cirillo hits 2,000th hit
• Sammy Sosa hits 500th home run
• Lance Berkman hits 300th home run
• Hans Jerkins hits 300th home run
• Emil Brown hits 300th home run
• Andy Benes achieves 200th win
• Derek Jeter hits 2,000th hit
• Robb Nen gets 400th save
• Dave Veres gets 300th save
• Mark Wohlers gets 300th save
• Russell Branyan hits 300th home run
• Todd Helton hits 2,000th hit
• Gary Sheffield hits 400th home run
• Mike Piazza hits 500th home run

...Whew. That's... a lot. Also worth noting, Mark McGwire has extended his career home run total to 799. And he is planning on playing another year for the Dodgers, so he WILL break 800. We did have 3 single season records broken this year, all by our prospects. Daniel "The Maniel" Collins broke the single season record for lowest WHIP at 0.76. Also, the Waxitaxi broke both the single season record for hits (273) and the record for Total Bases (472).
Prospects in the News
Finally we arrive at our final segment for this update.

• Daniel Collins pitches 5 shut outs (vs. CHW, MIN, ARI, DET, TB)
• Luke Morricone pitches 2 shut outs (vs. TB and TEX)
• Steve Nut had a 34 game hitting streak that was finally ended in a game against the New York Mets in which he only had a single at-bat.
• Trey Gordon shuts out Pittsburgh
• Alex Bandwagon pitches 3 shut outs (vs. TB, BAL, LAA)
• Fei-Hung Wong shuts out Twins
• James Russell goes 5 for 5 vs Milwaukee
• Sean Waxman goes 5 for 6 vs Tampa Bay

And with that, we will finish up this update for Adopt a Prospect. I apologize again for the lateness of this update, its been a crazy week, I'm still getting over my sickness that I had early this week, but I promise that next week, I will be back on my two updates per week schedule. And everything will be good. Our players are starting to get a little older, will they start to fall off a bit? Will the Yankees and the A's continue to absolutely dominate the AL as they have been doing? Will Mark McGwire ever retire so that we have a number for Manfrengenson and Jerkins and Waxman to shoot for? We have a couple prospects hitting free agency again, how will THAT shake things up? Find out early next week, but until then, thank you so much for reading and for your patience, and I will see you next time.
EDIT: In a request from several users on the OOTP Discord, we have determined that Montreal deserves better than this! The team leaves the city and goes from horrible to World Series champion?! Well, let's see if we can get them a World Series in Montreal! The Nationals have moved BACK to Montreal and become the Expos once again. ...Plus, I'm morbidly intrigued if moving them back to Montreal will make them a last place team again... WELCOME BACK EXPOS