Graham 2003
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Draft Capsule:
Lowe was a great base for this team. A bunch of people questioned Eischen to me, but I don't think he would've lasted into the 3rd round. To have taken 4 pitchers among his first 7 selections, but to still end up with Berkman, Maggs, Pujols, Bagwell and Renteria was pretty great. Lieberthal, Boone and Matt Franco were all top flight selections, improving an already solid offense without hurting an adequate defense. Julio and Sauerbeck were good complementary relievers to Eischen.
Season Highlight:
Graham created a lot of buzz with his strong 2002 and his 2003 draft. He took the first 4 from me to start the season, and had Reed upgraded to a 20 before losing in extra innings. Kept himself in playoff contention for much of the first 100 games.
As a personal highlight, I find Graham as agreeable as just about anyone else in scheduling games, which is probably why we finished our season series at about the 95 game mark, and that feeling is something that I don't take too lightly considering the league's scheduling issues of 2002.
Season Lowlight:
Dave righted his ship somewhat in the playoff race, Bob caught fire, and Graham's pen kept blowing chances. And he fell off the Wild Card pace pretty drastically. The offense stayed pretty consistent, but the underachieving staff stayed consistent as well, and Graham could not right his own ship.
If I analyzed the scripts or boxes, I'd check how:
How Shannon Stewart performed as a starter vs. how he did coming off the bench. I think his APBA numbers and ratings are so similar to what I've commented about in the past regarding Johnny Damon ('00, '01, '03) and Cliff Floyd ('01) ... wing OF types who, in a best case scenario, are pinch-runner/late-inning stealer replacements, but who end up starting and hitting too high in the batting order. Maybe these guys are not hurting the team by starting, I don't know.
2003 Surprises:
I don't think anyone would've predicted the throwing success of Lieberthal. I think I'd also want to look at the scripts to see if all of the runners he threw out where the Brad Wilkerson's of the league or if they were otherwise decent runners. Otherwise, the only real surprise was just how flat the staff was as a whole.
Best Strategy:
When he took Pujols, I thought he was a LF/DH. Graham made a good move, I think, in putting him at 3B. I think Maggs and Berkman robbed him of some of his offensive numbers (one of my pet theories), and his defense was like any other 3B-3, but in retrospect, it was the best decision he could have made. I like his decision to scrap Pierre and ignore the fact that he paid a decent price for Stewart and Dye, and pick up Sanders as he did, and then give Sanders a decent amount of LF playing time. Sanders had a bunch of big hits for Graham in the last 120, and you don't see that too often from FA pickups.
Worst Strategy:
I didn't really notice it until I started preparing for Graham for our initial series, but his staff had good ratings, but he probably had the fewest Zs per capita in the league, expecially in the pen. It all created too many tough opportunities for Foulke. Eischen blew a bunch, but being one of the few Zs in the pen, I'm thinking he had to come into more tough save chances than most of the other closers (similar to why Nen blew so many for Greg, I would guess). Maybe it wasn't that he didn't have enough Zs (or Gs or guys with good moves), it's just that he had didn't have a lot of depth at it ... like he'd have one guy with a +3, but then three guys with +0. Additionally, in terms of other strategies, while Durham was effective in his role as a fast, pesky lead-off -type, I don't know that he was better than someone like Millar would have been in the part-time DH role.
GM Summary:
Graham may be the second coming of John Bryant in terms of solid GM-ing. I hope he breaks through soon. The league is stronger because of him ... it's as if a 2003 90-win season is more impressive than a 1997 90-win season because you had to beat the likes of Graham to get to that milestone in 2003.
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