California Angels 1970

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To wrap up the season, the wild card Expos and A's both lost to the Mets and Orioles, respectively. The underdog Angels beat the White Sox just like as in the NL, where the Padres upset the Cubs.

The Orioles were the best team in the AL all year and they dispatched the Angels in 6 to back to the World Series for the 1st time in 7 years where they faced the Padres who made their first appearance ever. The Giants had a 10 game lead at the break, but they fell apart and the Padres took off.

After 6 close games, the Padres lifted the trophy to become champions of 1996. Hittin' Mark Whiten won the MVP, making it the 3rd time he has won the MVP of a post season series. He previously won the Division and League MVP in 1993 as a member of the White Sox. Whiten has only hit .270 in the playoffs, but he has hit 11 homers in 155 at bats. He is currently a free agent at age 30. If I didn't have players at the corner already, I would be all over him.

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In his 2nd year, A-Rod won his 2nd MVP for the Blue Jays hitting .317/.399/.664 with 57 homers. Justin Thompson won his 1st Cy Young for the White Sox going 20-9 with a 3.19 ERA and 6 WAR. Garrett Anderson won Rookie of Year hitting .307/.342/.463 14 homers with the Red Sox and Brent Carr won his 2nd reliever of the year for the A's with 32 saves and a 2.21 ERA

Albert Belle won his 1st MVP for the Expos hitting .330/.425/.666 with 54 homers. Roger Clemens won his SIXTH Cy Young going 17-9 with a 3.15 ERA and a 8.6 WAR. The Phillies Mark Kotsay won Rookie of the Year hitting .313/.377/.500 with 14 homers and Blas Minor won the reliever of the year with 42 saves and a 2.15 ERA for the Padres.

I missed it during the season, but A-Rod had a 4 homer, 10 RBI game for the Jays in Oakland.

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We are keeping our starting staff intact this year.

23 year old Jon Barnes 17-5 2.52 ERA 199 K's in 235 innings. Ace, I voted for him to win the Cy Young over Clemens.
23 year old Will Cunnane 9-14 4.09 ERA. May have peaked as a 20 year old. Hasn't developed any further from a stellar rookie year
31 year old Chris Hammond 15-11 3.49 ERA 194 K's in 232 innings.
32 year old Jimmy Meadows 19-7 2.93 ERA. Not quite an ace, but not far away
32 year old Dave Otto 11-7 3.85 ERA. Very nice bounce back season

27 year old closer Tim Cain 3-6 30 saves 1.58 ERA. Very solid, though gave up 5 unearned runs in 51 innings.

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We hit for a high average last year, but we drew very few walks which pushed us down to 9th in runs.

Baerga .326/.354/.447 15 hr 91 rbi
Erstad .338/.384/.467 11 hr 34 2b 66 rbi
King .299/.350/.494 22 hr 41 2b 101 rbi
Berroa .274/.322/.443 19 hr 33 2b 83 rbi
Guillen .282/.303/.364 53 rbi
Frias .259/.292/.522 38 hr 94 rbi
Bordick .270/.317/.359 45 rbi
Halter .293/.359/.447 6 hr 32 rbi in 323 ab

In the offseason, we signed slick fielding shortstop Andujar Cedeno to a $12 million-5 year deal. He is a career .270 hitter but only averages 25 walks, so he will not help in that regard. But he is a solid 'A' fielder at short stop, where he will combine with 'B+' fielder Bordick at 2nd. He does average 13 HR and 30 doubles so he will hit, he just won't walk.

I then signed Pete Incavilgia to a $3 million deal over 3 years. He is actually an average fielder in the game, but still strikeouts a lot. The 32 year old averaged over 30 homers a year for his first 8 years, but for some reason became a part time player. Last year he managed to still hit 25 homers in just 328 ab's, so hopefully he can bring us some more pop

We also signed Chris James and Gary Cooper to back up in the outfield. Other than those 4 additions, and rookie Wes Shook as a backup catcher, it's the same offense

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With 1997 starting, interleague play begins.

I totally missed that before the season, embarrassed a bit. Not a huge deal yet, just 10 games, but having been an NL manager my whole career, it's a new twist.

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LOTS of free agency movement

Jeff Cirillo re-signs in Atlanta for 4 years and $20,000,000
Damion Easley crossed the state going from KC to STL for a 6-year deal for $41,500,000
Ken Caminiti went from the White Sox to the Twins for 5 years and $22,800,000
Jay Bell went from Baltimore to Oakland for 6 years and $30,800,000
Joe Magrane went from Baltimore to the Mets for 5 years and $21,200,000
Mo Vaughn left San Francisco for the Cubs for 4 years and $25,200,000
Delino DeShields left the Mets for Pittsburgh and 5 years and $31,600,000
Craig Biggio flew from the Angels to the Orioles for 7 years and $27,160,000
Bruce Ruffin left the Mets to go to Detroit for 5 years and $30,000,000
Jose Offerman left Oakland for the Reds for 8 years and $49,500,000
Frank Thomas left the Mets to go to the Angels for 5 years and $24,820,000
Gregg Jefferies left the White Sox for Boston and 7 years and $42,000,000
Edgar Martinez went from Cleveland to the Mets for 5 years and $34,000,000

Martinez became the 2nd highest paid player behind Larry Walker and DeShields is 7th

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I've played through 115 before posting, sorry about that, if anyone is still checking this thread out.

We are 61-54, 5 games out of 1st and 4 back of the wild card. We've had a few moderate injuries, we are currently without RF Geronimo Berroa. He's been out 2 weeks and will be out another 3 or so. Shane Halter has been out 2 weeks and has another month to go, but our pitching is healthy.

Our bullpen is 1st in the league in ERA, but our starters have let us down. They are just 12 in the league. We've dealt 2 of the starters we had in the rotation at the start of the year, so our rotation has undergone lots of changes. We dealt Dave Otto (3-9 5.14 ERA) for pitcher Bill Long and Long has done well in the rotation after a few games in the bullpen, so that has been a positive.

We also dealt Will Cunane (4-4 5.72 ERA) for Jon Lieber who had been up and down with the Phillies, but he has also pitched well for us in the rotation, so both of those moves have paid off

We also traded fan favorite, but very overpaid and very underperforming Mike Bordick to Texas for starter Kenneth Pellien and 2b Michael Carlson. Pellien has averaged 12 wins a season and while Carlson isn't a good hitter for average, he walks more than anyone we have and has some power.

Jon Barnes 14-6 2.72 ERA
Bill Long 2-1 2.83 ERA in 4 starts
Pellien 2-3 3.86 ERA in 5 starts
Leiber 5-1 4.16 ERA in 10 starts
Chris Hammond 5-10 5.11 ERA

Tim Cain 6-3 21 saves 2.08 ERA
Jeff Neely 1-0 1.35 ERA 20 innings
Stanley Zaltzman 7-1 1.50 ERA 42 innings
Dave Wyatt 2-0 1.93 ERA 37 innings
Mike Henneman 2-4 3.16 ERA 42 innings
Jimmy Meadows 4-9 5.75 ERA in 19 starts before moving to the bullpen where he hasn't allowed a run yet in 5 appearances

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We are 2nd in average and 5th in homers, but being just 12th in OBP, we are just 5th in runs. We are not a patient bunch, but I made a move or 2 or address our lack of patience and we will see if it pays off.

Darin Erstad leads the NL in hitting at .349 and Carlos Baerga is 3rd at .338. Pete Incaviglia is 4th in homers with 29 and Israel Frias is just 1 behind with 28. On the downside of the league leaders, Frias and Incaviglia are tied with the most strikeouts with 114.

Erstad .349/.397/.526 11 HR 34 2b 10 steals 51 rbi 76 runs
Baerga .338/.364/.434 7 HR 24 2b 15 steals 46 rbi 64 runs
Jeff King .258/.315/.447 14 HR 35 2b 60 rbi 56 runs
Incaviglia .288/.341/.540 29 HR 89 rbi 58 runs
Andujar Cedeno .272/.292/.414 10 hr 23 doubles 21 steals 49 rbi 59 runs
Frias .273/.299/.548 28 hr 74 rbi 54 runs
Berroa .259/.311/.429 14 hr 50 rbi 60 runs (on dl)

We started the year with Bordick at 2nd, but after going on the DL for 5 weeks and hitting .210, we signed 38 year old Dickie Thon to a deal to back up Shane Halter but Thon quickly took the job from Halter. Thon has had a great career, 2500 hits and 170 homers while hitting .282. But he hit just .217 last year and he appeared done, and he was never a good fielder. But he's gone .283/.321/.483 with 12 homers in just 272 at bats and while he's a 'd' fielder, he's been a big addition.

To that end, we got 26 year old 2b/1b Michael Carlsen back when we dealt Bordick and he is interesting. He can't hit for average, he is a .194 hitter in over 600 AB, but he walked 100 times and has 24 homers in those 600 at bats, so he walks a ton and has power. So far for us he's gone .254/.362/.542 with 4 homers in 60 at bats. He's a good fielder at 2nd. but even better at 1st, so he may be a good replacement for King who is a UFA after next year.

We lost Berroa after the trade deadline, so we had to try to fill from within. We frankly don't have anyone at AAA who would be anything more than a 5th outfielder or a young player who clearly isn't ready. But down in AA, we have Roosevelt Brown.

The 22-year old was our 1st round pick as a 17 year old 5 years ago and prior to this year, you would be surprised if you found out he was with the big club.

His 1st year in the developmental league he went .167/.209/.231 with 3 HR in 203 ab
His 2nd year in the developmental league he went .237/.277/.322 with 1 HR in 289 ab
His 3rd year in the developmental league he went .276/.337/.414 with 4 HR in 268 ab
We promoted him to low A in year 4 and he went .290/.351/.440 with 9 HR in 414 ab

But he blew up in AA this year hitting .317/.366/.529 with 16 HR and 25 2b and 20 steals in 401 ab's, so we had him jump AAA and he is starting against righties. So far he's hit .320/.393/.560 with 1 hr 3 2b in 30 ab's. He was never in the top 150 prospects before blowing up this year, so maybe we found a 1st rounder who took until year 5 to develop.

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Standing thus far
Expos
Braves-1 back
Marlins-5

Pirates-
Astros-1/2

Giants-
Padres-3

Wild Card
Braves
Astros 1 1/2
Marlins 4
Padres 4 1/2
Mets 6

Yankees-
Tigers-8

White Sox-
Twins-2
Brewers-5
Royals-5

Angels- (80-35 so far)
Rangers-20

Wild Card
Tigers
Rangers-3
Blue Jays-3 1/2
A's-5

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September 1st arrives and we have a really good race. The Expos and Braves are tied for 1st and we are 3 back. Unfortunately, we have no games left with Atlanta and just 3 against the Expos. The new interleague schedule has us playing 3 more with Baltimore and none with the Braves. Oh well.

We just hit NINE home runs in a game at Toronto. Frias, Incavigia and Brown each hit 2 and King, Thon and Wes Shook each hit 1 and we now lead the NL in home runs. With a month to go we have:

Frias-35
Incaviglia-34
King-19
Carlsen-16 (7 for us)
Berroa-14
Erstad-14
Thon-14
Cedeno-12
James-9
Baerga-8
Roosevelt Brown-7 rookie in 96 AB's

Looks like Brown may be a really really good one. In those 96 ABs:

.341/.385/.659 7 hr 5 2b 3 steals 16 rbi 18 runs left field zone rating of 1.6

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Expos
Braves- tied
Marlins-3

Pirates
Astros 5 1/2

Giants-
Padres-2
Rockies-3

Wild Card
Expos/Braves
Marlins-3
Padres-5
Mets-6
Astros-6
Rockies-6

Yankees-
Blue Jays-9

White Sox-
Twins-4 1/2
Brewers-5

Angels-
Rangers-26

Wild Card
Blue Jays-
Rangers-5
A's-6
Tigers-6

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The Expos have dipped a bit and with 9 games to go, we are tied with the Expos in the Wild Card 4 games behind the Braves. The Mets are just 2 behind us for the Wild Card and we start a 3 game series against them before going to Montreal for a massive series.

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After dropping the 1st game against the Mets, we won the final 2 games as the Expos dropped 2 of 3 and we poked our nose out in front in the wild card chase with 6 games to go.

In the 1st game against Montreal, Barnes was cruising with a 3-0 lead in the 6th where all the wheels came off as he walked in a run, balked in a run, wild pitched in a run and gave up a 2-run single as we fell behind 5-3. In the 8th, rookie Roosevelt Brown tripled in 2 runs to tie things up at 5 and we went into extras. Cedeno hit a sac fly in the top of the 10th, but Zaltsman gave up 2 runs and the Expos won 7-6 and we were tied again for the wild card.

In game 2 against the Expos, Jeff King doubled in 2 runs in the 4th to allow us to take a 2-1 lead and we added a 3rd on a sac fly. The Expos pushed a run across in the 5th and the Albert Belle homered off Jon Leiber to tie it up at 3. In the 8th, Carlsen singled in Erstad to give us a 4-3 lead which we expanded to 8-3 as we put together 2 walks and 5 hits and that was the final. Up 1 game with 4 to go.

In the last game against Montreal, we hit 5 doubles, 3 triples and 3 home runs in a very easy 15-4 win and we had a 2 game lead with 3 to go. Carlsen was 3-4 with 2 RBI, Incaviglia went 2-6 with a HR and 3 RBI, Erstad went 3-5 with 2 doubles and 3 RBI and Baerga added 3-5 at the plate with a double, triple and 4 RBI.

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The Expos already won when we played the Phillies, so we couldn't clinch the wild card spot. We traded for Kenneth Pellien a few months ago and he's gone 8-6 with a 3.63 ERA and an ERA+ of 123 and he faced Andy Benes. Baerga knocked in a run in the 1st with a single and Incaviglia doubled in 2 runs in the 3rd and we held a 3-0 lead into the 7th. Pellien was sailing along, but after a 2-run pinch hit single by Pete O'Brien, we brought in Zaltsman/Wyatt/Cain to shut them down the rest of the way and we won 3-2 to keep our 2 game lead with 2 to play.

No drama in game 161 as we knocked former Marlin Will Cunane out with a 5-spot in the 2nd and we cruised to a 6-1 win to clinch the wild card. Chris Hammond has had a rough season, but he pitched a great game and behind 2 RBI's each for Brown and Baerga, we will play the Braves in the playoffs.

We played the bench in game 162 and lost a meaningless game 10-3 but we made the playoffs, and I am very happy about that. I think I am leaning towards retiring after this season and I would love to go out on top.

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Before the playoffs start, here is what we are rolling with

Roosevelt Brown .324/.378/.575 10 HR 9 doubles 29 rbi 40 runs 5 steals in 50 games
Carlos Baerga .332/.346/.448 11 HR 36 doubles 77 RBI 90 runs 19 steals
Darin Erstad .329/.407/.466 14 HR 41 doubles 74 RBI 94 runs 11 steals
Pete Incaviglia .292/.345/.537 37 HR 122 RBI 85 runs
Israel Frias .291/.321/.574 39 HR 32 doubles 100 RBI 79 runs
Jeff King .268/.322/.455 21 HR 43 doubles 84 RBI 78 runs
Andujar Cedeno .286/.310/.418 12 HR 33 doubles 68 RBI 82 runs 31 steals
Michael Carlson .194/.332/.365 19 HR 53 RBI 68 runs

Dickie Thon .289/.325/.457 363 ab 15 HR 52 RBI 56 runs
Geronimo Berroa .265/.318/.428 407 ab 14 HR 55 RBI 67 runs
Chris James .295/.360/.515 200 ab 11 HR 11 doubles 38 RBI
Shane Halter .250/.333/.375 136 ab 12 rbi

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We can hit, but our starters are our weakness. We dealt 3 starters during the season and we now have this

Jon Barnes 18-6 2.85 ERA 176 K's 5.1 WAR 157 ERA+
Kenneth Pellien 18-11 3.60 ERA 3.5 WAR 138 ERA+ (18 starts in Texas)
Bill Long 9-11 4.24 ERA 1.4 WAR 117 ERA (16 starts for Florida-23 games for Cubs)
Chris Hammond 9-12 5.23 ERA 3.0 WAR 86 ERA+

Jimmy Meadows 5-10 5.36 ERA 1.5 WAR 84 ERA+ (20 starts before going to pen)
Roberto Taveras 0-1 7.39 ERA -.5 WAR 61 ERA+ (Rule 5 guy)
Jon Lieber 10-3 4.30 ERA 1.4 WAR 116 ERA+ (18 starts after a trade)
Mike Henneman 5-4 1 sv 60 IP 2.72 ERA .3 WAR 165 ERA+
Dave Wyatt 3-0 1 sv 46 IP 1.94 ERA .7 WAR 231 ERA+
Jeff Neely 1-1 3 sv 59 IP 1.21 ERA 1.3 WAR 412 ERA+
Stanley Zaltsman 9-2 4 svs 55 IP 2.44 ERA 1.2 WAR 184 ERA+
Tim Cain 6-6 30 svs 52 IP 3.27 ERA 1.0 WAR 137 ERA+

Our bullpen is great, if our starters can give us 6 innings I think we can take the Braves. We were just 2 games behind them and were 7-5 against them during the season

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Braves 93-69 vs Marlins 89-73
Pirates 90-72 vs Giants 89-73

Angels 112-50 vs Blue Jays 84-78
Yankees 101-61 vs White Sox 82-80

The Angels were VERY bad for a long time. From 1990-1993, they had the 1st pick 3 times and took Jeter/Nomar/Manny who are all actually better in the game than IRL.

24 year old Nomar .341/.392/.564 31 HR 117 RBI 27 steals
23 year old Jeter .307/.373/.436 21 HR 29 2B 11 3B 75 RBI 122 runs 22 steals
25 year old Manny .353/.432/.732 59 HR 42 2B 181 RBI 150 runs yes...that's a Triple Crown season

They also took 25 year old Rondell White in the 1st round in 1989 with the 14th pick and he went .350/.380/.550 23 HR 38 2B 117 RBI 113 runs 37 steals

Then they signed Frank Thomas as a free agent and he went .334/.446/.567 31 HR 117 RBI 109 runs

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So of course the Blue Jays beat the Angels in 4, and the White Sox went and swept the Yankees.

The Blue Jays went 1-10 against the Angels during the regular season. They were a -4 in run differential while the Angels were a +279.

And not to be anti-climactic, but we went down in 4 games to the Braves in a pretty dull series. Clemens struck out 9 in game 1 as we lost 4-2 and Andy Baker struck us out 11 times in game 2 as we lost that one 6-1.

We took game 3, but we crumbled in game 4 losing that 11-5 and our season is over.

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Congrats to the Pirates who took the World Series in a 5 game series over the Jays where they outscored the Jays 35-15 in an easy win. Johnny Damon won the MVP hitting 2 HR's and knocking in 8.

Manny Ramirez easily won the AL MVP as the Triple Crown winner .353/.432/.732 with 59 HR's and 181 RBI, the 4th most of all time. Pedro Martinez of the Yankees won the Cy Young going 19-10 3.54 ERA 280 Ks. Eric Milton of the Angels won ROY going 16-10 with a 3.59 ERA. Reliever of the Year went to Russell Elsberry who went 3-3 with 16 saves

JD Drew won both the ROY and MVP for Colorado hitting .339/.442/.692 with 45 homers, 137 RBI and 124 runs. Roger Clemens entered free agency by winning his 4th straight and 7th Cy Young overall going 17-4 with a 2.40 ERA. Paul Swingle won his first reliever of the year with 42 saves and a 1.77 ERA

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I am not going to retire, I made some moves and I want to see how they play out.

23 year old C Juan Brea has raked everywhere he's played up through AAA. I drafted him in the 3rd round and our owner has a lot of pressure on me to play guys I drafted. But he has the worst personality I've ever seen. I got multiple messages from players to send him down when I called him up briefly and so I traded him for Brewers 1B prospect Drew Williams.

As soon as the season ended, Jeff King walked away from the last year of his deal to go to free agency, so we have an opening. Williams is 25 he hit .289 with 23 homers in 240 AB"s in AAA, and I am going play him against righties while Michael Carlsen will start against lefties and back up at 2b.