Today, as a Brewers fan, is not a great day. Craig Counsell has signed a five year contract with the Chicago Cubs and he is now the highest paid manager in Major League Baseball. The 2023 regular season went well enough, the Brewers won the NL Central again after coming up short in 2022. But the two game sweep by the Arizona Diamondbacks hurt. Nobody likes to lose a playoff series at home and as fans we quickly turned our attention to the offseason and what Craig Counsell would be doing when his contract expired at the end of October. Sadly, we got our answer today. Counsell joins the Cubs and it looks like Stephen Vogt is going to manage the Guardians. Matt Arnold and the rest of the front office will need to look elsewhere for a new manager to lead the team in 2024.
But that is enough dwelling on real life events in Major League Baseball. It is going to be a long offseason for fans of the Brewers, including me. So I am going to try to have a better offseason in Out of the Park Baseball (OOTP) than the real life Brewers. I am going to start the game the day after the World Series ended, November 2nd, 2023. This gives as much of an offseason as possible. I will work with the budget given to me by OOTP Mark A. and see what sort of team I can put together for the 2024 season. I will work with what OOTP gives me for contract options, terms, and injuries for November 2nd, 2023. For some reason, that means Brandon Woodruff is not hurt. It means that Colin Rea, who signed a new 2 year deal with the team on November 2nd, is arbitration eligible in-game. There are some oddities for sure but OOTP is not perfect and that's okay. It is still a great game and this should be an exciting adventure.
