My OOTP 20 Franchise Plans

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I feel like I always need to start a post about OOTP with “As you may know, I’m the Head of Community at Out of the Park Developments…” because I don’t really know how this whole FTC disclosure thing works, but also because I want to be open an honest with you. You can take my thoughts with a grain of salt if you want to. However, OOTP doesn’t pay me for any of the posts on ThatSportsGamer.com.

With Out of the Park Baseball 20 releasing next week, I figured it would be a good time to talk about the franchises that I’m going to be doing when the game comes out. Much like last year, I’ll again be doing two franchises, one on the OOTP Developments’ channel, and one on my channel.

On Twitch.tv/OOTPDevelopments I’ll be taking over the St. Louis Cardinals in a franchise I’m calling “Redbirds Rising”. The Cardinals have a very interesting team with some great up-and-coming young pitchers, and some tough decisions to make in regards to expiring contracts, specifically Goldschmidt and Ozuna. Then we should also figure out what to do with Fowler and Yadi…

Redbirds Rising will be streamed on Twitch, and archived on YouTube.

On Twitch.tv/ThatSportsGamer I’m going to the south side of Chicago to take over the White Sox in a series that I’m titling the “South Side Hitmen” because that was the nickname of the 1977 White Sox team and, obviously, because of the XFL’s New York/New Jersey Hitmen.

As a bonus for people that Subscribe to my Twitch channel (at any tier), I’ll be creating them as prospects in the Draft Class after they subscribe with the above settings.

South Side Hitmen will be streamed on Twitch, and archived on YouTube.

BB Mound Visit: Konami’s eBaseball League

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Just a quick Mound Visit from me today. Last night I was clicking around to see if I could find any recent news on Konami’s Professional Baseball Spirits 2019, and instead I learned a lot more. Did you know that Konami has an eBaseball league for Jikkyō Powerful Pro Yakyū aka Power Pros? I certainly didn’t. So in this episode I talked about what I learned.

Links mentioned in this episode:

The show is streamed live on Twitch.tv/ThatSportsGamer, so head over there, follow the channel, and turn on notifications so you know when we go live.

Join ThatSportsGamer’s Bullpen Banter Discord Server!

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Bullpen Banter is a weekly show hosted by myself (ThatSportsGamer) and Kris (SnaggleJ) dedicated to baseball video games, including MLB The Show, Out of the Park Baseball, and more. We’ll give you tips, strategies and team breakdowns.

The Bullpen Banter logo was created by BT Creative.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Android | RSS

Bullpen Banter (S4 E02): MLB 19 Gameplay Trailer Breakdown

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This week on Bullpen Banter, Kris and I dove deep into the MLB The Show 19 Gameplay Trailer that was released by Sony San Diego this week.

We discussed a lot of images in this post, so if you’d like to see the video version of the show, you can do so at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHgZs9mNcVg.

Links mentioned in this episode:

The show is streamed live on Twitch.tv/ThatSportsGamer, so head over there, follow the channel, and turn on notifications so you know when we go live.

Join ThatSportsGamer’s Bullpen Banter Discord Server!

Follow us on Twitter:

Bullpen Banter is a weekly show hosted by myself (ThatSportsGamer) and Kris (SnaggleJ) dedicated to baseball video games, including MLB The Show, Out of the Park Baseball, and more. We’ll give you tips, strategies and team breakdowns.

The Bullpen Banter logo was created by BT Creative.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Android | RSS

Bullpen Banter (S4 E01): Season Opener

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This week on Bullpen Banter, Kris and I discussed the changes that we’re making to the show for 2019 to make this the best season of Bullpen Banter ever. We also talked about the pre-order options for MLB The Show 19, how you can transfer you logos from MLB The Show 18 to 19, and some leaked screenshots from this year.

Then we jumped into a conversation about which teams we are looking forward to using in MLB The Show 19 and Out of the Park Baseball 20, and why we would prefer some teams in one game over the other.

Finally, we wrap up the show talking about our excitement for Konami’s return to baseball video games, with Professional Baseball Spirits 2019, coming April 25th.

Links mentioned in this episode:

The show is streamed live on Twitch.tv/ThatSportsGamer, so head over there, follow the channel, and turn on notifications so you know when we go live.

Join ThatSportsGamer’s Bullpen Banter Discord Server!

Follow us on Twitter:

Bullpen Banter is a weekly show hosted by myself (ThatSportsGamer) and Kris (SnaggleJ) dedicated to baseball video games, including MLB The Show, Out of the Park Baseball, and more. We’ll give you tips, strategies and team breakdowns.

The Bullpen Banter logo was created by BT Creative.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Android | RSS

MMAA: d’Arnaud to d’Bench

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We took a couple of hits to our rotation recently. deGrom went down for 6 weeks with back spasms, Wheeler is out for a couple of weeks with a sore wrist. To hold down the fort, we’ve signed Derek Holland to a 1-year deal, and called up, pitching prospect, P.J. Colon, who threw a solid 5 innings in his MLB debut. 

The other main thing that happened during this advancement was that 
Travis d’Arnaud has been benched. He was putting up an unimpressive .221 / .264 / .336 slash line, while striking out in nearly 30% of his at bats. 

Through June 4th, we’re 35-24, leading the NL East. 

Disclaimer: I am the Baseball Community Manager for Out of the Park Developments, makers of Out of the Park Baseball. This series is not an ad for the game and the opinions expressed here are mine, and not that of OOTP Developments.
If you’re interested in checking out Out of the Park Baseball 19, you can go to ThatSportsGamer.com/OOTP19, and use Promo Code TSG19 to save 10% at checkout.

MMAA: The “ToddFather” Departs

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Just a quick little update. The “ToddFather” was traded to the Rangers for Rougned Odor, straight up. I’m still a little surprised that they were willing to pull the trigger. Maybe they’re afraid that Beltre will retire after the season? Either way, we save some money, and get a young quality second basemen in the process. 

One of our owner goals was to extend Jeurys Familia. While it was against my better judgement to keep him, I decided to keep my owner happy and gave him a 5-year deal that could be worth $67 million, assuming he picks up his player options.

Through May 1st, we’re 17-11 and leading the NL East. 

Disclaimer: I am the Baseball Community Manager for Out of the Park Developments, makers of Out of the Park Baseball. This series is not an ad for the game and the opinions expressed here are mine, and not that of OOTP Developments.
If you’re interested in checking out Out of the Park Baseball 19, you can go to ThatSportsGamer.com/OOTP19, and use Promo Code TSG19 to save 10% at checkout.

MMAA: Kiss Yoenis Goodbye!

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Last night I started working on this Mets franchise, and decided I was ready to part ways with Yoenis Cespedes. I shopped him around with the intent on keeping roughly 20% of his contract, and received an interesting offer from the Cubs. They were willing to offer Jason Heyward, straight up, in return for Cespedes. Heyward is making 2/3rds of Cespedes’ contract, he’s almost 4 years younger, and he has a player option after the 2019 season. If Heyward accepts it, he’ll be owed about $120m over 5 years.

Since cutting money right now to possibly make a big signing after 2018 is a short term goal. Getting an extra few million is a pretty good plan, and, if Heyward happened to decline his option, we’d have even more money in the future. If he accepts option, we’d still have a very good defense right fielder, and maybe, just maybe, the prospect of playing closer to his birthplace, Ridgewood, NJ, would spark his bat.

To hedge my bets, and since I was already willing to retain some of Cespedes’ contract, I decided to look around the Cubs prospect list and see if they would throw one in so that, if Heyward did decline the option, I wouldn’t be empty handed. I was able to add the Cubs’ 2017 1st round (30th overall) pick, Alex Lange, a potential 3-star SP, while only needing to retain 15% of Cespedes’ contract. Just like that, the deal was done.

During the start of the regular season, relief pitcher, A.J. Ramos went down with the torn flexor tendon in his throwing arm, and he’ll require Tommy John surgery and be out for the season. 

As I advanced a little bit into April, Jason Vargas was ready to come off the DL, but I didn’t really have a spot on the 25-man for him. Instead, I decided to shop him, and his, up to, $22m over 3 year contract. I wasn’t expecting much, and was pleasantly surprised to see the Blue Jays offer Lourdes Gurriel Jr., so I jumped at that offer. Gurriel is a nice young talent, and opens the door to possibly trying to move Todd Frazier sooner than later, and he could end up being our future third basemen.  

Through April 15th, we’re 9-6 and currently tied for the NL East lead.

Disclaimer: I am the Baseball Community Manager for Out of the Park Developments, makers of Out of the Park Baseball. This series is not an ad for the game and the opinions expressed here are mine, and not that of OOTP Developments.
If you’re interested in checking out Out of the Park Baseball 19, you can go to ThatSportsGamer.com/OOTP19, and use Promo Code TSG19 to save 10% at checkout.

MUT Huddle w/ Sports & Snaggle

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UPDATE: Due to the amazing success of Out of the Park Baseball’s Perfect Team mode, Kris and I sadly don’t have time to dedicate to MUT Huddle. 

Sometimes a plan just really comes together quickly.

Kris and I have known for a while that Bullpen Banter was going to end up going on hiatus. With that, we also knew wanted to continue working on stuff together, outside of OOTP Developments, where we are the Community Management team for Out of the Park Baseball.

So today, we’re announcing our new project, MUT Huddle. As we started dipping into Madden NFL 19, we noticed that there was a void that needed to be filled. There are a bunch of great shows, and videos for the experienced and hardcore Madden Ultimate Team fans. However, there isn’t a ton of stuff for casual players that are just getting into the mode.

MUT Huddle is not going to be super gameplay centric. If you’re looking for a Cover 3 beater, or the 6 pre-snap adjustments you need to make to combat a WR Bunch formation, we don’t have that knowledge, and we’re not going to fake it. There are a lot of great places to go to if you need that, and we’ll be more than happy to point you in that direction.

The show will be streamed on both Twitch.tv/ThatSportsGamer and Twitch.tv/SnaggleJ, and you can follow the show on Twitter, @MUTHuddle, and we’ve got a Discord server for more in-depth conversations at ThatSportsGamer.com/Community.