2015 Somisa Season 

Preparation for the season

The 2015 Somisa season was an amazing experience. My team is the Bellingham Bozos. I have been in this league 11 years finishing no better than the loser in the ALCS in the best two years. The team had talent but not enough to win anything.  After finishing out of the playoffs in 2014 and with a slightly better than average team, I decided to take a bunch of risks and make wholesale changes and see what the result might be. This was a huge departure from previous management style, giving up the top players in two drafts to have a ready to win team.Through trades, the team had three first round picks including 3rd overall, in order to turn things around and compete those picks had to be moved. The biggest risk was trading three 1st round picks in 2015 for Beltre and McCutchen. 
On the draft side, there were two targets, a reliever and an outfielder. The 23rd pick was Brock Holt. An unusual pick in that I don’t want Red Sox on my team but due to his positional flexibility, it seemed to make sense to add Holt. The 28th pick was Ken Giles, who appeared to have the inside track to be the Phillies closer if they traded Papelbon. He had good stats for 2014 so he would be useful in the coming Strat season. (Papelbon did get traded but so did Giles and he starts 2015 as the closer for Houston.) Both players had key roles in the team’s success.

Results

One third of the way through the season, BEL was 27-24 and not particularly showing great things. 

At week 18, two thirds of the way through, BEL rose to 60-45 or a record of 33-21 during this part of the season.

At the end, BEL was 99-63 which meant the last third was 39-18 as many teams faded due to player availability due to limited usage.

The team had an exciting year featuring great performances by Wainwright, Beltre and McCutchen. Phil Hughes won his 1st 11 decisions before cooling off significantly afterward.
Beltre, McCutchen, Markakis and Reyes all batted in the .290 range with Wainwright going 19-4. The bullpen of Betances, Chapman, Bastardo, Ottavino and Giles performed outstandingly and kept the team in many games with high quality relief. One somewhat secret weapon was Mike Fiers who qualified to start or relieve and he was a critical player down the stretch with big plans to use his flexibility in the upcoming playoffs.
The team finished 99-63 qualifying as the top team in the AL with home field for the playoffs. The expectations were high that this team would advance at least through one round as the first opponent, WYN, seemed to be on a downward trend as the season ended.

Here is the summary of how those trades turned out…

Traded Away		Received back
2016 pick 1.18		2016 pick 5.16
2016 pick 2.18		Adam Wainwright
Aaron Crow		Adrian Beltre
Alismendy Alcantara		Andrew McCutchen
Buddy Carlyle		Brad Hand
George Springer		Brock Holt
Hiroki Kuroda		Chris Stewart
Howie Kendrick		Collin Cowgill
Jacoby Ellsbury		Dellin Betances
Jake Odorizzi		Eric Sogard
James Loney		Francisco Cervelli
Jesse Hahn		Ken Giles
Jon Singleton		Kevin Quackenbush
Josh Beckett		Kyle Crockett
Josh Rutledge		Phil Hughes
JP Arencibia		Santiago Casilla
Matt Moore		Scooter Gennett
Mookie Betts		Stephen Vogt
Rafael Soriano
Tommy LaStella
Yasmani Grandal