California Angels 1970

[sharknut]

As the new season gets going, we have starter Bob Tewksbury on the DL for 6 more weeks, but other than that we are healthy. I was planning on having Steve Busby be the #5 starter until Tewksbury comes back, but he really struggled in spring training while Alan Fowlkes was our best pitcher, so we will go with him.

Greg Luzinski went from our club to the World Champs Cubs to play 1b, so no reason to think they won't be the team to beat this year as their young pitchers Sid Fernandez, Fernando Valenzuela and Bob Welch are a formidable trio.

[sharknut]

Originally Posted by sharknut

Our owner has had a burr under his saddle to get me to acquire an MVP for the last 3 years. Obviously there are a very limited pool of players I can find someone and do as he requires, especially since Fred Lynn has won 2 MVP's and we already have him.

There is no way we can get Mike Marshall, Chili Davis, Gary Redus, Lou Whitaker or Willie Wilson. We worked up an offer for Robin Yount that was accepted, but he has been on the DL 7 times and he's only 28. I would hate to give up what we would have to for a player like that, especially with 4 of the same muscle injury..

In game 2 of the season, Yount hurt his knee and is out 5 months.

[sharknut]

24-year old Steve Sax led the AL in hitting for us last year, but he went down with injury late in the season and missed the playoffs. In game 5 this year, he picked up an ankle injury and is out a month. In his minor league career, he was on the DL 5 times, so that's 7 times at the age of 24. That's troubling. He's had a hip, an ankle, a rib cage, a knee, rib cage again, another rib cage and an intercostal strain. He is obviously very important to us, but we have Jeff Cox who could start for most of the league as our back up, but Sax is a perfect #2 hitter.

I think I decided how long I am going to play as the Angels GM/Coach. I am on season 15 now and in 9 years, the Marlins and Rockies will come into the league. I'd love to run this through 1992 and then go run an expansion team.

[sharknut]

17-9 in April and we have a 1/2 game lead over the White Sox. 1st in runs scored and we have the best defense I think I have had. 3rd fewest errors and 3rd in defensive efficiency combined with turning the most double plays in the AL have given our starters a 3.39 ERA thus far. Still sorting out our bullpen roles, but we improved greatly last year as the year went on so I expect that this year.

I mentioned Alan Fowlkes was great in spring training to steal the 5th starter spot before Bob Tewksbury comes off the injured list but at 3-1 with a 2.25 ERA and an ERA+ of 204 sure wants to stay a starter. I will take this problem gladly.

[sharknut]

16-9 in May and we are 1 1/2 in front. Still 1st in runs though our pitching and defense wobbled a bit. Tewksbury is 2-0 in his 2 games back and in our never-ending quest to find a closer, rookie Arthur Martinez may just fill that role. Just 23, he is max rated for movement and at 85% for both control and stuff. Just a 7th round pick 3 years ago, I decided he had no need for AAA and his 1.42 ERA with 6 save thus far seems to show that to have been a good idea.

The Brewers are a fun team. They have youngster Rickey Henderson, Ivan Calderon, Darryl Strawberry and Willie McGee all looking like players who will be stars, at a minimum. Henderson leads the league in hitting, steals, runs, OBP, OPS, WAR, Strawberry leads HR's and XBH, and Calderon leads in RBI and slugging.

In the NL, Mike Marshall is the best player ever. Going for his 3rd straight Triple Crown, he's hitting .399 with 13 HR and 50 RBI which is 1st or 2nd in every category.

[sharknut]

April and May were good but June was great as we went 20-7 and now have a 6 game lead. 1st in runs allowed, tied for the 1st in runs and 3rd in defense. We appear to be very very good.

After trading for him in the off-season, we locked up Alan Trammell for 6-years with a team option that would take him to 33. The 7 years is for a total of $11.2 million, he had taken our defense to another level and while he isn't he hitter he was IRL, he is hitting .286/.345/.407, he is leading the AL in triples and is on pace for 90 RBI and 45 XBH.

We now have Lynn/Horner/Richards and Trammell locked up for 3 more years as a group before Lynn becomes a UFA at age 36.

[sharknut]

We dropped our last 6 games in July which meant we were 13-13. While we went 2-8 in our last 10, the Twins went 10-0 and our lead went from 14 to 6 games in 10 days. We are still 1st in pitching, but we dropped to 2nd in runs and our fielding dropped a bit as well.

Mike Marshall is on pace for his 3rd straight Triple Crown in the NL. He's 24

We have 3 with the Twins at home and they took a 6-0 lead into the 7th and it looked like our lead was going to be down to 5, but Bob Horner hit a 3-run HR and then we rallied for 5 straight hits in the 9th to win it 7-6 to open the lead back to 7. Seems kind of like a dagger.......2 more games and 2 more wins and our lead is back up to 9

[sharknut]

......did you know Bert Blyleven had a brother that played pro ball? Johannes Blyleven never got higher than A ball IRL, but in my world, good ole' Joe just threw a 2-hit shutout for the Mets.

Having just discovered this, I will make it my #1 off-season goal to trade for Bert's brother Joe.

[sharknut]

August was much better as we went 21-7. Fred Lynn won Player of the Month hitting .337 with 13 HR 35 RBI and 25 runs scored. He now leads the league in HR and RBI and is 5th in batting.

Over in the NL, Mike Marshall has a 14-point lead over Dion James in batting, a 6-RBI lead over Jack Clark in RBI, but Clark has passed Marshall in HR and leads 33-30 as Marshall tries to win his 3rd straight Triple Crown.

We have a 14 game lead, the Cardinals have a 10 game lead and the Braves are up by 9. The Yankees and Blue Jays are tied for 1st and the Red Sox are just 2 back in the only race there is.

[sharknut]

We ended up 103-69 and 14 games up on the Twins. We will face the Blue Jays for the 3rd year in a row in the ALCS while the Braves won the NL West for the 6th year in a row and they will face the Cardinals.

Mike Marshall ended up winning his 3rd Triple Crown in a row as ended up tied with Jack Clark with 35 HR and winning the RBI and batting title by a good margin.

Fred Lynn and Darryl Strawberry tied for the AL lead in HR with 39 and Bob Horner was 3rd with 38. Horner led the AL with 143 RBI and Lynn was 2nd with 135 and he was 3rd in avg at .331

Bert Blyleven ended up 2nd in wins, 2nd in ERA, 6th in KO and 2nd in WAR. Our rookie Arthur Martinez ended up 2nd in saves with 27 and had a 1.21 ERA and .86 WHIP.

[sharknut]

In game 1, we fell behind 2-0 early and were down 2-1 in the bottom of the 7th when we got 4 hits off of John Tudor and 2 more off his reliever and we let Roy Fontenot go the distance and he only allowed those 2 runs on 5 hits and we went up 1 game to 0.

In game 2, Eric Davis didn't hit 1 home run off Bert Blyleven, he didn't hit 2 home runs off Bert Blyleven, he hit 3 and knocked in 5 of the Blue Jays 7 runs as they tied up the series at 1 with an easy 7-1 win.

In Toronto for game 3, Victor Cruz and Mike Maitland pitched well with the game tied at 1 into the 7th when the Jays scored 3 times, twice on a Terry Pendleton double and the Jays took a 2-1 series lead.

In game 4, Eric Davis hit his 4th home run of the series to give the Jays a 1-0 lead in the first, but Fred Lynn answered with a 3-run shot of his own in the 3rd as we jumped out to a 5-1 lead. Toronto added single runs in the 4th, 5th and 7th, so it was just 5-4 in the 9th when Vernon Armstead gave us a cushion with a 2-run home run and we tied the series up with a 7-4 win.

In the all-important game 5, Darryl Strawberry went 3-4 knocking in 2 as the Jays crept to within 1 game of the World Series with a 6-3 win. John Tudor picked up the win despite another Fred Lynn home run.

In game 6, the Jays scratched across a run in the first off Blyleven, but Armstead answered back with a 2-run single to give us a 2-1 lead after 1. In the 2nd, Orestes Destrade hit a solo home run to tie it, and then Davis hit ANOTHER home run, this one a 3-run shot as the Jays went up 6-2 and as the game got to the 6th, it seemed the Jays were on their way. But Armstead added another RBI single and with 2 ours, Roy Howell launched a 3-run home run and the 55,000 in the stadium went crazy as we tied it up at 6. In the 9th, we inserted closer Arthur Martinez with 2 outs as we had leftie Will McEneney on the mound and that man Eric Davis was up. We brought in Martinez to setup a rightie-rightie matchup and Davis took his first pitch 476 feet to dead center and suddenly, the Jays were 3 outs away.

With their closer Jim Slaton on in the 9th, Willie Upshaw, playing in left due to an injury to our regular LF Dan Briggs who will miss the rest of the season after a hamstring injury in game 1, drew a leadoff walk and Gene Richards walked setting up Fred Lynn to be the hero as he crunched 2-run double for a walk-off 8-7 win and we have a game 7

Lynn and Horner had RBI singles in the 1st to give us a 2-0 lead, but the Jays scored in the 3rd and 2 times in the 4th and the Jays took a 3-2 lead into the 7th. Maitland was cruising, but Sax blooped an opposite field double to tie it up and after an intentional walk to Lynn, Horner took the first pitch he saw over the left field wall and just like that it was 6-3 Angels. We added 1 more to take a 7-3 into the 9th. McIeneney gave up 2 base runners and we brought in Martinez again. He got 2 outs but then walked Strawberry to bring up.......Eric Davis with 6 home runs in 6 playoff games......and got him to pop out on a change up to give us the ALCS title in a very fun series.

Speaking of fun series, the Braves fell behind the Cardinals 3 games to 1 before storming back to make their 4th World Series in 5 years in their hopes to finally win one. We beat the Braves 4 games to 3 just 2 years ago in another great series.

[sharknut]

I had a choice of lefties to start the World Series. It was John Candelaria's turn, but Ray Fontenot was better in the regular season. I decided to stay on turn and that decision paid off as The Candy Man shut out the Braves on 5 hits, striking out 8 and walking zero en route to a 6-0 win. Not only that, Candelaria went 2-4 with a triple and 3 RBI's and we were off.

In game 2, Fontenot pitched 5 good innings, bur Gary Redus touched him for a 2-run HR in the 6th to make it 4-1 Braves. We both added 2 runs later, but the Braves left Atlanta tied at 1 with the Angels.

In game 3, the Braves went single-single-single to start the game off Bert Blyleven, but then Lance Parrish threw out John Castino on a strike-em out-throw em out double play and Blyleven got out of 1st giving up just 1 run, and that was all the Braves would get. Gene Richards knocked in 2 runs in the 2nd and Upshaw and Parrish knocked in runs in the 5th and we were up 6-1. Unfortunately, Blyleven came down with a stiff shoulder for the first time in his career and will be out for 6 weeks, but no surgery is needed. Bob Horner added a Grand Slam in the 8th and we won game 3 11-1

In game 4, Victor Cruz and Rawley Easwick matched zeros for 7 innings, but after Cruz shut down the Braves in the top of the 8th, the Angels scored NINE runs off the Braves bullpen in the bottom of the 8th and we took game 4 9-1. Parrish knocked in 2 runs and Fred Lynn added a Grand Slam for runs 6-7-8 and 9. Cruz lost his shutout with 2 outs in the 9th when he dropped the ball for a balk with a man on 3rd. Can't have everything.

Unless you are The Candy Man. After twirling a 5-hit shutout in Game 1, he did it again in game 5, this time winning the World Series MVP as the Angels took Game 5 1-0.

Candelaria had one of the most dominant World Series in history going 2-0 18 IP 10 H 1 W 11 K also going 2-4 with 2 RBI. Overall, he was 3-0 in the playoffs with a 1.08 ERA and .8 WHIP.

World Series Crown #3 for me and 2 in 3 seasons, losing out to the Cubs last year. The Braves have now lost 4 of the last 5 World Series.

We aren't losing a single important free agent and there's no reason for me to change much at all.

[sharknut]

Some off-season awards and such:

Obviously Marshall won his 3rd straight MVP winning his 3rd straight Triple Crown. Andy Hawkins won his 1st Cy Young for the Cardinals and Dion James won Rookie of the Year.

Eric Davis won the MVP for the Jays. Just age 22, Davis is not a Gold Glove CF, he is a generational SS. Before we even get to hitting, his 22 ZR showed he got to everything and only committed 15 errors in 158 games. So now, his offense: .299/.400/.529 33 HR 97 RBI 74 SB 10.8 WAR and 6 home runs in a gallant losing effort in the ALCS.

Our Bert Blyleven won his 2nd Cy Young going 20-6 with a 2.77 ERA. He did suffer his 1st injury ever in the World Series, but it was just a 4-5 week injury and hopefully isn't a sign of breakdown. Edgar Martinez won the ROY for the Indians and our Arthur Martinez won the Reliever of the Year going 5-4 with 27 saves and a 1.21 ERA

The draft went as such:

1)Seattle-Larry Walker-unsigned
2)Rangers-Barry Bonds
3)Expos-Randy Johnson
4)Mets-Roberto Alomar
5)Astros-Barry Larkin
6)White Sox-Gregg Jeffiries
7)Giants-Rafael Palmeiro-unsigned
8)Texas-Will Clark (compensatory)
9)Reds-Ken Caminiti
10)Cleveland-David Justice

With the last pick we took 1B/3B John Jaha.

Our owner gave me a goal of re-signing reliever Will McEneneny. He was a closer before we got him at the deadline last year and used him as a setup man. We have the reliever of the year in Martinez, there is no reason to pay him a closer's salary for a setup man so I let him walk. He signed for $2.7 over 3 years which would make him the 7th highest player on the squad. Let the owner be upset, it would have been a dumb baseball move.

He also wants me to upgrade at 3B. I re-signed Roy Howell for 1 more year (which IRL he wouldn't have signed, he would have left for longer term), so during the year I will see if I can get a player close to the deadline.

Other than that, win a championship, become a dynasty and increase the attendance from 40,000 to 45,000.

[sharknut]

No changes to our squad as we open the 1985 season. Our exceptions are another World Series. World Series MVP Candelaria is going to be a UFA after this season, but if my other 4 starters stay healthy, I think I may let him walk or use him as a carrot to upgrade at 3B, one of the owners goals this season. I have the #29 prospect, Doug McKenzie (heh), a player who never made the bigs IRL, at AAA, where he was Pitcher of the Year last year. I expect to call him up this season once a pitcher is hurt or struggles.

We don't have any other prospects who are realistically within 2 years of the big leagues, so it's good we have our top players locked up for at least 2 years with the exception of Lance Parrish. He's just 28 and has good pop, hitting 26 HR knocking in 69 runs, but is OBP was just .296. He handles the staff well and is very popular, so I offered him a 3 year deal with a 4 year club option for about $1.2 a season. He's getting $900,000 right now, so we will see if he accepts.

Time to go back-to-back

[sharknut]

Originally Posted by sharknut

But, 41 year old Tommy Harper is amazing. .345/.430/.589 with 16 HR 70 RBI and 10 steals is just tremendous. I had chances to sign him as a UFA for a few years, but he is better than ever at 41. He is a HOF lock at this point. 2611 hits/610 steals/1569 runs/1134 RBI and he is 1 HR away from being the FIRST player ever with 300 HR and 600 steals.

Harper is now 44 and the Red Sox just signed him for $1.4 a year for 3 years! LOL. He just hit .303/.389/.490 with 27 doubles and 12 home runs. He knocked in 68 runs and scored 64 as well.

He now has 2841 hits 506 doubles 324 home runs 1279 rbi's 1702 runs and 620 steals.

[Edster007]

How did Nettles end his career? I assume he is retired now.

[sharknut]

Originally Posted by Edster007

How did Nettles end his career? I assume he is retired now.

.234
219 HR
811 RBI
8 Gold Gloves
2 All-Star
1 Silver Slugger
1 World Series

A very nice career.

One player had an incredibly accurate career as he did IRL was Tony Perez

BA
IRL .281
Sim .282

Hits
IRL 2891
Sim 2866

HR
IRL 414
Sim 436

RBI
IRL 1764
Sim 1665

Runs
IRL 1372
Sim 1436

WAR
IRL 77.2
Sim 75

[sharknut]

Although we went 13-8 in April, I'm rather frustrated to be leading the league in home runs but are just 7th in runs scored. Our OBP is way down in 8th, thankfully Bob Horner had a month of 8 HR and 22 RBI or we would like be below .500.

We are 2nd in ERA, so our pitching is fine despite missing Bob Tewskbury for 2 weeks. We picked up Roy Smith as a bullpen arm in the off season and he stepped in with 2 wins, both of which were quality starts.

Mike Marshall may have a hard time getting his 4th Triple Crown as he landed on the DL for 2 weeks for the 1st time in his career. No batter is off to an amazing start, but Willie Hernandez in Seattle is 4-0 with a .75 WHIP and 1.02 ERA and Charlie Leibrandt is 4-0 with a 1.1 ERA and .77 WHIP in San Diego.

[sharknut]

We are a week until June, but I will update now as we've had an up and down month. On the field, it's been up. We've gone 13-6 and we are tied with the Twins, who are pitching well and their off season pickups are hitting well for them.

But our outfield has been hit with injuries. Lead-off man Gene Richards, who has never been on the DL in his 10 seasons, was put on the list for 6 weeks with "chronic back soreness". Hopefully this doesn't start a yearly thing for him. Just a week later, LF Dan Briggs went down for 3 weeks with a pulled muscle, so we down a few bats in the lineup.

As one of the owners goals for me was to upgrade at 3B, I was able to pickup Vance Law from Oakland for our top arm at AAA who is the 90th prospect in the game. Law hits about 10% better than Howell and is much better in the field and I can use Howell as DH while the team gets healthy the next month and see what happens.

..in his first game with us, he hit a walk-off HR in the bottom of the 9th to break a 4-4 tie. Welcome to California!

[sharknut]

Horner had a lights out May, but Fred Lynn had yet another month that will land him in the Hall of Fame. He picked up his 2000th hit and 300th home run while putting up amazing numbers.

.420/.495/.898 1.4 OPS 11 HR 28 RBI and a 2.8 WAR in 28 games.

We traded for Roy Smith in the offseason and he picked up 2 starts while Fontenot was on the DL but has been in the pen since. In 12 games so far he leads the league with 7 wins, 5 from the bullpen. We are winning a lot of games in the 8th and 9th and Smith is a vulture with the wins.