Facing a glut of backstop prospects, Stockholm unloaded catching prospect Jose Trujillo to Marietta for outfielder John Chartrand.

While neither player is likely to reach the major leagues for at least two seasons, it helps fill needs for both franchise’s minor league systems.

“We like Chartrand as a future leadoff type, and hope he forms an outfield trio with Lawson and McCree for the next generation of our league,” Stockholm spokeswoman Gudrun Schyman said. “He’ll start the year at AA-level Vällingby, but we hope to see him in Södermalm by the end of the season.”

Ahhh. Young Valerie Bertinelli. Sigh.

I’ve run today’s one-day sim. I believe the schedule is fixed. The two doubleheaders from last year have been eliminated. The teams on the schedule were also scrambled so we’re not playing the same teams at the same times again. I’ve also processed the Stockholm-Seattle trade of Hidetada and Moncayo.

Please take a look at your team’s schedule and let me know if you notice anything amiss. I think it’s fine for everyone, but a second set of eyes won’t hurt.

The next sim will be next Wednesday, either by Nate or me (TBA). League file is posted.

Brooklyn (AP) – The era of the marsupial has begun in Brooklyn.  With the signing of Perry ‘The Platypus’ Hodgin people all across Brooklyn were yelling “he has feet like a duck but he’s furry.”

The Bombers have announced new egg promotion (did you know that the Platypus is the only mammal that lays eggs) and have introduced a new venom dog that ‘packs a bite’ (did you know that the Platypus is venomous).  They are also creating a creating a authentic Tasmanian stream in the OF bleachers of the Drop Zone stadium so that the Platypus can feel right at home (OK I think you get the point right now).

The Bombers were surprised that Hodgin was available on the FA market.  “He is one of the best all around players in the game,” commented GM Jeremy Goldman.  “The opportunity to get a player of his magnitude to complement the rest of the lineup, well, you can’t put a price on that.”  There are the skeptics out there that believe that Brooklyn overpaid for Hodgin’s services, but his agent Scott Boras is not one of them.  “He is one of the top 10 players in the game, and has two World Series championships under his belt, and is hungry for more.”  Boras made that comment as he was stuffing his cut of the contract into his suitcase and getting on a plane to the Bahamas.

The Lifetime .292 hitter who has 160 career HR and 623 RBI in his 7 year career for Sylva and Pittsburgh, will take his place in the middle of the Bomber lineup to compliment newcomer to the league 1B Gary Moeller and new acquisitions RF David White and LF Carroll Pinon.  This new look lineup should have more pop than last season, and with the pitching that is returning from last season.  Could the Bombers win 100 games for the first time in franchise history?  It would seem automatic, but only this season will tell.

We’ve reached February and some of the big name free agents have finally begun to ink contracts. Here are the major league signings this sim:

Marietta Mammoths: Signed free agent SP B. Millette to a 1-year contract worth a total of $700,000.
New York Knights: Signed free agent CL A. Santos to a 3-year contract worth a total of $18,000,000.
Miami Masters of Their Domain: Signed free agent SP A. Martínez to a 1-year contract worth a total of $490,000.
Brooklyn Bombers: Signed free agent CF P. Hodgin to a 4-year contract worth a total of $76,100,000.
Marietta Mammoths: Signed free agent MR W. Savage to a 1-year contract worth a total of $300,000.
Marietta Mammoths: Signed free agent MR E. Adams to a 1-year contract worth a total of $600,000.
Seattle Pilots: Signed free agent SS C. Fordyce to a 3-year contract worth a total of $37,500,000.

Santos, Hodgin, and Fordyce are all Type A free agents, which means picks are changing hands. The compensation page and the draft pick page have been updated accordingly. (Let me know if I made any errors.)

I don’t know yet when we’ll run the next sim, but we’ll send out an email when it’s decided. League file is posted.

P.S. I haven’t yet gotten the schedule fixed. I’ll have to do that when I next run a sim. SNAFUs popped up in my attempt to update the schedule.

I find myself with an embarassing array of prospects. I have plans for all of them. Some may swap positions, some may find themselves in a backup role or competing for playing time.

But some can benefit you, the reader of this message. I could flip one or two of them for the right package of prospects. How many of you have even one 5 star prospect? Here’s the count:

Five Star:
1B Juan Mejia
1B Dave Richardson
3B Salvador Romero
RF Reynaldo Dominguez
2B Eduardo Olivo
CF Tom Roberts
CF John Chartrand

4.5 Star:
1B Tucker Baker
2B Octavio Gonzales
1B Jesus Munoz
3B Hector Ventura
LF Arlen Shipley
1B Sancho Bojorquez
1B Walter Maley
SS Carlos Cisneros

4 Star:
1B Simon Fontaine
2B Francis Decesare
3B Tyler Chapman
3B Randy Carman

3.5 Star
SS Chris Williams
2B Carlton Hargrove
LF Alberto Torres
2B Luis Boring
LF Steven Seidl
LF Ken Lalonde

3 Star
3B Josh Hammond
C Ricardo Lucero
SS Alex Evenson
C Ke-huy Tai
CF Alex Vandenberg
C Sixto Arenas

Eric Simon, owner/GM of the Ramapough Mountain franchise, has had to give up his spot in the league. It’s a bummer to lose someone as knowledgeable about baseball as he is. So, with regret but also with thanks, we offer a tip of the cap to Eric for his solid stewardship of a what was a somewhat disheveled franchise when he took it over and now is a much more promising organization.

Fortunately, a new owner has already been identified and secured for the team, David Locke (who some of you may know as the owner of the Ohio franchise in the SDMB OOTP League). We’ll get him set up as the team in the next sim. I’ve hopefully added him to the OEL email list already, and we’ll get his contact information otherwise circulated in due course.

To get David going, we may have to slow down the sim schedule a little bit. Tomorrow’s sim is still on tap, but the schedule beyond that is undecided. We’ll update you as we figure it out.

So, welcome aboard, David.

The Seattle Pilots have shipped under-performing SP Ayurou Hidetada to Stockholm in exchange for MR Juan Moncayo and a fourth round pick. Seattle GM, Mike Bateman, had this to say about the trade. “We had high hopes for Ayurou when we brought him in last year as our big free agent signing, but he came in and started stinking up the place. His pitching was fine, I mean he literally was stinking up the place. I don’t care if it is your lucky underwear, that stuff needs to be cleaned and changed every once in a while. It was causing a real problem in our clubhouse”. The Pilots are expected to release Moncayo and absorb his contract.

After the deals of January comes the long ice age of February.  Following the four deals of this sim are these free agent signings:

Stockholm had big signing of LF Robert McCree to a 5 year deal worth $13.25MM.

Marietta had a smaller deal signing SP Steven Page to a 2 year deal worth $7.4MM.

Keep that hot stove league steaming!  Next sim is Wednesday by Mack.  He’ll take us to mid-February!

Pittsburgh and New York swapped a few draft picks today, with the Pisces sending A SS Ethan Laing and their 2008 5th round pick and 2009 1st round picks to the Knights in exchange for New York’s first and second round picks in the 2008 draft.

A sex tape of Cary Buteau was unleshed on the internet today. The strange thing is the girl did not seem real. When Buteau’s agent was approached by the situation his only comment was, “Everyone has had silicon at one point in time.”

The sex tape which shows a 4 1/2 inch long Buteau is with the brand new $7,000 sex doll as discussed on CNN.com ( http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/02/01/sex.robot/index.html?hpt=T2 ) Bad timing considering the Purple Porpoises were shopping him around earlier today. Looks like his value has take a drastic hit, but his “4 inch + bat” is not getting any hits at all.