Strat Opening Day 2019!

Better late than never, wanted to share some pictures from our recent pilgrimage to New York City and Strat-O-Matic Headquarters.

Unfortunately Hal was a little under the weather so he did not make an appearance, but his son was running the show in the luxurious headquarters building...

We walked around Glen Head and I was surprised to see this store on the downtown 'strip'.  It is called Fairy Lice Mothers, and their tagline is "Granting wishes by removing itches"!  Eeeewwww.  Probably the second biggest business in town, after Strat-O-Matic, (or the First National Bank of Long Island, which had three buildings in a 2 block radius!)

Parting is such sweet sorry, we took the Long Island Rail Road (conveniently located right by the Strat-O-Matic building) to head back to the city.

We hit three boroughs on Friday.  Started with breakfast in Queens, a stop at this great brewery in Brooklyn (Other Half Brewing Company), and then spent the rest of the day in Manhattan.  The Other Half Brewing Company lived up to the hype, filled with Brooklyn hipsters and great craft beers.   See if you can guess which of the three beers was mine!

First stop back in Manhattan was Foley's, the self-proclaimed "Irish Bar with a baseball attitude".  So much memorabilia in there that you couldn't even begin to digest it all, especially on a crowded Friday night.  

No trip to the Big Apple is complete without a quick trip to the top of the Empire State Building.

Was a great time, so glad Dave and Steve T. could go.   We are planning a return trip in 2021, when Strat-O-Matic should have all sorts of festivities for their 60th anniversary!  Hope you all can come along for that!

Bobcats Protection List

M. Olson

A. Simmons

E. Encarnacion

J. Candelario

E. Escobar

M. Betts

D. DeShields

Y. Gomes

B. Swihart

M. Gonzales

L. Severino

D. Keuchel

M. Stroman

E. Diaz

M. Barnes

M. Givens

Yu: J. Cotton

Cut w/card

M. Joyce

D. Pomeranz

B. Dozier

Cut wo/card

Swarzak

Norris

Jennings

Avila

Marrero

Vargas

Cain

Y. Escobar

Kansas City Butchers Protected List and Cuts

Keepers
Xander Bogaerts
Alex Bregman
Carlos Carrasco
Robinson Chirinos
Khris Davis
Kevin Gausman 
Yuli Gurriel
John Hicks
Craig Kimbrel
Corey Kluber
Lance McCullers
Yoan Moncada
Eduardo Rodriguez
George Springer
Mark Trumbo
Bradley Zimmer


On the Cutting Block
Cam Bedrosian
Richard Bleier
Alex Cobb
Evan Gattis
Tommy Hunter (no card)
Brandon Kintzler (no card)
Jason Kipnis
Mikie Mahtook
James Pazos
Sergio Romo


Yu Darvish player
Austin Hays

Great Work, Toronto!

Congrats, Tufte!
Antonio Brown

Montreal Protection Lists and cuts

Montreal Grizzlies eerily similar logo of Oakland University...(hush my attorney has that covered up.) (Shameless plug- Better Call Saul)

Grizzlies Keeping basically nobody as entire infield sought greener pastures in the National League...(unless your Jose Igelesias, dudes on a minor league deal)

Keeping these guys!

1.) Jose Iglesias - SS
2.) Jonathan Schoop - 2B
3.) Mallex Smith -OF
4.) Adam Jones - CF
5.) Josh Reddick - RF
6.) Michael Brantely - LF
7.) Jordan Zimmerman - SP
8.) Mike Fiers - SP
9.) Jordan Montgomery - SP
10.) Franklin Barretto- SS/2B
11.) David Robertson - RP
12.) Roberto Osuna - CP
13.) Alex Colome - RP
14.) Gary Sanchez - Catcher
15.) Kyle Gibson - SP
16.) Austin Romine - Catcher

17.) - Yu Darvish - Carlos Santana 1B/RF


CUTS!

1.) Kendrys Morales - 1B/DH
2.) Evan Longoria - NC/ 3B
3.) Miguel Castro - RP
4.) Heath Hembree - RP
5.) Zach McAllister - RP
6.) Kendall Graveman - NC
7.) Parker  Bridwell - NC
8.) Ryan Goins - Super UTL
9.) Todd Frazier - NC/3B
10.) Yovani Gallardo - SP/RP

Congrats to Steve Tufte and his World Champion Toronto Thunder!!!!

Thunder ace Chris Sale celebrates the big victory!

Cue the "Thunderstruck" song, as your Toronto Thunder defeated Andy and the Boston Bobcats last night to win the 2017 season title!  Two great teams (and two great Star Chicken Division mates) met in the finals, so congrats to Andy for another outstanding season as well!

Celebratory cans of Stroh's all around (except for the designated photographer)

to commemorate Steve's World Series victory!

Will let Toronto plan their victory parade and enjoy this title for a few days before we gear up for another season.  Just know that Draft Weekend is less than 3 weeks away, and Protection Lists will be due Thursday March 7th.  Will also publish a list of proposed rule changes that have been talked about this season, with the great hope of getting as much debate and discussion done BEFORE draft weekend so that we can concentrate on having fun and not screaming at each other :-)   Enjoy this very short off-season and see you all soon!

decisions, decisions

Las Vegas has one tough roster decision to make. While you wait for our announcement, please accept this message of peace and love from Ringo and the Fremont public relations department.

PITTSBURGH PHANTOMS 

PROTECTION LIST

HITTERS

Wilson Ramos

Greg Bird

Joey Gallo

Daniel Robertson

Elvis Andrus

Miguel Sano

Mike Moustakas

Rafael Devers

Andrew Benintendi

Byron Buxton

PITCHERS

Charlie Morton

James Paxton

Jose Berrios

J.A. Happ

Reynaldo Lopez

Daniel Norris

CUTS

Ken Giles

Francisco Liriano

Aaron Loup

Jason Castro

Yu Darvish NC

Scott Alexander NC

Steve Cishek NC

Tommy Kahnle NC

Starlin Castro NC

Steven Souza NC

Alex Presley NC

Yu Darvish Player

Taijuan Walker

Thunder Cuts

Fairly straight forward this year as we had just about 16 guys with okay cards.

Keepin the beat going

Sale (best pitcher ever)
Judge (best hitter ever)
Cruz (never ages)
Beltre (expects many retirement gifts this year, payable in beer to the manager)
Gardner (gonna miss his 1e0)
Smoak (why is this not Olson!)
Zunino (hoping for a Florida resurgence)
Polanco (nope, nothing funny in this drink)
Kepler (can you translate that to German?)
Engle (we just added more padding to the CF fence)
Gonzo Gonzalez (will somebody please sign this guy!)
Richards (not bad for an 11th round pick)

Green (best reliever ever)
Betances (excuse me?)
Manaea (welcome to the injury history of the Thunder)
Bundy (he is good right?)

Sent back to the record store

Smith (nobody likes you in Chicago)
Beckham (better as a spice girl)
Jackson (not so much Action, maybe needs only one bating glove)
Biagini (looked good in the minors)
Parker (more like out of the parker)
Peacock (even worse than parker)
Kela (we hardly knew ye)
Hendricks (Jimmy had a better run)
Scott (no more power)
Leone (he liked his money)
Butcher (almost made the cut)

Still on loan (Yu boy)
MeGee (Mister MeGee to you)

Lake Erie Roster and Cuts

Keepers:

J. Altuve, M. Cabrera, R. Healy, G. Heredia, T. Hernandez, J. Lucroy, M. Maldonado, L. Martin, J. Mauer, E. Nunez, M. Andriese, J. Chavez, J. Junis, J. Verlander, C. McHugh, J. Smith

Cuts:

L. Chisenhall, A. Escobar, B. Gamel, E. Ramirez

Yu Darvish: R. Madson