OOTP Developments Forums - View Single Post - Yet Another OOTP6 Dynasty, Year 2: One Flew Over the Pale Hose

cknox0723 · 07-10-2006, 11:30 PM

You threw out the past
When you threw out what was mine
Throughout the years
It was hard to make it last
Anaheim

No sign of reconciliation
It's a quarter past the end
Full moon from on high
Across the board we lose again
Anaheim

Anaheim
Tossed it out for me to find
Without a word you're out the door
Without a reason anymore

Two fingers on the trigger
Can break the heart of any day
Foolish to believe
It would turn out okay
Anaheim

Anaheim
Tossed it out for me to find
Without a word you're out the door
Without a reason anymore

Anaheim

Anaheim kicked our tails last year, you know. Won six out of nine against us. They're in second place again this year, but a repeat of the wild card isn't even a thought, because the Halos are struggling just to hang around .500. They still have plenty of fearsome hitters - RF "Mad Vlad" Guerrero, LF Garret Anderson, 2B Soriano, hulking 1B Cust and sweet-swinging .300 hitting 3B Justin Leone. But the pitching staff gives back runs faster than the offense can score them; behind ace right-hander John Lackey, who was 8-1

with a 1.03 ERA

in 75+ June and July innings, there are a bunch of guys with little experience and lousy numbers, desperately trying (and failing!) to replace Ben Howard and Jarrod Washburn's disabled wings. Nine different men have started a ballgame for the purple pitchin' eaters this year, and 27 year old Rhett Parrott, who sports a nifty 5.08 career ERA, is second on the team in starts, and he is not particularly good and only averages about five innings per outing. Predictably, the bullpen has been heavily overworked and has gone from a strength of last year's club to a liability. Veteran closer Troy Percival has converted 23 saves but also has an ERA just over four and a component ERA a run and a half higher. His young setup man "K" Rodriguez has seen his ERA more than double from last year's 2.70 mark despite retaining the velocity on his howling fastball and the nasty cut on his electric slider; the right-hander just doesn't have consistent command in (or out) of the strike zone, so even his obscene K rate of 13.4 per nine innings may not necessarily mean that better outings are ahead. Still, Rodriguez is better off than 29 year old Steve Green, who dominated the minors for three years in this universe and pitched well enough in the second half of 2006 to secure a spot in middle relief -- a spot that he will probably never see again, with a current ERA of 5.95. Left-handed batters are hitting .365/.428/.533 off the poor sap. Despite his troubles, Green has already reached a new career-high in innings pitched this season, with sixty-two.

And there's the rub. It's early August in this universe, you've got a guy who had a 7.71 ERA in April and a 5.91 in May and you keep pitching him and pitching him.

Still, Green should probably even get a start one of these days, 'cause the alternatives ain't much. For our first game in sunny Anaheim, the opposing starter is 23 year old right-hander Geoff McInnis, a fresh-faced California native and Fresno State graduate who is barely a year removed from carving up Mountain West competition. With such a quick ascent and a first-round nametag pinned on him, you might think McInnis is exactly the type his organization needs more of -- but then you see him pitch. The kid is big and strapping at 6'4", 225 lbs...but he doesn't throw any harder than you or I. He doesn't walk anyone, preferring instead to give up more than the occasional single. I believe you would call that a very unpreferable preference.

And then you can look at his numbers. Sure, McBumblebee only needed two dozen minor league starts before his call-up to the bigs in June, and his AA numbers from his debut last season were pretty solid - 6-4 record, 2.99 ERA, and only 17 walks in 81 innings. But this is a 22 year old kid from California, where the sun always shines and you can go surfing (and eat road tacos) in November. He's outclassing a lot of the other 22 year old kids in AA because age is just a state of mind, especially in baseball. Bumped up to AAA this season, McInnis was 3-3 with a 4.98 ERA in 11 starts, allowing 86 hits in 72 innings. His big league ERA is 3.98 after two months' of starts, but the 2-3 record is more indicative of the kind of pitcher this kid is.

Of course, Geoff McInnis doesn't have that 2-3 record until after we bludgeoned him around for five runs in six innings, including home runs by Frank Catalanotto (8) and Yorvit Torrealba (7). And had we fouled things up just a little more in the eighth inning, the 23 year old's record wouldn't have changed at all. Platoon-extraordinaire Dallas McPherson (batting .290/.326/.618 in 131 AB this season) swatted a two-out, two-run eighth inning double off of little lefty reliever Fabio Castro to plate Anaheim's third and fourth runs of the inning, cutting what had been a 7-2 lead all the way down to a single run. But trade deadline acquisition Wade Miller came in and blew away scrappy SS Eckstein on three consecutive sliders to end the inning there, and Joe Roa closed out the ninth for his tenth save.

Division foes Cleveland scored one in the ninth to tie and one in the tenth to beat last-place Oakland three to two. It was the seventh straight Tribe triumph and the sixth consecutive game where they allowed three runs or less. That's no real surprise; with 23 year old right-hander Fausto Carmona (3-4, 3.72 ERA in 67 IP) having replaced struggling southpaw Cliff Lee (6-7, 4.94) in the five-man rotation, opponents won't face a single Cleveland starting pitcher with an ERA above the league average of 3.96.

07-10-2006, 11:30 PM	#811
cknox0723 All Star Starter Join Date: May 2003 Location: NJ Posts: 1,957	(clean) slate You threw out the past When you threw out what was mine Throughout the years It was hard to make it last Anaheim No sign of reconciliation It's a quarter past the end Full moon from on high Across the board we lose again Anaheim Anaheim Tossed it out for me to find Without a word you're out the door Without a reason anymore Two fingers on the trigger Can break the heart of any day Foolish to believe It would turn out okay Anaheim Anaheim Tossed it out for me to find Without a word you're out the door Without a reason anymore Anaheim Anaheim kicked our tails last year, you know. Won six out of nine against us. They're in second place again this year, but a repeat of the wild card isn't even a thought, because the Halos are struggling just to hang around .500. They still have plenty of fearsome hitters - RF "Mad Vlad" Guerrero, LF Garret Anderson, 2B Soriano, hulking 1B Cust and sweet-swinging .300 hitting 3B Justin Leone. But the pitching staff gives back runs faster than the offense can score them; behind ace right-hander John Lackey, who was 8-1 with a 1.03 ERA in 75+ June and July innings, there are a bunch of guys with little experience and lousy numbers, desperately trying (and failing!) to replace Ben Howard and Jarrod Washburn's disabled wings. Nine different men have started a ballgame for the purple pitchin' eaters this year, and 27 year old Rhett Parrott, who sports a nifty 5.08 career ERA, is second on the team in starts, and he is not particularly good and only averages about five innings per outing. Predictably, the bullpen has been heavily overworked and has gone from a strength of last year's club to a liability. Veteran closer Troy Percival has converted 23 saves but also has an ERA just over four and a component ERA a run and a half higher. His young setup man "K" Rodriguez has seen his ERA more than double from last year's 2.70 mark despite retaining the velocity on his howling fastball and the nasty cut on his electric slider; the right-hander just doesn't have consistent command in (or out) of the strike zone, so even his obscene K rate of 13.4 per nine innings may not necessarily mean that better outings are ahead. Still, Rodriguez is better off than 29 year old Steve Green, who dominated the minors for three years in this universe and pitched well enough in the second half of 2006 to secure a spot in middle relief -- a spot that he will probably never see again, with a current ERA of 5.95. Left-handed batters are hitting .365/.428/.533 off the poor sap. Despite his troubles, Green has already reached a new career-high in innings pitched this season, with sixty-two. And there's the rub. It's early August in this universe, you've got a guy who had a 7.71 ERA in April and a 5.91 in May and you keep pitching him and pitching him. Still, Green should probably even get a start one of these days, 'cause the alternatives ain't much. For our first game in sunny Anaheim, the opposing starter is 23 year old right-hander Geoff McInnis, a fresh-faced California native and Fresno State graduate who is barely a year removed from carving up Mountain West competition. With such a quick ascent and a first-round nametag pinned on him, you might think McInnis is exactly the type his organization needs more of -- but then you see him pitch. The kid is big and strapping at 6'4", 225 lbs...but he doesn't throw any harder than you or I. He doesn't walk anyone, preferring instead to give up more than the occasional single. I believe you would call that a very unpreferable preference. And then you can look at his numbers. Sure, McBumblebee only needed two dozen minor league starts before his call-up to the bigs in June, and his AA numbers from his debut last season were pretty solid - 6-4 record, 2.99 ERA, and only 17 walks in 81 innings. But this is a 22 year old kid from California, where the sun always shines and you can go surfing (and eat road tacos) in November. He's outclassing a lot of the other 22 year old kids in AA because age is just a state of mind, especially in baseball. Bumped up to AAA this season, McInnis was 3-3 with a 4.98 ERA in 11 starts, allowing 86 hits in 72 innings. His big league ERA is 3.98 after two months' of starts, but the 2-3 record is more indicative of the kind of pitcher this kid is. Of course, Geoff McInnis doesn't have that 2-3 record until after we bludgeoned him around for five runs in six innings, including home runs by Frank Catalanotto (8) and Yorvit Torrealba (7). And had we fouled things up just a little more in the eighth inning, the 23 year old's record wouldn't have changed at all. Platoon-extraordinaire Dallas McPherson (batting .290/.326/.618 in 131 AB this season) swatted a two-out, two-run eighth inning double off of little lefty reliever Fabio Castro to plate Anaheim's third and fourth runs of the inning, cutting what had been a 7-2 lead all the way down to a single run. But trade deadline acquisition Wade Miller came in and blew away scrappy SS Eckstein on three consecutive sliders to end the inning there, and Joe Roa closed out the ninth for his tenth save. Division foes Cleveland scored one in the ninth to tie and one in the tenth to beat last-place Oakland three to two. It was the seventh straight Tribe triumph and the sixth consecutive game where they allowed three runs or less. That's no real surprise; with 23 year old right-hander Fausto Carmona (3-4, 3.72 ERA in 67 IP) having replaced struggling southpaw Cliff Lee (6-7, 4.94) in the five-man rotation, opponents won't face a single Cleveland starting pitcher with an ERA above the league average of 3.96.