ATL Team Preview: Providence Reds

I'm doing team-by-team season previews, mostly so everyone can see each team's full roster before games begin to be played. I stuck our team names into a random generator, and wouldn't you know it, my name came up first. I dubbed my team the Providence Reds as a play on the Providence Grays, a prominent 19th century baseball club, and the hair color of this group's Peerless Leader (it's my title now, Frank Chance). I had the 4th overall pick in the draft.









Note: As much as I'd love to say I designed this logo myself, I found it on a fantastic OOTP creator's set of logos he made for the game and thought it fit my team perfectly.
Team Colors: Red and White
Home Stadium: Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum

The position players: (to save on space, I made the picture smaller; please click on the picture to see it in full size)
(Don't worry about the star rating on the right; it's the game's internal "scouting" and shouldn't have an effect on anything in-game)
I hope that I end up accomplishing my goal of having the most balanced position players in the ATL. Sluggers occupy some spots in my lineup, but so do tremendous average hitters like Wagner and maybe Gwynn. The infield looks tremendous with the gloves; despite Brooks Robinson not being as steady with the bat as my other hitters, his magical glove at 3rd base should play a pivotal role on my team. Gary Carter and Yogi Berra form a mean platoon for the men donning the tools of ignorance. Manny and Mantle both are tremendous sluggers, but they have some limitations (especially as anyone who's seen Ramirez play left field knows) in the field, so I drafted two big defensive upgrades for them in Clemente and Gwynn. The team lacks a premier base-stealer, so a number of different players will all have to pitch in to wreak havoc on the basepaths. In addition, I think my players' power statistics should be at least slightly boosted by playing in the L.A. Coliseum, a favorable hitters' park.

The pitchers: (once again, please click on the picture to see it in full size)
Projected Rotation: W. Johnson, Young, R. Johnson, Feller, Ford
Since I knew many pitchers that would be prime draft selections would be able to pitch complete games on a fairly routine basis, I expected to have only 9 or 10 pitchers on my roster. However, I ended up addressing many of my defensive and offensive platoon concerns with my position players in fewer draft spots than expected, so the pitching total inflated to 11.
I drafted my starting rotation very early compared to the rest of the managers, so I think it's a very loaded staff composed of greats from various eras in baseball. Conversely, all of the other managers selected at least one "closer" before I did (relievers were used a bit differently in eras before today's closer), so there's a solid chance that I missed out on the best relief arms in the draft. I have a few starters that will assume relief roles and should do so without much issue, and they may also fill in a rotation spot should one of my starting 5 suffer an injury. Overall, I think it's a good mix of righties and lefties, flamethrowers and finesse pitchers that could spearhead a championship run.