December 10th
Welcome to the true beginning of Year III of the WBL! We start with the Winter Meetings, and will continue through the Rookie Draft and the Rule V Draft, on our way to Spring Training.
I want to take a moment here to pull the curtain back a little. I’m sure everyone that does these kind of extended, solo play projects has, from time to time, wished they had a partner, a co-commissioner of sorts that could help make judgement calls, look for patterns, initiate trades, etc.
So I’ve tried to build one in Claude. I know some of you may peace out of this thread at this point, but I also wanted to disclose its use. Note that all of the writing and all of the decision making in the WBL remains mine.
This has been, perhaps, the most frustrating thing I’ve ever done with AI. There are two primary obstacles: first, limiting Claude’s view to the OOTP universe and second, overriding Claude’s deeply rooted programming to always agree and to instantly change it’s mind at the faintest whiff of pushback.
CoPilot totally failed on the former, but Claude–with a lot of work on guideline files and the like–does well there. But the second thing … oh my effing god … we’re still trying to find ways to address this.
Anyhow, it’s been an interesting project, and I assume that, as both I get better at the structural architecture beneath the hood and Anthropic continues to improve the product, it will eventually be a stable, pleasant thing.
Onto some team by team notes from the Winter Meetings.
#Baltimore Black Sox
Looking to shore up their bullpen, the Black Sox splashed on a 3 year contract for Jeff Montgomery.
#Chicago American Giants
Chicago signed Hank Aguirre on a 2-year deal for a little less than $600,000–a reasonable flier to take on a starter who was good in 2000, then injured.
#Homestead Grays
The Grays signed Brook Jacoby for some veteran insurance at 3B.
#New York Gothams
In their eternal search for starting pitchers, the Gothams agreed to a 1 year deal with Vic Raschi worth just under $1M.
#Wandering House of David
The House of David signed Dellin Betances, hoping to bolster their bullpen. The 28 year old inked a 3 year, $2.1M contract–pretty reasonable.