How I Spent My Summer Vacation

I'm an avid video game player and have been since I was a kid. I was never into GTA or COD. I was and am a sports game guy. But not even necessarily the gameplay but the franchise mode. Ah, the franchise mode. If the thing they say about when you die your life flashes before your eyes is true then most of the flashes will be me building some sort of team on some version of franchise in MLB The Show or Madden or NHL or NBA2K. If I'm honest with myself, that was always my dream job; to be a front office guy for a pro team. Who wouldn't love that? Well, franchise is the closest I got to it. If you follow the discourse about video games (and why wouldn't you!?!?) you'd know that franchise mode is one that continually gets the short end of the development teams effort year over year. Among other things, franchise doesn't generate as much money as modes where players can literally buy "cards" or play online. Most franchise modes have been copy/pasted versions with minor tweaks from the year before. I decided to take it upon myself to improve it this summer. My vision was part franchise, part role playing game in which I use AI to generate storylines, drama, media coverage and fan engagement the same type that a real executive would. I would enter the data from my franchise on MLB The Show 25 and what would follow would be a genuine RPG that creates external tension and personality from what has otherwise been a flat game mode for years. What follows is the "nine year" odyssey of "Tim Brusveen" (the character) at the helm of the Washington Nationals baseball team. With the help of ChatGPT, the following all happened either on my PS5, phone or computer along with another 100 hours of content that has been lost in the maw of the AI universe. This is how I spent my summer vacation.

Chapter One: The Man in the Middle of the Collapse

Tim Brusveen never interviewed for the job he was hired to do.

In late 2024, the Washington Nationals weren’t looking for headlines or saviors. They were simply tired—of losing, of misjudging timelines, of pretending their rebuild was anything more than a directionless drift. When they made the call to Tim Brusveen, a former Cubs executive turned consultant with a reputation for culture-building and sharp elbows, it wasn’t to set the world on fire. It was to steady the ship.

He did more than that.

He built a dynasty.

From 2025 to 2033, Brusveen led the Nationals to six division titles, five consecutive 100-win seasons, three World Series appearances, and two championships. He rebuilt a broken organization not by following the blueprint of his mentors, but by interrogating it. He questioned everything—timelines, projections, even personalities. He blended Theo Epstein’s long view with Billy Beane’s transactional edge and, yes, at times, Joe Maddon’s flair for slogans that felt more like philosophies.

He didn’t chase wins. He built infrastructure. He didn’t flinch when critics screamed. He listened, made adjustments, and doubled down when needed.

He never promised perfection. He promised process.

And in the end, the results spoke for themselves.

Chapter Two: 68 Wins and the Four Tribes of Failure

The beginning was forgettable. The fracture lines were not.

The 2025 Nationals were a 68–94 team for the second year in a row — stuck, stale, and silently combustible. They didn’t bottom out with spectacular failure; they simply hovered in the uncanny valley between rebuilding and reimagining, unable to declare either path.

September, as it so often does for teams like this, revealed everything. A promising August gave way to a brutal slide, and the optimism surrounding Dylan Crews’ arrival, a bullpen upgrade, and early signs of growth fell off a cliff.

What was left behind wasn’t apathy — not yet. It was something stranger: a fractured belief system.

By October, the fanbase had splintered into factions. Not unofficial, not orchestrated, but emotionally real.

🔴 The Frustrated Realists:Cynics by necessity. They’d seen enough rebuilds to know what a real one looked like. To them, this wasn’t progress — it was a rerun.

🔵 The Believers:Young, loyal, hopeful. They latched onto Crews, Jacob Young, and Luis García like talismans. They believed in development. They spoke the language of windows and timelines.

⚪ The Skeptical Veterans:Haunted by the Juan Soto teardown. They didn’t reject Brusveen’s vision, but they resented the restraint. They wanted proof — not promises.

🟡 The Loud Minority:Online, intense, occasionally unhinged. They treated Brady House’s minor league stats like gospel. To them, his absence from the big-league roster was proof of organizational cowardice.

What united these four groups — barely — was the emerging consensus that 2026 had to mean something.

The front office, despite the record, still held credibility. Brusveen’s communication style — unpolished but transparent — gave him room. The team’s payroll was flexible. The farm system was climbing. And the core, for the first time, looked tangible.

That winter wasn’t about promises. It was about proof.

Chapter Three: We Are Us

The Nationals didn’t ease their way back into relevance.They kicked the damn door down.

The 2026 season didn’t begin with expectations. It began with questions. Could Dylan Crews handle a full season? Was the bullpen any better than the wreckage of 2025? Could the team finally defend, or pitch deep enough into games to stay competitive?

But one question — the one no one had dared ask — was already starting to answer itself.

Why would Kyle Tucker come here?

That winter, the Nationals signed Tucker to a 10-year, $426 million deal — the richest free-agent contract in franchise history. A reigning MVP finalist, Tucker had just finished a one-year stop in Chicago following his All-Star tenure in Houston. And instead of chasing rings with a surefire contender, he took a leap into the unknown.

He joined a 68-win team.

It wasn’t just bold. It was seismic.

Tucker didn’t take the money and coast. He took the money, showed up early to camp, and became a quiet force — steady, intense, and magnetic. Players noticed. Coaches noticed. The entire franchise noticed.

He didn’t just change the outfield. He changed the orbit.

The Spark

The 2026 Nationals weren’t the most talented team in the league. But they were the most unrelenting. They led the majors in stolen bases, ranked second in batting average, and struck out fewer times than almost anyone.

They weren’t a powerhouse — they were a pressure cooker.

Jacob Young led the team in WAR. Dylan Crews broke out. CJ Abrams, despite losing the starting shortstop job late, delivered two walk-off hits in the playoffs. Brady House, still unproven during the regular season, hit a game-tying homer and a walk-off in October.

Journeymen like Nathaniel Lowe and Jared Triolo played bigger than their stat lines. There was no superstar ego. Just an offense designed to wear you out and a pitching staff duct-taped together at just the right angles.

They won games in 11 innings. They won games with bunts. They won games with flair, but more often, with force of will.

The Identity

Sometime in April, Tim Brusveen did a bland local radio hit and used a phrase that barely registered:"We just want to stay in the fight."

By August, it was spray-painted on cardboard in Section 139.

By October, it was gospel.

#WeAreUs.#StayInTheFight.#RideTheWave.

The slogans came from the fans, but the belief system came from within.

The Nationals upset the Dodgers. Then they knocked off the Cubs, exorcising postseason ghosts of a different era. In the World Series, they pushed Cleveland to six games and came within one swing of forcing Game 7.

When the final out settled in the glove, there were no tears. Just something else.

Conviction.

What Changed

That season changed everything — the perception of the franchise, the league’s view of Brusveen, the players’ understanding of what was possible.

But it started with one thing: Kyle Tucker’s leap.

When a future Hall of Famer jumps to a 68-win team, it doesn’t just shift expectations. It rewrites them.

Chapter Four: The Years of Almost

Every dynasty has its dark mirror — the stretch of seasons where winning isn’t enough, where the very structure groans under the weight of its own expectations.

For the Nationals, that stretch ran from 2027 to 2029.

On paper, they were baseball’s gold standard. In practice, they became a case study in what happens when almost becomes a curse.

2027: The Masterpiece Interrupted

This was supposed to be the year.

The Nationals won 109 games and ran away with the division before most teams finished defrosting from April. Kyle Tucker won MVP. James Wood became a star. The offense was devastating.

But what separated 2027 from years past wasn’t the bats. It was the ace.

That winter, after a failed pursuit of Tarik Skubal in free agency, Tim Brusveen made the riskiest deal of his career:

He traded elite catching prospect Dave Reaves, then ranked inside MLB’s Top 20, and fireballer Jarlin Susana, a Top-100 prospect, to the Dodgers in exchange for Yoshinobu Yamamoto — a frontline starter with ace potential but middling production his first two years in LA.

The deal was divisive. Reaves was seen by some as the long-term answer behind the plate. Susana had tantalizing upside. But Brusveen believed they needed a hammer at the top of the rotation — a playoff ace.

Yamamoto delivered. He was electric.And the team looked unbeatable.

Then came October.

After a grueling 20-inning epic in Game 5 of the NLDS against Arizona, the team limped into the NLCS. The core hitters — Tucker, Wood, House, Lowe — went cold. The bullpen cracked. The Brewers were opportunistic.

Just like that, 109 wins meant nothing.

Brusveen didn’t panic. He recalibrated.

2028: Bloody June, Beautiful Grit

If 2027 was the masterpiece, 2028 was the knife fight. But prior to the season, Brusveen made arguably his second most impactful roster addition of the era when he signed hulking closer Jhoan Duran to a three year deal which would turn into three more with an extension later.

They didn’t win the division — Atlanta did. They lost Dylan Crews early to an MCL tear. Brady House never got going. A brutal stretch of injuries and blown leads came to be known internally as “Bloody June.”

But they clawed their way into the postseason.

Sandy Alcantara, signed in the offseason, became the new anchor of the rotation. Brusveen doubled down at the deadline, trading for Nolan Jones, a power bat who immediately delivered, including a walk-off home run in the postseason.

They upset the 92-win Dodgers. They pushed the 105-win Diamondbacks to the brink.

They got a suicide squeeze from Jacob Young. A clutch homer from Jones. A run of dominance from Jhoan Duran that drew whispers of Rivera.

But again — they ran out of gas.

Alcantara cracked. Ruiz flied out. And the Nationals exited early.

Meanwhile, Yamamoto began to fade.

He was still electric on his best days — but those days were less frequent.He began to unravel in the first inning. Fastball command vanished. Blown-up box scores became routine. By midseason, the Nationals resorted to using openers in his starts — a quiet but damning signal of lost faith.

He wasn’t injured. Just no longer himself.And for the pitcher they’d mortgaged the future to acquire, it was a troubling turn.

2029: The Reckoning

The frustration crescendoed in 2029.

They won 104 games. They slugged 241 home runs. Their ace won the NL Cy Young. Their payroll was second only to the Yankees.

And still — eliminated in the NLDS.

This time, it was the Mets who broke them. Juan Soto hit three home runs. Brett Baty walked them off — for the first time.

The core was intact. The bats were booming. But postseason failure was no longer a shock. It was a script.

And Yamamoto?

He barely factored in October. He was no longer a frontline option.His starts were short, jittery, and lined with anxiety.

Once seen as the man who would define the Brusveen era, he now symbolized its most painful contradiction: a team built to win in October that kept losing there.

Ownership started asking louder questions. The fanbase started splitting at the seams. And Brusveen, for the first time, was denied a contract extension.

He entered 2030 with no safety net.

Just a team. Just pressure. Just now.

The Emotional Toll

These seasons weren’t failures in the standings. They were failures in the only month that mattered.

And they left scars.

Brusveen withdrew from postseason media. Duran, despite brilliance, became the symbol of collective anxiety. The slogans faded. The belief system cracked. And Yamamoto — once their symbol of ambition — became the warning sign for what unchecked belief could cost.

This wasn’t a collapse. It was something harder to fix.

It was erosion.

And it made what happened next all the more improbable.

Chapter Five: A Banner, Finally

There’s a sound you start to recognize when you've lived through enough October exits: the quiet. The unnatural, stunned silence of 42,000 people watching a season vanish before it was supposed to.

By the fall of 2029, Washington knew that sound well.

So when the 2030 Nationals charged through the regular season with 112 wins — a new franchise record — few allowed themselves to hope. They’d seen this movie before.

But this time?This time, the ending was different.

The Machine Returns

The 2030 Nationals didn’t reinvent themselves. They refined.

They led the league in OPS. They had a six-deep rotation — Castellano, Buteau, Woo, Saul, Harrison, and spot starts where needed. The bullpen was ferocious, built around Jhoan Duran, who had shaken off his 2028 and 2029 ghosts to become the league’s most reliable closer once again.

Their core? Healthy. Focused. Still terrifying.

• James Wood was the MVP runner-up.

• Kyle Tucker returned to form, delivering power and presence.

• Dylan Crews, finally healthy, was the emotional spark plug and defensive backbone.

But the real revelation? The infrastructure underneath them.

• Marlin Castellano, a homegrown lefty, flashed mid-rotation dominance.

• Trevor Buteau, once a raw prep arm, became one of the steadiest five-inning pitchers in baseball.

• Lochlan Saul, a command-first righty drafted out of Australia, gave the Nationals a third internal arm who could be trusted in high-leverage October innings.

Brusveen had started building the pitching factory — and the pipes were finally moving water.

The Roki Gamble (And the Ghosts That Made It)

But that foundation alone wouldn’t have been enough.

Tim Brusveen still had to take a risk.

And it wasn’t the first time.

Back in 2028, the Nationals made an all-in trade with Arizona to acquire Brandon Pfaadt, Geraldo Perdomo, and Evan Phillips — three arms designed to steady the rotation and bullpen. But it came at a steep price: Braxton Patterson, a 20-year-old slugging first baseman already in the majors, who went on to become a two-time All-Star and one of the best hitters in the game.

Pfaadt? He imploded. And when he left in free agency for Cleveland, he took parting shots at the Nationals’ development staff.

So when Brusveen moved top outfield prospect Dominic Liss in 2030 for Roki Sasaki, the baseball world raised eyebrows. Sasaki had elite fastball metrics and a temperamental scouting file. The risk was substantial.

He got it right.

Sasaki was dominant in the postseason. And Liss, by the end of 2033, had yet to debut.

The Vexler Affair

And then, in the middle of a record-breaking season, the GM became the story.

Some internet sleuths and press box gossip noticed it first — a particular... vibe between Brusveen and Washington Sentinel reporter Savannah Vexler.

Things escalated when a fan snapped a photo of the two aboard a boat on Lake Michigan during a road trip in Chicago. Chummy didn’t begin to cover it.

At first, they denied the rumors. But soon after, additional reports surfaced: Vexler had been seen leaving the team hotel early in the morning following the series.

The real scandal hit when news broke that Brusveen had missed final offer windows on two unsigned draft picks — allegedly because he was still on the boat, out of cell range.

Team owner Mark Lerner got involved. He demanded a full accounting.

Brusveen admitted to being offline but insisted that negotiations had already stalled. The picks were not expected to sign. Lerner accepted the explanation — barely — but barred Brusveen from speaking to the media for the rest of the season.

Brusveen agreed. He went quiet. But before disappearing from microphones, he acknowledged what had become obvious:

Yes, he and Vexler were a couple. Yes, they were both consenting adults. No, nothing unethical had occurred.

From that moment forward, they made no effort to hide. The GM and the journalist were seen watching games from the stands, signing autographs, taking selfies, laughing — unapologetic, and strangely beloved.

It should’ve been a distraction. Instead, it became folklore.

The Final Pieces

At the deadline, Brusveen added Pete Crow-Armstrong from the Cubs — a glove-first outfielder with sneaky pop. He became a postseason weapon.

He also traded for Edwin Arroyo, who arrived as a defense-first utility man and ended up delivering game-changing October moments.

Daniel Mateo, a 28-year-old journeyman, delivered a playoff home run that sent Nationals Park into orbit.

Every move hit. Every piece fit.

October, Rewritten

They swept the NLDS. They outlasted Atlanta in the NLCS.

Then came the Orioles.

Seven games. All close. All electric.

And in Game 7, tied 2–2 in the bottom of the 9th, it was Brady House — the once-doubted, nearly-traded former top pick — who stepped up.

He turned on a hanging slider.

Two-run home run. Walk-off. Title.

Pandemonium.

The Blueprint Becomes the Banner

This was the championship that redefined a decade.

The MVP-level season from James Wood. The reemergence of Kyle Tucker. The redemption of Duran. The surprise contributors. The rotation stitched together from within. The ace acquired from abroad.

It wasn’t perfection. But it was complete.

Brusveen — who once couldn’t get an extension after winning 104 games — now had his banner.

And whether he said it or not, everyone in the sport knew: The architect had built his cathedral.

Chapter Six: Ghosts in October

After the parade, after the confetti, after Brady House’s bat landed somewhere deep in the D.C. night sky, the question wasn’t whether the Nationals would fall — it was when.

That’s how dynasties die in baseball. Slowly. Quietly. Eventually.

But in 2031, the Nationals didn’t slow down. They accelerated.

117 Wins — and a Reset

As part of the restructured extension Brusveen signed during the 2030 season, he’d made a rare public promise to ownership: They would play under the competitive balance tax in 2031.

It wasn’t just a financial tweak. It meant a fire sale.

Thirteen players from the World Series roster — contributors, role players, bullpen fixtures — were either traded or allowed to walk. The industry expected regression. The fans braced for a reload.

Instead, the Nationals won 117 games — not just a franchise record, but the most by any MLB team in the modern era.

They led the league in home runs, OPS, OBP, slugging, run differential, and bullpen ERA.

And they did it with a new wave of contributors — and a few legends doubling down.

Kyle Tucker: The Greatest National

At age 33, Kyle Tucker won his second National League MVP.

He hit 48 home runs, drove in 120, and cemented his place as the greatest player to ever wear the Nationals uniform.

Not just statistically. Not just historically. Emotionally.

When the organization needed a rock, it was Tucker who showed up. Again and again.

Trevor Buteau: Arrival

If Tucker was the face, Trevor Buteau was the foundation.

Brusveen’s first draft pick, the #1 overall selection in 2025, arrived fully in 2031. He was a First Team All-League starting pitcher — the kind of arm you dream of leading a staff. He followed it up with another All-League nod in 2032.

The pipeline was no longer an aspiration. It was functioning at full capacity.

James Wood: Relentless Excellence

And while Tucker stole the headlines and Buteau anchored the staff, James Wood simply kept being one of the five best hitters in baseball.

In 2032, he posted his sixth straight season with a .900+ OPS — a stretch of dominance matched by few in the sport. He wasn’t chasing fame. He was becoming the quiet superstar who did everything: hit for power, ran the bases, played solid corner defense, and made pitchers pay for mistakes.

His MVP moment was coming. Everyone could feel it.

The Mets Hex — Again

And yet… October didn’t care.

In 2031, the Nationals drew the Mets in the Division Series. And once again, it was the same two villains:

Juan Soto, fully reborn as New York’s most beloved menace, homered twice in the series.

And Brett Baty — the same Baty who had walked off the Nationals in 2029 — did it again.

Game 4. Ninth inning. Tie game. Gone.

Another walk-off. Another stunned silence.

This wasn’t a coincidence anymore. It was a pattern. Two walk-offs in three years, by the same player, in the same stadium.

It felt cruel. Scripted. Inevitable.

Tucker stared into the dugout, frozen. Wood slumped in the outfield, his eyes fixed on the scoreboard. Brusveen — silent in the suite above — didn’t even blink.

Not because it didn’t hurt. But because this was the cost of building something that lasts.

2032: The Collapse with a Smile

In 2032, the Nationals won 107 games. They swept the NLDS. They jumped out to a 2–0 lead in the NLCS.

They had the league’s best ERA and best slugging percentage. They had the deepest, most balanced roster of the entire Brusveen era.

And then — they lost it.

In Game 5, leading late on the road, Jhoan Duran gave up back-to-back walk-off home runs to Brooks Lee and Matt Courtney.

In Game 6, with the season on the line, Colson Montgomery popped up with two outs and the tying run 90 feet away.

That was the last swing of 2032.

The Pattern

The ghosts didn’t just return. They evolved.

• 2027: 109 wins — NLCS loss to Brewers

• 2028: Wild card — NLDS loss to Diamondbacks

• 2029: 104 wins — NLDS loss to Mets

• 2031: 117 wins — NLDS loss to Mets (Baty’s second walk-off)

• 2032: 107 wins — NLCS collapse to Brewers

• 
  

Six seasons.Five 100-win years.Four NLCS appearances. One ring.

No collapse.Just heartbreak.

Inside the Unraveling

This wasn’t the same failure copy-pasted.

In 2031, it was star silence and deja vu. In 2032, it was a bullpen implosion.

And always, Soto and Baty were there — like curses, not just opponents.

Duran, despite four consecutive dominant regular seasons, had become a postseason riddle. Colson Montgomery, who had briefly caught fire, was again the final image: a pop-up that landed softly, but echoed loudly. Yamamoto, once the high-stakes gamble of the dynasty’s golden age, was quietly released that offseason — after years of declining trust, opener assignments, and unmet expectations.

Brusveen didn’t speak. Not because he had no answer. Because he knew what came next had to speak for itself.

Chapter Seven: The Exit

Baseball rarely lets its architects leave standing.

They get fired. They burn out. They fade into the background while someone else puts a different logo on their blueprint. That’s the cycle.

But Tim Brusveen didn’t get cycled. He chose the ending.

The Final Season

In 2033, the Washington Nationals were still elite—perhaps never better.

They won 111 games, their fifth straight season crossing the century mark. They went 11–2 in the postseason, sweeping both the NLCS and the World Series. They did it with grit, depth, and timing, winning eight of those eleven playoff games by just one run.

This was no longer a machine. This was something better—a team that bent and refused to break.

Willy Burt, their $224 million leadoff man, missed the entire first round with an MCL sprain.

Their top rookie starter, James McVale, was thrust into the spotlight due to rotation injuries.

They lost Angel Genao, a defensive anchor, to a concussion in extra innings of the NLCS.

And they won anyway.

Brusveen had spent nearly a decade building a roster not just with stars, but with layers—redundancies, role players, plug-and-play rookies. For all the power, it was the infrastructure that carried them. And this time, it delivered the ending they’d always chased.

James Wood, MVP

James Wood had been on the cusp of superstardom for years.

He had already strung together six straight .900+ OPS seasons, played elite corner defense, and logged multiple All-Star selections. But in 2033, he elevated again.

• .344/.436/.630 slash line

• Led MLB in total bases, slugging, runs scored, and WAR

• 39-game hitting streak to start the season — the fifth-longest in modern MLB history

• National League MVP

It was the season that separated him—not just from peers, but from shadows.

The Tucker-Crews-Wood Era

Kyle Tucker, still a force at age 36, hit .262 with 30 home runs and was named World Series MVP after hitting .611 in the Fall Classic.

Dylan Crews posted a 7.3 WAR season, once again mixing elite defense with quiet offensive excellence.

The three of them—Tucker, Wood, and Crews—are each signed through 2035.This is not a last dance. It’s a sustained window.

Pitching Wins October

In Brusveen’s final season, the Nationals leaned harder than ever on their pitching core.

• Marlin Castellano, once the No. 1 prospect in baseball, finally found his consistency—finishing with a 4.4 WAR season and All-League honors.

• Trevor Buteau, Brusveen’s first-ever draft pick and former #1 overall selection, followed up his 2031 breakout with another elite season and playoff dominance.

• Lochlan Saul, a homegrown mid-rotation rock, became a versatile postseason weapon.

• James McVale, a rookie with a 1.77 ERA down the stretch, made a World Series start.

• Reggie Justice threw fearless late-inning fire.

The infrastructure was fully operational. The names changed. The results didn’t.

Duran’s Exorcism

Jhoan Duran had become synonymous with October trauma.

His walk-off collapses in 2031 and 2032 were brutal. Most teams would’ve moved on.

Brusveen didn’t.

In 2033, Duran responded with 11.1 scoreless innings in the postseason and earned a four-out save to clinch the World Series in Game 4. After a season in which he set career best marks in saves (52) and ERA (1.35).

Redemption, delivered.

Leadership Changes

Before the season began, the Nationals underwent seismic changes.

Knox Banner, the charismatic tech billionaire and longtime Nationals fan, purchased the team from the Lerner family. He immediately committed to continuing the organization’s investment in elite talent and baseball innovation.

One of his first moves: backing Brusveen’s decision to fire longtime manager José Rivera, whose tenure included six playoff appearances but repeated October heartbreak. Rivera’s inability to guide elite rosters over the hump had become too much to ignore.

In came Darell Webber, a first-time manager with a modern hitting philosophy and a reputation for clubhouse connection. The gamble paid off—he never lost a postseason game.

The Choice

Before the 2033 World Series began, Brusveen made it public: He was stepping down.

It wasn’t burnout. It wasn’t a firing. It wasn’t forced. He just… didn’t want to do it anymore.

The succession plan was in place. The front office was deep. The roster was loaded.The window was still open.

He simply believed his work was done.

The Record

Across nine seasons (2025–2033), the Nationals under Tim Brusveen:

• Posted a record of 918–504 (.646)

• Won six NL East titles

• Made the playoffs eight times

• Won five NLDS series, three NLCS titles, and two World Series championships

• Logged five straight 100-win seasons (2029–2033)

• Posted the highest winning percentage in MLB during that stretch

• Set the modern MLB record with 117 wins in 2031

  
  

Around Baseball

“He made the Nationals the gold standard. You didn’t just try to beat them—you tried to become them.”— Anonymous GM

“There’s a very short list of executives who ever got to walk away on their own terms. He earned it. And he walked out holding the trophy.”— Ken Rosenthal

“Tucker was a bold move. Trading for Sasaki was a bold move. Letting Yamamoto go was a bold move. The man played chess while the rest of us were playing our own prospects and hoping.”— AL GM, anonymously

“No one knew pitching like Brusveen. Look at that bullpen. Look at what he drafted. They had four or five guys who could’ve closed games for most teams.”— Former MLB pitching coach

The dynasty didn’t flame out. It didn’t fade. It finished with a parade.

And its architect walked away, not because he had to—but because he got it right.