Well. The world around seems to be getting increasingly unpredictable with each update, and it seems very self-indulgent to keep posting these. But these simulated players keep plugging away, so I might as well keep posting.
We are now 60 games in, a good 40% of the way through the season. Before running down the results of the last fortnight or so, a few scattered notes as bullet points:
- I renamed the Atlanta team to be the Firecrackers. This is in the spirit of naming the Cleveland team the Blues, I just hadn't thought it through as well as I might have at the start. The AAA team in Atlanta was called the Crackers, but for obvious reasons I figured I'd go even further back to a less-iffy name.
- I also instituted a pitch count after seeing Chris Sale have one too many 130-pitch games. It's pretty coarse--120 pitches for teams from this decade, 130 for teams from the decade before, and 140 or no limit for teams before that. We'll see how it works.
- I also noted, but didn't do anything about, those players who are used differently from historically. The APBA game I had had a batters faced limit, which served to keep pitchers from getting used way, way more than they really were. I haven't found such a thing in OOTP, which probably means I'm not looking hard enough? But since this isn't really a historical league by their accounting, I don't think I can use historical lineups or transactions. So I'm just suspending that particular disbelief.
OK, to the standings. In a sentence, the AL has remained...not stable, but consistent with what was going on before, and in the NL the leaders have just increased their leads with one very, very notable exception.
The Red Sox remain tied atop the AL Northeast, though now it's with the Blues. The Yankees have dropped two games off the pace after going 5-7 during a stretch when they frankly should have been cleaning up. Lots of time left, but definitely a missed opportunity. Boston went 7-5 and Cleveland went 8-4. In the AL Central, the Tigers rode a 8-4 record over the stretch to take over first place. Chicago had a decent 7-5 stretch, Minnesota a bad 5-7. The 2011 Texas Rangers are currently the best team in all-time AL history, just was we all suspected. They had a torrid 9-3 stretch, as good as any team, and extended their AL Southeast lead over Tampa Bay and Houston to 5 and 6 games, respectively. Texas' last 12 games included a 21-run outburst over the Angels (who they swept) and a sweep of division rivals Houston. In the AL West, Oakland has spent time in and out of first place (even briefly holding it outright), but finds themselves one game back. Seattle is one game further back.
In the NL, the big news is in the Central, where Cincinnati has taken over the division lead from St. Louis. The Reds were 8-4 in this stretch, the Cardinals 5-7. The other divisions remained more or less as-is: Pittsburgh was "only" 7-5, and maintained their 9-game lead over Philadelphia. Both Atlanta and Los Angeles went an impressive 9-3 and now have double-digit leads in their divisions. Atlanta has the best record in the Cloverland Leagues by 3 games, with 44 wins out of the 60 games they've played.
Highlights of the upcoming 12-game stretch include The Blues hosting the Yankees and Rangers with a road trip to Boston in-between, Detroit facing division rivals Chicago and Minnesota, Atlanta looking to pad their record vs. the Knights, Marlins, and Giants, a Pirates-Reds series starting tomorrow, and looking forward a bit more--the All-Star Game on 15 June.
We turn now to the stats!
Manny Sanguillen continues his hot hitting, dropping a bit since last time but still comfortably above .400 at .411. The folks below him have shuffled quite a bit, with Luis Arraez of the Twins leading the AL at .406 and the leader as of the last update, Eric Aybar, dropping 25 points since then. Pat Burrell and Rafael Devers lead the majors with 27 HR (which is a 68 HR pace for the 150 game season). Mike Schmidt leads the NL with 24. Bret Boone and George Brett are tied with 74 RBI (Troy Tulowitzki leads the NL with a mere 62). Carlos Correa, Alex Bregman, and Chipper Jones are all tied with 3.6 batting WAR.
Looking at the pitchers, Kevin Brown of the Marlins had two iffy starts in a row, his ERA rising to a still-league-leading 1.70 as a result. His closest competitor, John Smoltz, is nearly a half-run behind. Jack McDowell of the White Sox leads the AL at 2.67. 4 pitchers, all in the AL, have 9 wins, while 3 NL pitchers lead that league with 3. Kevin Brown of the Padres has 4.9 pitching WAR, demonstrating that I have no idea how WAR works. And Randy Johnson's ridiculous season continues, he has passed 207 Ks (which projects to 518 in the 150-game season).
