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The 2019-20 Amazin’ Avenue Offseason Plan Contest is over, and the community has selected the winners. We had 18 entries this year, which was pruned down to five finalists by a panel of Amazin’ Avenue staff members. A poll for these five were presented on Thursday last week, and voting closed Sunday evening. Congratulations to the winners, and thanks to everyone who took the time and effort to submit an AAOP!
First Place (36 votes): JUST SIGN THE BEST PLAYERS!
The title says it all for our champion, as ba-5 took the most direct approach to building a contender this offseason and used Steve Cohen’s money to sign a bunch of good players. J.T. Realmuto and Brad Hand were obvious additions, but Tomma LaStella (pre-Cano suspension) and Tomoyuki Sugano were more creative moves that fit well. A slight overpay for Darvish buffed the rotation and left plenty of room to extend Jeff McNeil, Brandon Nimmo, and Michael Conforto. Combine a solid team with some awful hat-added paintz and you have a champion AAOP.
First place: FOCO bobblehead of Noah Syndergaard and Mr. Met high-fiving
Second Place (34 votes): Meat the Mets
Any AAOP that used a Bob’s Burgers theme was going to be a crowd favorite, and mattsbrew’s entry didn’t disappoint. The plan was fairly straightforward - tap a soft free agent market to improve the team greatly. Realmuto and Jackie Bradley Jr. patched the holes in the lineup, Masahiro Tanaka and Charlie Morton filled the holes in the rotation, and Brad Hand provided much needed reinforcement in the bullpen. This entry also eschewed traded in order to hold on to prospects, a strategy that makes a lot of sense this offseason. Overall a very solid end product and a fun theme that was just barely edged out for the top spot.
Second place: Your choice of one t-shirt from this BreakingT collection
Third Place (26 votes): 1-2-3-4 Can I Have A Little More?
A Beatles themed AAOP? Sold. Our third place entry from cpins had perhaps the best (worst) paintz of our champions in addition to a very well thought out plan. Realmuto, Morton, and Sugano all popped up here and were joined by George Springer to form a ‘fab 4’ of free agent signings. These signings were followed up by one of the more creative trades this year - swapping Pete Alonso for Jose Ramirez and Carlos Carrasco. Liam Hendriks and Trevor May rounded out the plan as bullpen reinforcements.
Third place: A signed copy of Greg Prince’s book Piazza: Catcher, Slugger, Icon, Star