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[JMDurron]

Megathreads are bad, so this gets its own thread.

Sean Berry's attempt at doing a community simulation of the 1974 Red Sox via Baseball Mogul inspired me to purchase Baseball Mogul and have some fun with it on my own. Naturally, one of my first thoughts was to try to take Baseball Mogul and eventually use it to simulate the actual season outcomes of my 1974 - 2002 Red Sox rosters. This thread will detail these year-to-year simulations, which will be done in two forms

- 100 simulations of the given season once the roster is set, using Mogul's Single Season Simulator functionality.
- 1 standard season walkthrough with me as GM, using Mogul's standard interface.

First, some thoughts on how Baseball Mogul's structure is determining how I will be going about this.

First of all, Baseball Mogul 2011 is a ton of fun, but it has some limitations.

- The first and most obvious for the sake of this exercise is that there is no real draft data, historical players enter the draft when they turn 18. That kind of screws up my whole drafting system.
- There are no compensation draft picks.
- Another historical issue that I have encountered from reading the Mogul forums is that historical greats tend to decline and become useless far, far too early in their careers, and given that part of the point of doing this is to take historical players at their historical capability levels, that's a bit of a dealbreaker. There are some theoretical workarounds via extremely tedious player editing and/or league setting manipulations, but I'm not too interested in that.

Mostly due to those 3 issues, I am structuring this exercise as follows.

I will load each historical season in turn, set the roster as per the combination of history and my narrative dictate, simulate that season 100 times, then play through that season. At the end of that season, I will start a NEW game for the following season, instead of continuing on from the previous season. This is primarily to get me around the historical figure regression and the draft issues, it's easier to hunt down the right players when they start where they are supposed to be historically. This will also avoid some of the funky resultant contract issues that will occur as I effectively force players from one team to another.

As needed, I will stop the single-season simulation to make historical or alternate history transactions. There may be some historical transactions that are so insignificant that I will ignore them, I will do my best to note every deviation from the original thread as I go.

I will try to remember to put a link between this thread and the appropriate post in the GM Time Machine thread to make the narrative roster/transactions/draft more accessible.

I will not micromanage Baseball Mogul's auto-roster function, at least at first. This essentially simulates many day-to-day roster moves and lineup/rotation settings by the manager, and since I am the GM, not the manager (Mogul really lets you be both, to a degree), I don't think it would be reasonable to overrule it very often, at least not until the Morgan/Francona era of increased Manager-GM coordination.

There are some inherent weaknesses to this approach:

- The computer manager may call up players before they were historically deployed.
- This essentially takes the financial aspect out of the game, due to the year-by-year nature of my approach
- This will inevitably lead to sub-optimal player utilization when Mogul makes a decision to play someone at a position that I do not play them at in the original narrative, I will have to deal with this on a case-by-case basis, possibly including forcing full position changes onto the player

Ultimately, the biggest benefit trumps the weaknesses - it's a way to see how the roster as a whole might have played together against the rest of baseball, and it doesn't tie us in to direct translations of ERA+/OPS+ from their historical seasons. It brings in the historical ability levels (or, Mogul's rating of them, anyway), without assuming the specific historical stats, which was really part of the point of the whole exercise, using the stats was basically a proxy to estimate appropriate moves and the impact of those moves on history.

For those of you who are familiar with Baseball Mogul, I am proceeding using the following settings:

Difficulty Level: Mogul
Injury Frequency: -30%
Injury Severity: -30%
Medical Staff Impact: -100%
Farm System: Normal
Scouting: Perfect
Medical Staff: Normal
Mimic Historical Drafts: +100%

Use Historical Career Paths: Enabled
Aging Randomness: -100%
Player Personality/Happiness: -100% on both

I'm internally debating turning on Player Personality/Happiness, but I'm not sure whether or not Mogul's simulation of "Clubhouse Chemistry" would be any more realistic than not including it at all. I'm open to input on this one.

As for the injuries, I've played Mogul through at least the 2017 season (from 2010) on all 4 difficulty levels, and have found that the game tends to drastically overstate injuries. I found the -30% modifiers in a suggestion on the Mogul Forums, and the Medical Staff impact is my own "house rules" addition. The Forum recommendation was for -50%, I'm open to some debate on that particular setting as well.

I've done the 100-season simulation and the single walkthrough of 1974, but will hold off on posting it for the moment. I want to give anyone who is still reading this a chance for some input on those settings if they are so inclined, and I want to get back to watching the Steelers and Ravens try to set some kind of NFL postseason penalty record. If there is a consensus to change the two settings, I may re-do 1974 anyway, and I don't particularly want to post it twice.

Edited by JMDurron, 16 January 2011 - 02:39 PM.

[JMDurron]

As an aside, one other potential flaw in this exercise is that I am letting Mogul do its thing with the rosters of the other teams as I go. This may make several teams make trades that they never made historically, etc. I can't really do anything about that, since some of those deals might have been due to injuries that might or might not happen now. It's just another way to play around with this, obviously this won't be a perfect simulation of what would have happened...just what could have happened.

1974

This one is easy, since I made no changes in the original thread, aside from the draft pick.

Historically, the 1974 Red Sox finished 84-78, in 3rd place, 7 games behind the Baltimore Orioles.

100-Season Simulation Results

Baseball Mogul 2011 really likes the 1974 Red Sox, it seems. The team averages 92.52 wins and 69.54 losses over the 100 season sample. There must be a 1-game playoff or two in there somewhere. This makes the Red Sox the top performer in the AL East, just ahead of the Baltimore Orioles and their 90.72-71.33 mark.

Mogul has the Red Sox winning the AL East 50 times out of 100, being bounced in the ALCS 17 times, losing the World Series 19 times, and winning the World Series 14 times. This ties the Red Sox with the Reds for the 2nd most frequent World Series winners in the simulation, lagging far behind the Phillies with their 34 wins out of 100. It seems that Mogul certainly believes that the 1974 Red Sox are a better team than the historical record would seem to indicate, I think that much of this may be due to Juan Marichal being very highly rated at age 36.

One other note, Dwight Evans is the AL MVP 16 times out of 100, behind only Orlando Cepeda's 25 times.

Single Season Walkthrough

So, this game doesn't like the 1974 Red Sox, it loves them! The team finshes the regular season 103-59, winning the AL East, defeating the Royals in the ALCS in 6 games, and beating the Reds in the World Series in 7 games, after being down 3 games to 2. The team's pythag record was 98-64, so there was some apparent "good karma" going on, beyond just statistical overperformance.

Great news! But, how and why did this happen? Thankfully, Mogul has a handy Encyclopedia Option to let us look at the stats for the team.



There's a couple of bullpen guys left, but it's in descending order by IP. They don't matter.

For the point of comparison, here's the 1974 Red Sox Baseball-Reference Page.

The most obvious positive change for the position players is Carlton Fisk staying healthy. Yaz actually underperforms a bit, so at least it's not completely like I turned on God Mode for this team. Dick McAuliffe is surprisingly effective, getting a roughly league-average OPS out of 2B is huge. Rico is slightly less helpful, I guess we're alternating. The OF is where the offensive magic happened, because Dwight Evans (ok), and Tommy Harder (huh?) went OFF. Rick Miller was still Rick Miller, but who cares? Cecil Cooper was the primary DH (no idea why that's not a starting position here), and outperformed his historical numbers. So on offense, there's one pleasantly average surprise, and two guys who seem to hit their upper bounds. Not completely unreasonable.

The pitching staff is a bigger difference, but for understandable reasons. In short, Marichal and Wise don't get hurt, so Dick Drago gets to keep helping the bullpen be awesome. Mogul also calls up Luis Aponte ahead of schedule, and he is excellent. We all know how bullpen performance can vary from season to season, and it looks like we can see where some of that happy pythag record outperformance is coming from - that is a beastly top 4 of the bullpen, beyond all reasonable expectation, I think. Better to be lucky than good.

In other news, both Tommy Harper and Dwight Evans win Gold Gloves at their respective corners.

In summary, this result is fun, but sure doesn't do much to make Mogul look like an appropriate way to model these seasons. I promise that it's usually not this easy, I've taken the 2010 Red Sox at least 7 seasons deep on every difficulty level, and it's never this easy in the first season of a simulation. The bullpen, and two position players overperformed quite a bit, and two starting pitchers and the catcher did not get hurt.

Going forward, I wonder if these injury settings will have an outsized benefit for Carlton Fisk in particular. They seemed to be reasonable for me when working with the present and future teams, but perhaps they are overly generous in a historical context? I am hoping that my settings are ok, and that Mogul will actually come back and bite me in the ass with the 1975 team.

[JMDurron]

1975

Another easy one, as I made no changes. The only move I have to make is sticking Rick Sutcliffe, my 1974 draft selection, into my minor league system.

Historically, the 1975 Red Sox went 95-65, finishing 1st in the AL East by 4.5 games over Baltimore. They won the AL Pennant and famously lost in the "Greatest World Series ever Played" to the Big Red Machine. The team's pythag record was 88-72, so there may have been some luck involved with that record.

100 Season Simulation Results

The 1975 Red Sox averaged a record of 91.06-70.94, winning the AL East 45 times, just ahead of the Yankees 44 times, with their record of 91.40-70.61. Mogul predicted 25 losses in the ALCS, 13 defeats in the World Series, and 7 World Series Championships. Those 7 titles trail the Dodgers (37), Phillies (19), Reds (15), and Royals (11).

On the awards front, Dwight Evans wins the MVP 9/100 times, behind only George Brett's 30 times. Luis Tiant wins the Cy Young 11 out of 100 times, tying him with Gaylord Perry for 3rd behind Catfish Hunter and Bert Blyleven. Jim Rice wins the ROY 72 times out of 100, a ridiculous level of dominance. Tiant even throws a Perfect Game once.

Single Season Walkthrough

Baseball Mogul has its revenge this time, as I somewhat expected. The team finishes with 88 wins (just like the real team's historical Pythag record), and 74 losses. Pythag of 87-75. The team loses the AL East by 1 measly game to the Baltimore Orioles. The Dodgers end up besting the White Sox to win the 1975 World Series.

Let's see how this went down. You can't see it in the picture, but the team went 59-22 at home, and 29-52 on the road. Now THAT's a H-R split for you.



Once again, we can compare to the historical team's results.

Carlton Fisk plays in about 40 more games, but gives back about 125 points of OPS. That hurts. Yaz is slightly better and more durable. Doug Griffin sucks less than he did historically. Rico is both healthier and more effective. Burleson plays in fewer games, but sucks just as much as he did historically at the plate. Jim Rice goes nuts. In CF, we begin to see where things went wrong.

Historically, Rick Miller was so lousy that it was an easy call to give Fred Lynn the CF job. In this scenario, Miller is just good enough to keep his job, and Mogul gives Lynn a brutally bad defensive rating in CF, so Lynn's bat actually makes him the primary DH over Cecil Cooper. Lynn gives back about 150 points of OPS, and by not even matching Cooper's historical production, both the CF and DH positions are downgraded significantly. Dwight Evans was more durable and hit better than his historical baseline. Bernie Carbo is a complete non-entity on the bench.

On the pitching staff, the top 3 of the rotation is actually better than history, with Tiant having a great season, with Lee and Wise matching their historical performances. The back end is a downgrade, but not a disastrous one.

The bullpen is a different story. A bullpen that was extremely lucky (compare real ERA to the DICE rating - Defense Independent Component ERA) in 1974 became extremely unlucky in 1975. Aponte is the only bright spot in a dark sky.

So basically, bad managerial moves with the CF/DH positions and a very bad bullpen sunk this team, which still only missed the playoffs by a single game.

On the awards front, Jim Rice wins the Rookie of the Year Award, and Rico Petrocelli wins a Gold Glove at 3B.

Moving forward, it seems like the performance variance is balancing out the slightly reduced injury load, as I was originally expecting. Baseball Mogul 2011, in my experience, has a habit of reducing the top-level performers like Lynn (not named Ryan Westmoreland, anyway, who ends up being GOD in all 4 of my 2010-onward experiments), and I think that's fair with my injury setting setup.

[JMDurron]

1976

Now, we get to where I actually have to do a little more work. The first step is to add Sutcliffe and Dawson to the organization. Next is to undo the Dick Drago trade.

In hindsight, I wish I had put more thought into the Rollie Fingers and Joe Rudi situation, but I just wasn't going through the individual transactions thoroughly enough at the time. Oh well, I'm not going to change that for my own convenience now.

Historically, the 1976 Red Sox finished 83-79, 3rd in the AL East, 15.5 games behind the Yankees. The team's pythag was 87-75, and a casual glance at the Mogul ratings for the roster bodes well for this team to outperform history, even without my new draft picks showing up.

100 Season Simulation Results

As expected, Mogul loves this roster. Average W-L record is 95.75-66.32, winning the AL East 75/100 times, the Yankees are the next closest at 15 times with a W-L of 89.65-72.42. Out of those 75 trips to the postseason, there are 30 1st round eliminations, 22 World Series losses, and 23 World Series wins. Only the Phillies have more, with 34.

On the individual accolades front, Jim Rice wins the AL MVP 29/100 times, behind George Brett's 33 times. Fergie Jenkins, Luis Tiant, and Rick Wise are all in the top 5 for AL Cy Young Awards, with 23 (1st), 14 (2nd), and 7 (5th) respectively.

Single Season Walkthrough

The team finishes with a record of 99-63 (Pythag 100-62), winning the AL East by 11 games over the Detroit Tigers. The Red Sox then lose in the ALCS to the A's in 7 games. Luis Tiant was injured and missed the first 5 games of the series.

Cy Young - Luis Tiant
1B Gold Glove - Carl Yastrzemski
3B Gold Glove - Rico Petrocelli
RF Gold Glove - Dwight Evans



Once again, we can compare to the historical results.

Fisk and Yaz outdoing themselves at the plate certainly helps things. Doyle sucks at 2B, in slightly fewer games. Petrocelli stays healthier and more effective, Burleson does the opposite. Rice, Lynn, and Evans are all slightly better than they were historically. The same applies to Cecil Cooper.

Tiant puts up absolutely sick numbers for mid-70s Fenway Park. That's outlandishly good. Wise and Jenkins are roughly as good as they were historically, the key in the rotation is the healthy Bill Lee.

Unfortunately, in the bullpen, the manager sticks with a poor closer over superior other options in the pen. A 50% save rate is just inexcusable.

Still, the best team doesn't always win, that's baseball. 1977 is next, sometime after I finish watching the Patriots soil themselves.

[JMDurron]

1977

Once again, I have slightly more work to do. Hurst is already on board, but it's time to go get Sutcliffe and Dawson again.

Now, I have two levels of deals to undo. The fact that I was not as thorough with this early seasons the first time around is really coming up to bite me in the ass here, because I don't actually know how long Dick Drago should be around if he was never traded before the 1976 season. It appears that he hits free agency after the 1977 season, so I can assume that he will still be under my control in 1977. So I re-undo that trade again. Thankfully, that's all I have to remember from 1976.

For the record, this is me typing as I set up the roster, so this is more about me typing out my internal checklist as I go than it is letting both of you who are reading this know how "difficult" it is. Just wait for the 80s and 90s!

Now, for the 1977 deals to undo. George Scott goes back to Milwaukee in exchange for Cecil Cooper, since I never made that trade.

Now, for the deal that has to be made due to how I wrote the original narrative. I don't get to take my "trade Carbo for a random average 2B" cop-out this time, it's time to use Mogul's actual trading mechanism to see what I can get for him. My actual choices are Rennie Stennett of the Pirates and Derrel Thomas of the Giants. Stennett had the better 1977 season, so we're going with him.

That covers the preseason moves, all that's left is to set the roster. This brings us to the first instance of significant deviation from my original narrative.

Deviations

It was inevitable that Mogul's drafting/rating/managing structure would lead to some of these at some point, and here we are. There are three deviations here for 3 very distinct reasons.

1 - I originally listed Rice at DH, Cooper at 1B, and Yaz in LF. However, due to Mogul's rating system, Rice is rated as a better LF than Yaz, and Yaz is rated as a better 1B than Cooper, so those positions become Cooper at DH, Yaz at 1B, and Rice in LF. I can chalk that up to "manager's decision" reasonably enough, as any GENERIC MANAGER would presumably go with his on-site knowledge of how the various players were performing at their positions. No problems there, just wanted to note it.

2 - I used baseball-reference's information to inform my choice of Andre Dawson in RF, due to Evans' historical injury. The thing is, that injury hasn't happened yet, so Evans is the starting RF, with Dawson on the bench. That's not a huge thing, that's the kind of variation from straight-up history that I'm interested in playing through anyway.

3 - This one is a bit more of a problem. I drafted Bruce Hurst in 1976, just as the Red Sox did historically. Hurst historically appears in 1983, so I stuck with that. I have also said that I do not intend to overrule the Mogul Manager when it comes to roster placement and rotation decisions. Well, the problem is that it's only 1977, and Mogul seems to think that Bruce Hurst is already my 5th best starter. The historical rotation was Jenkins-Cleveland-Tiant-Wise-Lee, and Mogul wants Tiant-Jenkins-Wise-Cleveland-Hurst. I can't stick with both my projected timeline of Hurst's arrival and my "Prime Directive" for Mogul's roster decisions.

In this case, since we're talking about the 5th starter on one hand, vs a player appearing 6 YEARS ahead of schedule on the other, I'm going to overrule Mogul and leave Hurst in the minors. I will manually move Bill Lee from "Long Relief" to 5th starter, and Bob Stanley takes his historical spot of long reliever. However, when injuries occur, I am going to let Mogul have its way with how it adjusts. Hurst will not be allowed onto the MLB roster when the rest of the starting rotation (and maybe Stanley, I could force Don Aase up there as well) is healthy, but when filling in for injuries, I'm letting Mogul do its own internal thing.

We've now hit the point where the roster setup gets its own, separate thread from the simulation results, so I expect to do the actual 1977 simulation post sometime tomorrow.

[JMDurron]

1977 Simulations

Historically, the 1977 Red Sox went 97-64 (Pyth 94-67), finishing tied for 2nd in the AL East with the Orioles, 2.5 games back of the Yankees.

100 Season Simulation Results

Mogul seems to largely agree with history here, giving the Sox a 99.53-62.51 record. This is significantly behind the Yankees' mark of 109.22-52.82. The Red Sox only win the division 16 times, compared to a dominant 84 for the Yankees. Those 16 playoff trips translate to 7 1st round exits, 4 World Series losses, and 5 World Series wins. Those 5 titles are 5th behind New York (39), Los Angeles (14), Kansas City (13), Cincinnati (12), and Philadelphia (11).

Jim Rice comes in 3rd with 11 MVP wins, looking up at Reggie Jackson (38), and George Brett (34). Fergie Jenkins is 3rd in Cy Youngs, behind Catfish Hunter (37), and Nolan Ryan (18).

Single Season Walkthrough

The 1977 Red Sox team finishes with a record of 98-64, but a Pyth Record of 109-53 indicates what might have been. The Red Sox take 2nd place again, this time 4 games back of the Yankees. The Yankees go on to win the World Series in 7 games over the Dodgers.

Awards:

AL MVP: Jim Rice



The Historical Team Stats

Fisk actually missed more time and was less effective than he was historically. Cooper at DH effectively replaced Scott at 1B, and disappointed. Rennie Steinnett was a huge upgrade over Danny Doyle. Butch Hobson was a gaping chest wound of suck. Burleson was pretty much dead-on with history. Jim Rice was obscenely good, you can see why he won the AL MVP Award. Fred Lynn was healthier and more effective. Dwight Evans was far healthier and more effective at the plate. The problem, as it turns out, was partly Yaz. Yaz did not come within 70 points of OPS of his historical production, and as it turns out, the OF was healthy enough that Andre Dawson's contribution was minimized. A better manager might have put Cooper at 1B, and the least defensively capable OF at DH to get Dawson more playing time, but I don't know if that change would have made up 4 games. On the other hand, that 993 OPS from Dawson in 51 games is certainly a painful tease. He could have played over Yaz or Cooper, easily.

The pitching staff led the AL in runs allowed, so you know things went pretty well. The sad thing is, they could have been even better! Jenkins and Tiant outperformed their historical selves, and Rick Wise kicked his own historical ass and stole his lunch money. Reggie Cleveland was worse than worthless, and this is where I wish I had let Mogul loose with its desired deployment of Bruce Hurst AND John Tudor, but I made my decision, so I have to live with it.

In the bullpen, Bob Stanley was ineffective and largely irrelevant, but the top 4 bullpen arms were still extremely effective. This was a stupendous team that got unlucky.

The team led the AL in ERA, Runs Allowed, AVG, OBP, SLG, and HR, and still ended up with the 3rd best record in the AL.

[JMDurron]

1978 Roster Setup

This is going to be like the Twelve Days of Christmas. Here's my original post on the 1978 Time Machine season.

The draft picks to add are now Ozzie Smith, Andre Dawson, and Rick Sutcliffe.

Thankfully, Dick Drago returned to the Red Sox as a FA before 1978, so there's nothing to undo there. Remy's arrival means I don't worry about getting Stennett again. The Scott-for-Cooper trade gets undone yet again.

For 1978 deals to undo, Fergie Jenkins gets un-traded from the Texas Rangers. Mike Torrez is not signed.

Deviations

One minor, and one pretty major one.

1 - You might recall that I had no idea who got CF between Dawson and Lynn, well, Mogul settles this by giving Dawson a higher rating as a CF than Lynn. So Rice is still DH, Evans is still RF, but Dawson is in CF with Lynn in LF. This is minor, but worth noting

2 - Oh, Mogul. Apparently, Baseball Mogul thinks that Dennis Eckersley was a short reliever in 1978, so his endurance rating is murdered and he's sorted out of the rotation. I could overrule it and put him where he belongs easily enough, but with that endurance rating, he will suck anyway. Thankfully, Baseball Mogul 2011 provides an "Edit Player" function where you can enter the real-world stats and generate a reasonable rating. Doing so puts Eckersley at the top of the rotation, as he was historically. This is obviously a less-than-ideal solution, because Eck's 1978 season might have been more of an outlier than his "true talent level", but the alternative is too much of a departure from his historical usage for me to overlook.

That's all for the roster setup, simulation results to follow.

Edited by JMDurron, 17 January 2011 - 12:30 PM.

[JMDurron]

1978 Simulation Results

Letting Mogul's manager do the work for me is becoming a problem, because Mogul's rather poor drafting system lead to guys like Marty Barrett being available in the team's minor league system before he was ever drafted by the team! So, I had to micro-manage a bit more than I had intended. It's fortunate that I originally specified that Yaz was on the bench, because Mogul wanted to keep benching Dwight Evans to play Yaz!

Historically, the 1978 Red Sox went 99-64, had a Pyth Record of 96-67, and came in 2nd in the AL East due to losing a 1-game playoff with the Yankees.

100 Season Simulation Results

Mogul supports history once again. The Sox average a 104.47-57.57 record, just behind the Yankees' 105.87-56.16 record. The Yankees win the AL East 55 times to Boston's 43 times. Out of those 43 playoff trips, there are 9 first round losses, 11 World Series losses, and 23 World Series wins. The 23 wins are only behind the 34 expected for the Yankees.

Jim Rice wins the MVP 23/100 times, behind only Reggie Jackson's 36. Eck paces the field for the Cy Young, with 26/100 wins. Fergie Jenkins comes in 5th with 12 wins. Jenkins even gets a Perfect Game once out of the deal.

Single Season Walkthrough

There were a couple of unforeseen deviations to note. First is that Mogul decided that Rick Burleson was a better option at SS than Ozzie Smith, so I left that one alone. The other is that, just like Don Zimmer, Mogul got tired of Bill Lee in the rotation and demoted him, calling up Rick Sutcliffe ahead of schedule to take his place. John Tudor ends up being the 5th starter, also ahead of schedule. Since both were already in the organization in my original scenario, I let this slide as not being totally unreasonable.

The 1978 Red Sox team looks as awesome as anyone could have hoped in this simulation. The team finishes with a record of 114-48 (pyth 113-49), winning the AL East by 11 games over a 103-win Yankees team. The Red Sox then stomp the Royals in the ALCS in 5 games, before losing the World Series to the Phillies in 5 games. So close!

Awards:

AL MVP: Jim Rice
Cy Young Award: Fergie Jenkins
P Gold Glove: Fergie Jenkins
ALCS MVP: Ozzie Smith (Burleson was injured for the series, so Mogul finally played Ozzie)



The Historical Team

Fisk was slightly less of an Iron Man, but outhit his historical norms. Cecil Cooper, as expected, destroys George Scott's 1978 numbers. Jerry Remy has a career year. Burleson adds about 80 points of OPS to his original line, making Mogul not look bad for playing him over Ozzie Smith and his low (small sample) OPS. Hobson wasn't any better than he was historically. Fred Lynn underperforms a bit. Evans improves significantly. Andre Dawson, as expected, crushed Bob Bailey's original contribution, and only missed out on the MVP due to Rice. Speaking of Jim Rice, as good as he was historically, he was even better as a full-time DH in this simulation.

In the rotation, Fergie Jenkins crushes what Mike Torrez did. Neither Eckersley nor Tiant match their historical performances. Bill Lee also underperforms, but Rick Sutcliffe comes up early to save the day. Tudor is serviceable in the 5th spot relative to the team's original contribution from Jim Wright.

The bullpen is roughly as effective as they were historically, and pitch far fewer innings due to the awesomeness of Jenkins.

The team led the league in Runs Allowed, AVG, SLG, HR, ERA, and Fielding Percentage. I attribute much of that last one to Hobson staying healthy and Rice DHing to get Dawson into the field. I guess Burleson isn't a slouch defensively, at least in Mogul's estimation.

[JMDurron]

1979 Roster Setup

Two Turtle Doves.

The original roster post

Draft Pick Additions - Sutcliffe, Dawson, Smith, and Sandberg

Trades to undo - Cooper-for-Scott. Fergie Jenkins from Rangers. Bill Lee from Expos for Stan Papi.

Signings to undo - Steve Renko. Mike Torrez.

Player to Modify - Eckersley is, once again, strictly a reliever according to Mogul. That's obviously not true in 1979, so I plug in his real baseball-reference stats to generate a capability level that is comparable to what he actually did.

Deviations

In both the real 1979 Red Sox rotation and my estimation of the new rotation in the original thread, Bob Stanley was a starting pitcher. However, John Tudor makes his first real appearance in 1979, and Mogul wants him starting. Since Stanley was such a jack of all trades in real life, and Tudor really was a starting pitcher in 1979, I'm allowing Mogul to roll with this one.

Due to the vagaries of Mogul's rating generation with each new season, Jim Rice has a higher defensive rating in LF than Fred Lynn does. As a result, Mogul wants to put Lynn at DH, with Rice in the field. I'll let the manager do this one as well.

I originally put Burleson on the bench for Ozzie Smith, but Mogul has the two reversed. Between the results from 1978 and Ozzie's sophomore slump historically, I'm also letting Mogul have its way here.

One non-Mogul deviation is the historical release of Luis Aponte. I'm not releasing him, as he returned to the Red Sox without playing elsewhere in 1979 anyway.

I also just noticed a major oversight from my original GM Time Machine thread posts, which I will have to deal with in the following season.

I am also not releasing Frank Duffy. Injuries are making him a necessity in my single season walkthrough, and he never plays anywhere else, so I'm not taking anything away from the rest of the league here.

EDIT - For more deviations

Edited by JMDurron, 17 January 2011 - 06:02 PM.

[JMDurron]

1979 Simulation Results

Historically, the 1979 Red Sox went 91-69 (Pyth 92-68), and finished 3rd in the AL East, 11.5 games behind the Baltimore Orioles.

100 Season Simulation Results

The Red Sox average a record of 103.70-58.31, best in the AL East ahead of the Yankees' 99.05-62.97 mark. The AL East goes to Boston 56/100 times, leading to 11 1st round losses, 22 World Series losses, and 23 World Series wins. The 23 World Series wins is the best mark, the Phillies are the next closest with 16.

For the individual awards, Jim Rice and Fred Lynn have the 4th and 5th most MVPs, with 9 and 8, respectively. Eckersley and Jenkins go 1-2 in Cy Young Awards, with 32 and 30 each. Eckersley gets a perfect game 1/100 times.

Single Season Walkthrough

The Red Sox finish with a record of 95-67, putting them in 2nd place in the AL East, 2 games behind the Yankees. Once again, the pyth of 101-61 shows what might have been.

Awards:

RF Gold Glove: Dwight Evans



Historical Numbers

Well, we have some upgrades that ended up not really being upgrades here. Cooper falls well short of what Bob Watson contributed at 1B. Ozzie Smith never displaces Burleson, but at least Burleson outperforms his original numbers. The whole "Dawson replaces Yaz, which is basically a wash" thing...fails miserably. Dawson manages to put up an OPS of almost 100 points lower then Yaz originally did, and not even his defense can make up for that. Out of the Triad of Rice, Lynn, and Evans, only Evans matches his historical numbers. Neither Rice nor Lynn are within 100 points of OPS of their previous output. Butch Hobson fails miserably, as I suppose I should expect, given his collegiate pedigree. The only bright spots are at SS, with Burleson overperforming, and C, where Fisk is healthier and more productive.

On the plus side, this must mean that the pitching staff did so well, since the offense disappointed and the team won 95 games anyway. Fergie Jenkins crushes Mike Torrez, as expected, but Eckersley outdoes even himself, and John Tudor ably replaces Bob Stanley as the third starter. Sutcliffe is a disappointment, and Spaceman is basically useless.

In the bullpen, Stanley does what we would expect, soaking up tons of innings at a high level of effectiveness. Bill Campbell is the only real drag on an otherwise excellent bullpen.

In summary, it looks like an inability to string hits and runs together is what sank this team. The squad led the AL in Runs Allowed...and nothing else. Extremely disappointing after what the 100-season simulation seemed to indicate, but oh well. It still is an upgrade over history. Andre Dawson is the biggest disappointment here, but I suppose his 1978 output spoiled me.

[JMDurron]

1980 Roster Setup

Link to original 1980 Post.

Mattingly joins Sutcliffe, Dawson, Smith, and Sandberg among the draft picks acquired.

Cooper is returned. Fergie Jenkins returns. Stan Papi is sent back for Bill Lee again.

Mike Torrez is removed. So is Steve Renko. So is Skip Lockwood. So is Tony Perez.

I get to make Dennis Eckersley a starter. AGAIN. Well, at least his eventual transition to bullpen work should be really easy for Mogul to handle.

On a positive note, some deviations from 1979 no longer matter. Tudor's time has come, so he's supposed to be in the rotation. Ozzie Smith is finally rated above Rick Burleson, so he's starting with Burleson on the bench, as I originally wrote.

There is, however, one thing that I missed in my original GM Time Machine rampage. I drafted Don Mattingly in the 1979 draft, with my only 1st round pick. That original 1st round pick was Marty Barrett. I use Marty Barrett later in the Time Machine thread, I believe forcing Remy into retirement. I will have to remedy this situation going forward by releasing Marty Barrett every year, and not forcing Remy out on schedule. The main impact of this is the lack of a backup to Sandberg from 1984 onward, but I'll deal with that when I get to it.

Thus, I release Marty Barrett.

1980 simulation results will come another day.

EDIT - Forgot to undo the signing of Tony Perez. Oops. Corrected now.

Edited by JMDurron, 18 January 2011 - 12:04 AM.

[JMDurron]

Working on the 1980 Walkthrough, but in the meantime, I must take a moment to be a blatant attention whore. Is anyone still finding this at all interesting? I'm going to do the simulations regardless, but as the posting process becomes a tad more involved each time, as pathetic as it sounds, knowing that this still holds some mild amount of interest to somebody would help out.

[Fratboy]

Yes, please.

[JMDurron]

1980 Simulation Results

Historically, the 1980 Red Sox went 83-77 (pyth 79-81), good for 4th (tied) in the AL East, 19 games behind the Yankees.

100 Season Simulation Results

Once again, the Red Sox fare well in the 100-season sim, averaging 102.90 wins and 59.12 losses, best in the AL East, ahead of the Yankees 97.28-64.75 mark. The Red Sox win the AL East 67 times, lose in the 1st round 13 times, lose in the World Series 12 times, and win the World Series a staggering 42 times. That's quite the dominating postseason team! The next closest winning mark is the Dodgers with 21 titles out of 100 tries.

For individual awards, Andre Dawson and Jim Rice place 2nd and 3rd in MVPs with 16 and 14, respectively, behind Reggie Jackson's 22. For the Cy Young, Eckersley and Jenkins lead the way with 31 and 19. John Tudor comes in 3rd for AL RoY with 8, a far cry from that Kirby Puckett guy with his 67.

Single Season Walkthrough

It's like 1979 all over again. The Red Sox finish with a 95-67 record, well below their pyth W-L of 102-60. On the plus side, even hitting the pyth record would not have helped, as the Yankees win the AL East with a 108-54 mark, thanks to MVP Reggie Jackson and Cy Young Luis Tiant. In hindsight, I really goofed by not bringing El Tiante back in my initial roster post. Of course, that's easy to say with a disappointing walkthrough, it's not like the 100-season simlation points to a flawed roster overall.

Awards:

RF Gold Glove: Dwight Evans



On the plus side, JMOH gets his wish, as even Mogul is disgusted by the rank incompetence of Alabama Alum Butch Hobson, and Wade Boggs is called up ahead of schedule during the first injury re-sorting.

Fisk is just about right on his historical playing time, but hits even better. Cecil Cooper just barely outhits Tony Perez. It's actually unfortunate that Remy wasn't injured, because I'm pretty sure that Mogul would have called up Sandberg. Oh well. Ozzie Smith hits Burleson's historical OPS right on the nose. It's unfortunate that Hobson wasn't injured more than he was, because he failed to match either Glenn Hoffman historically, or Wade Boggs in a surprise callup in the simulation. Dawson actually comes up slightly short of Yaz's DH numbers, but this is more than made up for Lynn basically equalling himself, with Jim Rice and Dwight Evans absolutely going nuts. I thought they were sure candidates for MVP, but Reggie Jackson had even Rice by about 80 points of OPS.

The pitching staff is...well, not good enough. Jenkins and Eckersley are both good, but not excellent. John Tudor flops relative to his historical numbers. Aside from Bob Ojeda's 11 starts, after the top two starters, the rotation is pretty poor. Sutcliffe sucks less than he did historically, but that's a small comfort.

The bright spot is in the bullpen, which I suppose answers the question "how far does a great bullpen take you?" To 95 wins and an early tee time, that's where. Aside from Aponte, that's a great set of pen performances.

The Sox led the league in Runs Scored, AVG, and OBP. The Yankees end up beating the Dodgers to win the World Series.

1981 is to come.

EDIT - Forgot some team stats from 1980 in the single-season walkthrough.

Edited by JMDurron, 19 January 2011 - 07:28 PM.

[BucketOBalls]

Yes, please.

Seconded.

[JMDurron]

Thanks for the encouragement.

I'll keep posting as long as I'm simulating. I would expect the pace of posts to fall off as the complexity grows, just from trying to find time to make them, but that doesn't mean I will have stopped.

[JMDurron]

1981 Roster Setup

Forgot to do the 3rd day in 1980, oh well, song's over. I was looking forward to the later verses, like "thirteen Guidos whining", but we can't have everything.

My Original 1981 Post

Darren Daulton joins Sutcliffe, Dawson, Smith, Sandberg, and Mattingly in the draft picks section.

Cecil Cooper is returned. Fergie Jenkins is returned. Bill Lee is returned.

New deals/non-signings to be undone: Carlton Fisk is retained. I return Jim Dorsey, Joe Rudi, and Frank Tanana to the Angels to get Fred Lynn back.

Mike Torrez is removed. Tony Perez is removed. Marty Barrett is removed. Yaz is forcibly retired.

Eckersley is turned into a starter with his real 1981 stats.

Deviations

Mogul likes Dave Stapleton over Remy at 2B. I'm not really terribly concerned by this.

I never really fleshed out my bench in the original post, so aside from Remy, Gedman, and Rick Miller, I let Mogul have its way. That way includes calling up Ryne Sandberg and Wade Boggs from day 1. Since this is only 1 year short of when they become regulars, I live with this as well. I think it's somewhat reasonable that random performance variation in the minors might influence the call-up times of these guys, and I'm not into the "6 years then gone" phase of this program yet, where MLB service time will become more of an issue. Remy's chances of playing time are...REMOTE.

The pitching staff, on the other hand...oh, Mogul, you and your painful lack of draft data. Based on my original post, the rotation with this roster should be Jenkins, Eckersley, Sutcliffe, Tudor, and Lee in whatever order Mogul desires. Bob Ojeda would also be acceptable. Mogul's pick for the #3 starter? 18-year-old Roger Clemens, who doesn't even get drafted for another 2 years.

Roger Clemens is "retired" just to get him out of Mogul's way for figuring out the pitching staff. Bruce Hurst is now picked over Bill Lee, but since he was on the MLB roster by this time, I can live with that. Lee has been basically dead weight since 1975 in this simulation anyway, although not nearly as horrible as Alabama Alum Butch Hobson was.

1981 Simulation Results to come, hopefully tomorrow evening.

[JMDurron]

The problem with using an actual game to do this is that I'm completely cut off from working on this even during slow work days.

One thought that I have had is that, between Mogul's ability to actually work a trade market, and the well-established variability of performance from player to player and season to season in these simulations, I might actually be able to do the Theo years in Baseball Mogul in a way that I never really could using OPS+/ERA+ and trying to figure out trade options on my own. This is obviously an issue for off into the future, and I'm not sure how I'll feel about it by the time I do this through the 2002 season, but I'm thinking about the possibility.

I would still have to go year-by-year in isolation instead of across years to avoid certain Mogul-injected problems regarding the draft and league-wide finances and player ability progression, but the only thing I would really have to try to figure out from the specific historical data would be the draft/compensation picks.

[JMDurron]

Deviation

Baseball Mogul does not account for Labor Unrest, therefore the 1981 schedule is a full 162 game season in Mogul's mind. You'd think that would have crossed my mind earlier. So, this is a slightly bigger "what if?" than usual.

1981 Simulation Results

Historically, the Red Sox went 59-49 (Pyth 58-50), coming in 5th in the AL East, 2.5 games behind the Brewers.

100 Season Simulation Results

Once again, Mogul loves the Red Sox, who average an awesome 109.71-52.31 record. The next closest competitor is, of course, the Yankees, with a 93.88-68.14 mark. The Red Sox win the AL East 93 times, lose in the 1st round 12 times, lose in the World Series 14 times, and win the World Series...67 times?! The next closest winner is the LA Dodgers, with 14 World Series wins. It seems that Mogul thinks that this 1981 Red Sox roster is the best in baseball by a large margin.

On the individual front, Jim Rice (26), Fred Lynn (13), Andre Dawson (5), and Dwight Evans (3) place 2nd, 3rd, 5th, and 6th respectively on the MVP front. I think Mogul likes this OF. Mogul also likes Dennis Eckersley, who wins the AL Cy Young 45 times, tripling the total of the 2nd most frequent winner...Fergie Jenkins. Rick Sutcliffe comes in 3rd with 10. Ok, I'm starting to see Mogul's optimism.

Single Season Walkthrough

We previously saw Mogul give the 1980 Red Sox a 42% chance of winning the World Series, and yet the single season team missed the playoffs entirely. This time, it goes better. The team finishes with a record of 107-55 (Pyth 116-46), winning the AL East by 8 games over the Yankees. The Royals are swept away in the ALCS, and the Red Sox win the World Series over the San Francisco Giants in 6 games, after starting the series down 2 games to none.

Awards:

Cy Young: Dennis Eckersley
C Gold Glove: Carlton Fisk
CF Gold Glove: Andre Dawson
ALCS MVP: Jim Rice
WS MVP: Jim Rice



The Original 1981 Team Stats

Surprisingly, Fisk falls well short of both his historical and Rich Gedman's historical production, but at least he was healthy. Finally, Cecil Cooper has the kind of awesome year that he was kept for. It appears that letting Mogul play Stapleton over Remy was a mistake, but methinks that Remy would probably not manage an OPS over 800 in a full season of starts. Handily, Stapleton just happened to be the most injured member of the starting 9, which was truly convenient, with Jerry Remy and Ryne Sandberg splitting the injury starts between them. Ozzie Smith was still an upgrade over Glenn Hoffman. Carney Lansford is actually dead on as effective as he was historically, except he did it over even more games. Jim Rice bests his historical numbers by over 100 points of OPS. Fred Lynn does everything that the Red Sox fans of time thought that he might had he stayed in Boston, staying healthy and smashing the ball all over the ballpark. Andre Dawson isn't awesome, but he still trumps Yaz by about 100 points of OPS as well. Dwight Evans manages to outdo himself at the plate in 1981, which is amazing...but still not good enough for the MVP. Reggie Jackson ends up with an edge of 44 points of OPS on Evans.

The end result, though, is an offense that led the league in scoring in 1981 historically with 4.81 runs per game now scoring 5.9 runs per game. The excellent bench contributions from Boggs, Sandberg, Remy, and Rick Miller certainly didn't hurt.

Ultimately, though, it's the difference in the pitching staff that won the day. I think Mogul is just fucking with me with Eckersley - in his awesome years of starting, putting in his predicted stats pumped up his ratings, and he put in disappointing performances, relatively speaking. This season, he gets his mediocre historical season, and goes absolutely nuts. An ERA of 2.58, in Fenway Park, in 1981? Just pure dominance. Jenkins and Tudor are both also above-average and healthy, giving this team 3 starters better than anyone from the original 1981 squad. Rick Sutcliffe is healthy enough to keep worse starters from having to throw innings. Hurst does very well in limited action.

Things also look rosy in the bullpen. Mark Clear, Bob Stanley, and Bill Campbell all outperform their historical numbers. Nobody after them has to pitch enough innings to matter, thanks to the top 4 starters combining for 38 complete games.

In spite of the offensive upgrade, the Red Sox do not end up leading the AL in a single offensive category. They did, however, lead in Runs Allowed, ERA, and fielding percentage.

Well, it wasn't the path I was expecting, but at the moment, Mogul has given this franchise the same number of World Series titles by this point that I had estimated in the Time Machine Thread. This time, they've come in 1974 and 1981, instead of 1977 and 1978. Such is the nature of performance variance.

1982 is next.

EDIT - Forgot postseason awards

Edited by JMDurron, 21 January 2011 - 07:43 AM.

[JMDurron]

1982 Roster Setup

My Original 1982 Post

This brings us immediately to a deviation.

Fred Lynn's excellent 1982 over the never-acquired Rick Miller (left out of the Burleson/Hobson trade, due to Burleson's reduced trade value from his bench time from 78-80)

Whoops. I kinda forgot to remove Rick Miller, because I didn't put the appropriate level of detail into my 1981 post. On the other hand, Burleson did start over Ozzie Smith for longer than I had expected in these simulations, so, in a move that might be overly generous to myself, I'm keeping that Hobson/Burleson trade as-is (as-was?).

Draft Picks to add

David Cone
Tony Gwynn
Darren Daulton
Don Mattingly
Ryne Sandberg
Ozzie Smith
Andre Dawson

Players to Return

Cecil Cooper from Brewers
Fergie Jenkins from Cubs
Fred Lynn from Angels for Jim Dorsey (others are gone by now)
Carlton Fisk from White Sox

Players to Remove

Mike Torrez (FA never signed)
Tony Perez (FA never signed)
Marty Barrett (Never Drafted)
Carl Yastrzemski (Retired)
Roger Clemens (Not Drafted Yet, and already my #1 Starter!)
Steve Lyons (Never Drafted)
John Marzano (Not drafted yet, but I won't be drafting him anyway)
Chuck Rainey (Never Drafted) - I just now noticed this, whoops. He hasn't been a major player to date, so oh well.
Rick Sutcliffe (Retires due to injury as per my 1982 post)

Players to Modify

Dennis Eckersley - Not a closer in 1982, more on him in a minute
Ryne Sandberg - Not a SS, and Mogul won't let me switch him to a 2B without nerfing his defensive ability. So, I get to hand jam his defensive counting stats in.

A Theory on Educated Cheese

I had an epiphany while editing Eck this time. There are no rate stats to enter, it is all counting stats, and Mogul extrapolates ratings for a 162 game season out of those stats. Eckersley's counting stats for 1981 were from a strike-shortened season, and I wonder if Mogul was extrapolating his ER, R, H, BB, etc. allowed out for 162 games. G/GS are also included, as well as IP, so that might not be it, but I wonder if it was really just performance variation, or if the number of games had a major impact on Eck's ratings for 1981. Not that I feel bad about it, because if Mogul rated him properly to begin with, I wouldn't have had to override it, but I just thought the idea was worth noting. That should be fun in 1994, if there's any merit to that thought, and anyone has to be "fixed."

Deviations

Contrary to my original post, Remy is not cut/removed, because without Marty Barrett coming up, somebody needs to back up Sandberg.

Mogul wants to start Remy at 2B over Ryne Sandberg. I think not, Mogul.

So, I have a bit of a rotation problem thanks to my Rainey oversight in the original thread. My projected rotation was Jenkins-Eckersley-Tudor-Ojeda-Rainey-Hurst. Rainey is now out. In a fit of irrational exuberance, Mogul wants Rainey's rotation spot to be taken by David Cone instead of Hurst. Seeing as Cone doesn't show up before 1986, that is unacceptable, and I return him to the minors, calling up Brian Denman (next most starts in 1982 after the current bunch). However, as I did with Hurst previously, I will give Mogul leeway to use/call-up players as it so desires for injury replacements, provided that those players exist in the organization by 1982 in this alternate timeline. I'll just have to force the rotation back to status quo when everyone is healthy.

It's a late work day tomorrow, so hopefully I can simulate/post the results tomorrow night, but my confidence level is not high.

[JMDurron]

1982 Simulation Results

Historically, the 1982 Red Sox went 89-73 (Pyth 85-77), finishing 3rd in the AL East, 6 games behind the Milwaukee Brewers.

100 Season Simulation Results

As we move into the 80s that I expected to dominate in the original thread, I hope and expect to see some pretty good numbers from at least these 100-season samples, which I consider something of an estimation of my roster's True Talent Level. I am not disappointed in this case. The Red Sox average a record of 110.76-51.24, well ahead of the 2nd place Yankees and their 92.63-69.37 mark. The AL East is won 97 times, leading to 5 ALCS losses, 15 World Series losses, and 77 World Series victories. Yet another high water mark.

The top 2 MVP winners are Jim Rice (32), and Fred Lynn (16). The Top 3 Cy Young winners are Dennis Eckersley (42), Fergie Jenkins (34), and John Tudor (9). Bob Ojeda and John Tudor each get 1 perfect game.

Upon noticing the expected AL Rookie of the Year, Mark McGwire, it strikes me that players like Clemens who are put onto the MLB roster before they even should exist are a problem beyond my own roster. Damn you, Mogul, and your complete failure to handle the draft reasonably.

Single Season Walkthrough

So, how will a team with an even greater level of expectations do? Quite well, as it turns out. The Red Sox finish at 116-46 (Pyth 118-44), a mere 23 games ahead of the 2nd place Yankees. The Oakland A's are swept away in the ALCS. The Red Sox finish strong by besting the LA Dodgers in 6 games, putting an exclamation point on the season with a 19-1 slaughter at Fenway Park. The lone Dodgers run was unearned.

Awards:

Cy Young: Dennis Eckersley
CF Gold Glove: Andre Dawson
ALCS MVP: Carlton Fisk
WS MVP: John Tudor



The Real 1982 Team

Carlton Fisk was not especially healthy, but was still a strong contributor. Cecil Cooper is excellent. Ryne Sandberg was actually better than his stat line shows, because he started the season on a tear when both Jim Rice and Fisk were lost for 3+ weeks almost simultaneously. Ozzie Smith blows past Glenn Hoffman once again. Carney Lansford stays healthier, which is actually a mixed blessing, as he hits less than he did historically, while taking more games from Boggs. Jim Rice outdoes himself again, albeit in fewer games. Andre Dawson laps Yaz's numbers easily enough. Dwight Evans was absolutely fucking robbed for the AL MVP, which went to Mark McGwire, who shouldn't even be in the game yet! Fred Lynn is a fair bit more effective than Rick Miller was, plus he played LF during Rice's injury, giving Boggs some time at DH. Boggs doesn't quite match his historical output.

This was the best starting rotation performance so far, and by a stunning margin. Eckersley and Tudor both outperform their historically good years, and throw more IP in the process! Fergie Jenkins pitches out of his mind at age 39. Ojeda and Hurst absolutely smash through their historical numbers, providing a 5-man rotation that was, essentially, perfect. It was also a remarkably healthy group.

Outside of Mark Clear, the bullpen pitches quite well. This was a juggernaut team from top to bottom.

The Red Sox dominate the league stats as well, leading the AL in Runs Scored, Runs Allowed, AVG, OBP, SLG, ERA, and Fielding Percentage. I really wonder how much my seemingly perpetual defensive upgrades are influencing my pitching staff's performance.

This makes for 3 World Series Titles, right on schedule. 1974-1981-1982, compared to expected 1977-1978-1982.

1983 is next.

[JMDurron]

1983 Roster Setup

My Original Post

Draft Picks to Add

Bret Saberhagen
David Cone
Tony Gwynn
Darren Daulton
Don Mattingly
Ryne Sandberg
Ozzie Smith
Andre Dawson

Players to Return

Cecil Cooper from Brewers
Fergie Jenkins from Cubs
Fred Lynn from Angels for Jim Dorsey (others are gone by now)
Carlton Fisk from White Sox
Carney Lansford and Garry Hancock from Oakland A's for Tony Armas and Jeff Newman

Red Sox Players to Remove

Release Marty Barrett (Never Drafted)
Retire Carl Yastrzemski (Retired)
Retire Roger Clemens (Not Drafted Yet, 1984)
Release Steve Lyons (Never Drafted)
Retire John Marzano (Not drafted yet, 1984)
Release Chuck Rainey (Never Drafted)
Retire Rick Sutcliffe (Retires due to injury as per my 1982 post)
Return Doug Bird to Chicago Cubs (Never Had Chuck Rainey to Trade for Him)
Retire Brady Anderson (Not Drafted Yet, 1985)
Release Sam Horn (Never Drafted)
Retire Jody Reed (Not Drafted Yet, 1985)

Players to Modify

Dennis Eckersley. AGAIN. He sucked in 1983 historically, so based on how Mogul has handled Eck's real stats from 1978-1982 so far, I can only assume that he will now have a lower ERA than Bob Gibson.

Players to Leave Alone

Ryne Sandberg. In 1982, Sandberg was rated as a SS by Mogul, so I input his real world stats as a 2B (only as a 2B, I left out his 3B stats) so that I could convert him without turning him into Todd Walker. This seemed justifiable to me because I was using real stats to generate the capability level, and because Sandberg played a grand total of 7 games at SS in his 16-year career.

In 1983, Sandberg is rated as a 3B by Mogul. This leads to fun recommended lineups like Jerry Remy starting at 2B while Wade Boggs rides the pine. The question is whether to put in Sandberg's historical 2B stats again, or leave him as is. Since Sandberg actually was a 3B for the majority of the 1982 season, I don't feel that Mogul is so far off with this assessment that I will need to regenerate Sandberg's overall fielding numbers to put him at 2B, as he is only rated as slightly less effective at 2B than he is at 3B. I will just have to manually override the recommended lineup for the entire season. We'll call this a "Close Relationship Between The Manager and the GM", which I wasn't planning on starting before the Joe Morgan years, but I don't think it is avoidable here.

Sandberg's real 1982 stats resulted in such a huge upgrade in his defensive ratings that I think it might have had an outsized impact on the starting pitching performance, and since the pitchers I have for the 1983 rotation really should underperform relative to their previous seasons (Eck and Jenkins in particular) based on my original post, and knowing that Mogul will most likely smooth out that underperformance, I feel like this is a fair way to counterbalance things towards the negative side of the ledger. One could argue that defensive upgrades like Andre Dawson, Ryne Sandberg, and Ozzie Smith theoretically SHOULD make the starting pitchers more awesome, possibly even to a ridiculous degree once the psychological impact of the great defense behind them begins to snowball, but since it seems like Mogul is already smoothing out some of the negative performances for me (Jenkins is rated way too high at this point in his career, just from a casual glance), I feel like this isn't really a huge thing to leave alone. I would rather bias towards non-intervention in this situation.

Trade Market Moves

In my original post, I had to trade Carney Lansford for a backup IF and a medium-leverage reliever. In this setup, Remy is that backup IF, so I only need to see what I can get by trading him (and Hancock, I guess?) on the relief pitcher market. I don't care about expiring contracts or anything like that, because there is no way in hell that I am screwing around this far back in time with compensation draft picks.

Only two offers for real MLB relievers who actually pitched in 1983 emerge - Tom Hume from the Reds, or Mike Walters and Ron Davis from the Twins. This is not a difficult choice.

I trade Carney Lansford and Gerry Hancock to the Minnesota Twins for Mike Walters and Ron Davis.

The Culling

The Mark McGwire AL MVP problem of 1982 brings a problem that I had not properly considered to the forefront. I probably should have figured this out when I first had to force-retire Roger Clemens, but the Red Sox aren't the only team that is going to have future stars that aren't even drafted yet filling their Mogul Rosters. I'm fine with guys in an organization already being called up early, that would be a perfectly reasonable response to me soaking up more young star players than the Red Sox historically had. I even let Mogul have its way with that when it is injury-shuffling my lineup, or in certain "eh, coin flip" cases, like Remy-vs-Stapleton. I don't think it's appropriate to have MVP-level performances screwing up the balance of power in the league coming from guys who shouldn't be on anybody's roster at any level yet. So, it's time to find the highly rated guys (potential rating, not current overall, these guys could jump up with development and screw things up as the season goes on) who haven't been drafted yet, and retire them too.

The year that I stop culling that particular player is in parenthesis. I will even give those teams the year that the player was drafted, so long as they aren't rated so high as to end up on the Opening Day roster.

Barry Larkin (1985)
Rafael Palmeiro (1985)
Randy Johnson (1985)
Barry Bonds (1985)
Jamie Moyer (1984)
Mark Grace (1985)
Will Clark (1985)
Ken Caminiti (1984)
Jay Buhner (1984)
Jim Leyritz (1985)
Mike Jackson (1984) - Never heard of this guy (PHI reliever), but his peak rating is high enough to concern me if he hits his upside and gets called up.
Mark McGwire (1984)
Bryan Harvey (1984)
Roberto Hernandez (1986)
Rob Dibble (1983) - Drafted in June, Mogul has on OD Roster. Plus I get to shut up Rob Dibble, sort of.
Bill Wilkinson (1983) - Same as Dibble
Joe Magrane (1985)
Mike Stanley (1985)

That's it. So, THIS is why people buy Out Of The Park Baseball over Baseball Mogul. Now I understand. I'm still cheap and have put too much time into Mogul and this thread to go get OOTP, mind you, but I completely understand now.

Weird Thing I Came Across And Had To Fix

Mogul handles the "we can't use real draft data for some reason" issue by placing players either in the draft, or in the farm system of the organization whose control they would be under to begin with, depending on that player's age and what season you start the simulation in. So, let's say a player was signed by Team 1 in Year 1, acquired by Team 2 to start Year 3, and traded back to that Team 1 midseason in Year 5. If you start Mogul in the year that the player turns 18, he will be in the draft pool, unless he was already signed by a team at that age for some reason. If you start in Year 1, Year 2, or from Year 6 onward, the player should be on Team 1. If you start in Year 3-5, the player should be in Team 2's organization. Well, Bobby Bonilla apparently confused Baseball Mogul 2011.

Here are his transactions of relevance.

# July 11, 1981: Signed by the Pittsburgh Pirates as an amateur free agent.
# December 10, 1985: Drafted by the Chicago White Sox from the Pittsburgh Pirates in the 1985 rule 5 draft.
# July 23, 1986: Traded by the Chicago White Sox to the Pittsburgh Pirates for Jose DeLeon.

This is 1983. Mogul has Bobby Bonilla as the starting 3B for the Chicago White Sox. I guess they missed the original signing as an amateur FA, and put Bonilla with the team that he made his MLB debut with (CHW in 1986, traded to PIT midseason). Mogul can rush him if it wants, but it had damn well better rush him to the right team.

Bobby Bonilla back to the Pirates.

Deviations

Mogul wants to call up Tony Gwynn to DH, and put Andre Dawson on the bench. Gwynn does historically appear in 1982, and is still part time in 1983, but benching 1983 Andre Dawson is unacceptable. Gwynn is on the MLB bench, but should get plenty of playing time in the 4th OFer/backup DH role.

Mogul wants to put David Cone in the rotation over Bob Ojeda. Same deal as 1982, basically. Cone is not supposed to appear before 1986, so he starts in the minors, not just in the bullpen as the long man. Oil Can Boyd comes up as the 6th starter. As injuries happen, I'll let "the manager" make the choices, but Cone doesn't belong in the rotation yet, I don't care how much Mogul looks to have been coded by the Prospect Pedophiles to make guys hit their peaks way too early.

1983 Simulation results to follow.

EDIT - Fixed year at the top

Edited by JMDurron, 23 January 2011 - 06:37 PM.

[JMDurron]

1983 Simulation Results

Historically, the 1983 Red Sox went 78-84, finishing 6th in the AL East, 20 games back of the Baltimore Orioles.

100 Season Simulation Results

Looks like another dominant team, but without the same margin for error as the past few seasons. The Red Sox average a record of 103.21-58.84, with the Yankees coming up behind at 96.42-65.62. Mogul really hates the Orioles, apparently, they end up below .500. The Sox win the AL East 72 times, leading to 9 ALCS losses, 16 World Series Losses, and 47 World Series wins. The Phillies have the next most Series wins at 13.

Jim Rice and Ryne Sandberg come in 1st and 5th in the AL MVP race, with 22 and 6, respectively. Fergie Jenkins (22), and Dennis Eckersley (7), are 2nd and 3rd in the Cy Young voting.

Single Season Walkthrough

The Red Sox finish above the 100-season projection, with a record of 106-56 (Pyth 108-54). The only problem is, the Yankees finish at 108-54, so the Red Sox win 106 games and miss the playoffs. Our resident fans of the 1993 Giants are now smirking a little. The Yankees go on to beat the Royals in the ALCS in 6 games, then sweep the Reds out of the World Series.

Awards:

Cy Young: Fergie Jenkins
C Gold Glove: Carlton Fisk



The Real 1983 Red Sox

Carlton Fisk does not meet expectations on offense, but still was pretty healthy and an upgrade overall. The same is true of Cecil Cooper, who is an upgrade while fails to match his historical 1983 output. Ryne Sandberg exceeds expectations. Wade Boggs is actually less awesome and healthy than he was historically, but was still excellent. Ozzie Smith really sucked offensively, failing to even match the output of the immortal Glenn Hoffman. Jim Rice is slightly under his real world numbers, but was still quite good. Andre Dawson tears up the league, making for a huge upgrade over Yaz's final season. Dwight Evans, once again, hits as if he has found some sort of God Mode code for baseball, but fails to garner MVP honors due to Lloyd Moseby, who Evans outproduces by about 35 points of OPS. It's a cruel world for Dewey. Fred Lynn was also excellent, but still loses the DH job to Tony Gwynn as the season goes along.

It seems pretty clear that my problem (well, if a 106-win team can have a problem) was on the pitching staff, not the offense. It looks like not letting Mogul play Cone ahead of schedule was the difference between winning the division and going home. John Tudor and Bruce Hurst actually underperform their historical numbers, but are still serviceable. Fergie Jenkins clearly exceeds all expectations in his Grand Finale. Eckersley sucks, as expected.

Going forward, I think I need to tweak Mogul's "start on short rest" settings. There's no way these guys should have 40+ starts in the early 80s.

In the bullpen, Ron Davis is not nearly as helpful as hoped for, but the rest of the group is actually quite good, even though Bob Stanley does not quite match his great original 1983 season.

In the team stats arena, the Sox lead the AL in Runs Scored, AVG, SLG, HR, SB (Mostly Ozzie Smith), and Fielding Percentage. The Yankees basically lead in every category that the Sox did not, thanks to great years from Ron Guidry and Doyle Alexander. Oh well.

1984 Roster Setup is next.

[JMDurron]

1984 Roster Setup

My Original 1984 Post

This is going to be a real headache, but at least I get to Release The Clemens at long last.

Draft Picks to Add

Bret Saberhagen
David Cone
Tony Gwynn
Darren Daulton
Don Mattingly
Ryne Sandberg
Ozzie Smith
Andre Dawson

Players to Return

Cecil Cooper from Brewers
Fred Lynn from Angels for Jim Dorsey (others are gone by now)
Carlton Fisk from White Sox
John Tudor from Pirates for Mike Easler.

Players to Remove

Return Tony Armas to Oakland A's (Never traded Carney Lansford for him)
Return Jeff Newman to Oakland A's (Same as Armas)
Release Marty Barrett (Never Drafted)
Release Steve Lyons (Never Drafted)
Retire John Marzano (Not drafted yet, 1984)
Retire Rick Sutcliffe (Retires due to injury as per my 1982 post)
Retire Brady Anderson (Not Drafted Yet, 1985)
Release Sam Horn (Never Drafted)
Retire Jody Reed (Not Drafted Yet, 1985)

Players to Modify

None, because I send Eckersley to the bullpen ahead of schedule anyway. At last, Mogul and I are on the same page.

Trade Market Moves

I trade Cecil Cooper, Jim Rice, and Al Nipper to the St Louis Cardinals for Bruce Sutter and George Hendrick. I try to send the trade through without Commissioner Mode on, just to see if Mogul thinks I am offering a fair deal or not. Turns out that it does not think this is fair to the Cardinals. Oh well, I was mostly just curious anyway. I force the deal through. I think Mogul objects because Cooper is rated lower, and Hendrick higher, than they really should be in 1984. Nipper is also rated as a completely worthless prospect.

The Culling

Barry Larkin (1985)
Rafael Palmeiro (1985)
Randy Johnson (1985)
Barry Bonds (1985)
Mark Grace (1985)
Will Clark (1985)
Jim Leyritz (1985)
Mark McGwire (1984) - on Opening Day roster.
Bryan Harvey (1984) - on Opening Day roster
Roberto Hernandez (1986)
Joe Magrane (1985)
Mike Stanley (1985)
Todd Zeile (1986)
Craig Biggio (1987)
Greg Vaughn (1986)
Paul Sorrento (1986)
Buddy Groom (1987)
Larry Carter (1986) - No idea who this is, but he is rated as having some upside. Playing it safe.
Alex Cole (1985)
Erik Hanson (1986)
Matt Williams (1986)
Ken Hill (1985)
Orlando Hernandez (1998) - You cannot be serious, Mogul!
Xavier Hernandez (1986)
Mike Magnante (1988)
Steve Finley (1987)
Greg Swindell (1986)
Kevin Brown (1986)
Keith Lockhart (1986)
Darryl Hamilton (1986)
BJ Surhoff (1985)
Chris Hoiles (1986)
Steve Reed (1988)
Dan Gakeler (1984) - on OD roster
Jim Hunter (1985)
Greg Hibbard (1986)
Dante Bichette (1984) - on OD roster
Mike Devereaux (1985)

Yeah, if you want to do anything with MLB history where it matters when and where players enter the league, avoid Baseball Mogul. Lesson Learned. At least it's excel-friendly, which speeds the process along a little bit.

Returned Bobby Bonilla to the Pirates (1986).

Deviations

Mogul wants to put George Hendrick at DH, and put Dwight Evans on the bench. I think not.

Mogul has Tony Gwynn rated as a better defensive RF than Dwight Evans. I'm not quite ready to accept that, so Gwynn goes to DH, Evans to RF. Lynn and Dawson are swapped compared to my original expectations, but I'm fine with that, I was mostly guessing in my original posts on that one anyway.

I hope David Cone doesn't have a pet rabbit. Mogul wants to put him in the rotation over Bret Saberhagen. Cone gets sent to the minors, Saberhagen joins the rotation, Oil Can Boyd is the 6th starter.

Between Sutter and Eckersley, Steve Crawford gets forced out of the bullpen and into the minors. This is not a big deal.

1984 Simulation Results to come.

[JMDurron]

1984 Simulation Results

Historically, the 1984 Red Sox went 86-76 (Pyth 85-77), finishing 4th in the AL East, 18 games behind the Detroit Tigers.

100 Season Simulation Results

I expected dominance, and so it came to be. The Red Sox dominate all of baseball with an average record of 114.38-47.62, well ahead of the 2nd place Yankees with a 91.39-70.61 mark. This translates to the Red Sox winning the AL East 99/100 times. Out of 99 postseason appearances, 5 end in an ALCS loss, 2 end in a World Series defeat, and 92 end with a World Series Title. It's nice to see Mogul agree with me so far.

For the AL MVP, Tony Gwynn (16), Andre Dawson (13), and Don Mattingly (11) go 1-2-3. Roger Clemens absolutely dominates the Cy Young Award voting, winning 73 times. Bruce Hurst (8) and Bob Ojeda (7) come in 2nd and 3rd. Clemens also leads the pack in the Rookie of the Year voting, with 46 wins. Tony Gwynn hits over .400 4 times.

Single Season Walkthrough

I love it when a plan comes together. The final record and pyth record match perfectly at 113-49, and the Red Sox end by winning the AL East by 17 games over Detroit. The Oakland A's are defeated in the ALCS in 6 games, and the New York Mets fall in the World Series in 5 games.

Awards:

Cy Young: Roger Clemens
OF Gold Glove: Andre Dawson - I keep forgetting that there are 3 OF gold gloves, not 1 for each position
ALCS MVP: Ryne Sandberg
World Series MVP: Andre Dawson



The Original 1984 Red Sox

Carlton Fisk doesn't quite hit his 1984 mark, but was still quite durable and effective. Don Mattingly is a bit of a disappointment, falling about 130 points of OPS short of his historical performance, but he's still an upgrade over Bill Buckner. Ryne Sandberg also falls short of his personal history, but is also an upgrade over the incumbent, Marty Barrett. Wade Boggs also falls somewhat short of himself. Ozzie Smith, at last, is a regular who has a better 1984 season than expected, blowing away Jackie Gutierrez comfortably. Fred Lynn absolutely destroys Jim Rice's 1984 numbers, even though he misses some games. Andre Dawson has a huge year, far above his historical 1984 season, and outhits Tony Armas while playing GG defense in CF. Dwight Evans actually struggled significantly in RF defensively, leading me to let Mogul try Gwynn in his place. Evans falls well short of his 1984 production, but is still very good. Tony Gwynn falls short of Mike Easler's amazing 1984 campaign, but outproduces his real world mark.

On the bench, George Hendrick merits a shoutout, setting career marks in his rate stats in limited playing time. He even gets some time in LF when both Lynn and Gwynn are injured simultaneously.

As expected from his Mogul ratings, Roger Clemens goes nuts. John Tudor and Bob Ojeda fall a bit short of their real 1984 seasons, but neither pitch poorly. Bruce Hurst is a slight upgrade on himself. Due to various injuries, Cone and Saberhagen end up with roughly equivalent IP numbers, and both were quite good.

In the bullpen, Sutter, Eckersley, Stanley, and Clear are everything I could have hoped for. Oil Can Boyd does a solid job as the 6th starter/long man.

The Red Sox end up leading the AL in Runs Scored, Runs Allowed, AVG, OBP, SLG, ERA, and Fielding Percentage. The next best team in MLB was the Detroit Tigers, looking up from 17 games behind. This team was the juggernaut that I thought it should be.

EDIT - Forgot to add, this keeps me on schedule with the World Series titles. The original thread had 1977-1978-1982-1984, and now I've had 1974-1981-1982-1984.

1985 Roster Setup is Next.

Edited by JMDurron, 23 January 2011 - 06:36 PM.

[Sinistas]

Just to clarify: are you going in, year-to-year, and making the changes? An actual ongoing Mogul GM thing would be cool to see.

[JMDurron]

Just to clarify: are you going in, year-to-year, and making the changes? An actual ongoing Mogul GM thing would be cool to see.

I am starting a new game every year and making the changes. There are several reasons for this, most are my way of getting around certain Mogul-introduced problems.

1) Players enter the draft at age 18, no matter when they were actually drafted historically. This does really nasty things to any kind of successful Mogul GM simulation bearing any resemblance to history whatsoever. Mark McGwire simply should not win the AL MVP before he ever entered the league.

2) Players in their post-draft (Mogul defined, not history defined) entry year are placed in the organization in which they made their MLB debut, not necessarily in the orgs that they actually belonged to in that given year. See Bobby Bonilla above.

Those are points that I've already addressed somewhat in posts above. The larger problems in a multi-year attempt are things I have noticed from playing a few tries of my own, from the present day onward, and from reading some Mogul message board threads.

3) Mogul has a strong tendency to progress players to their peak years way too early. See David Cone above. This would be a minor problem, not a major one, except...

3a) As new players hit their peak ratings, there is a setting that effectively caps the number of players that can be at a certain overall or potential ability level. This means that, for instance, when David Cone gets turned into a 89-96 OVR pitcher way too early, a veteran star like Nolan Ryan gets downgraded to being a journeyman in the mid-80s instead of in the early 90s. If you try to tweak that rating to allow for more highly-rated players, the young guys still get good too soon, and the veterans hold serve, but the overall league talent level bears no resemblance to historical reality. This problem tends to assert itself from one season going into the next, so doing this one single season at a time avoids some of this, even though guys like Cone still get too good too soon.

EDIT - If one starts a franchise as the 2010 Red Sox, this phenomenon does really, really bad things to Beckett and Lackey most of the time. That's 30M of crap right off the bat. At the same time, A-Rod pretty much always has an OPS around 500 for the last 4 years of his contract, which is awesome to watch...even if that little voice in the back of my head goes "yeah, this probably isn't realistic."

4) Even on the highest difficulty setting, opposing teams do not handle their finances very well. This leads to good players on teams with budgetary problems hitting free agency way too often, and teams signing individual stars to ridiculous contracts that end up murdering them when problem #3a kicks in. The CPU franchises keep ending up with $30M in contracts in AAA, leading their next batch of young stars to hit FA instead of signing extensions.

5) Contract start/end dates appear to be fairly random when you start in a historical season, say before Cot's has available data. This leads to players changing teams at completely unrealistic times for arbitrary reasons.

6) Player prospect success is very closely tied into how much money one puts into the farm system. Given problem #4, this leaves the CPU teams in a death spiral, as they end up stuck with too much money tied up into bad contracts to prematurely aging veterans to properly invest in their farm systems. This seems to lead to the 3-4 teams that have the most well-funded farm systems having more of their young stars hit their peaks, thereby tying up the talent level cap so that the other franchises can't reach it with as many players. By 2013-2014 in each of my 2010 Red Sox attempts, there are basically 3 or 4 98+ win teams that stay there for 3 years at a time, and everybody else sucks or is mediocre. I don't like the implications of this pattern for a historical simulation, because I'm not going to try NOT to develop my prospects just because the other AI teams suck at developing theirs, but that means I'm basically playing in "Madden on Rookie Mode" 5-6 years in, and that gets boring.

Mogul's a really fun game, and I do recommend it. I'm just not sure that it is very well-suited to the kind of multi-year, detailed historical/fantasy simulation because of these specific issues. I focused so much on the draft in my original Time Machine thread, and Mogul basically makes that entire idea a moot point, which leaves me going year-to-year to try to assemble the correct roster. Even if that wasn't the case, the financial system forces me into year-to-year mode to avoid having franchises that should be good (even as I rape and pillage the league via the draft) winding up in those death spirals due to the AI/financial model.

Edited by JMDurron, 23 January 2011 - 04:58 PM.

[JMDurron]

For the record, my actual plan was to use Mogul to simulate my Time Machine Rosters, then pick up with Sean Berry's 1974 GM project that would be part-narrative, part community input (depending on the response). As I keep going, I think that this would still be cool to see, as Sinistas says, but that Mogul probably isn't the tool to use in order to do it. Unfortunately, that means either dropping the idea, or putting the time and $ into buying and learning the intricacies of a far more accurate, customizable, but therefore more complicated game like Out Of The Park Baseball.

[Sinistas]

I getcha, I've been buying mogul for a few years now, great game. I like it a lot more than OOTP.

[JMDurron]

1985 Roster Setup

My 1985 Post from the Time Machine

Draft Picks to Add

Greg Maddux
Bret Saberhagen
David Cone
Tony Gwynn
Darren Daulton
Don Mattingly
Ryne Sandberg
Ozzie Smith
Andre Dawson

Players to Return

Cecil Cooper from Brewers
Fred Lynn from Orioles
Carlton Fisk from White Sox
John Tudor from Cardinals
Dennis Eckersley and Mike Brumley from Cubs for Bill Buckner
George Hendrick from Pirates

Players to Remove

Jim Dorsey to Angels (no Lynn Trade)
Mike Easler to Pirates (no Tudor trade)
Return Tony Armas to Oakland A's (Never traded Carney Lansford for him)
Release Marty Barrett (Never Drafted)
Release Steve Lyons (Never Drafted)
Release John Marzano (Never Drafted)
Retire Rick Sutcliffe (Retires due to injury as per my 1982 post)
Release Sam Horn (Never Drafted)
Cecil Cooper, Jim Rice, and Al Nipper to Cardinals (Sutter/Hendrick trade)

Players to Modify

None

Trade Market Moves

None

Culling

Randy Johnson (1985) - on Opening Day roster
Barry Bonds (1985) - on OD roster
Will Clark (1985) - on OD roster
Roberto Hernandez (1986)
Mike Stanley (1985)
Todd Zeile (1986)
Craig Biggio (1987)
Greg Vaughn (1986)
Paul Sorrento (1986)
Buddy Groom (1987)
Larry Carter (1986) - No idea who this is, but he is rated as having some upside. Playing it safe.
Erik Hanson (1986)
Matt Williams (1986)
Orlando Hernandez (1998) - You cannot be serious, Mogul!
Xavier Hernandez (1986)
Mike Magnante (1988)
Steve Finley (1987)
Greg Swindell (1986)
Kevin Brown (1986)
Keith Lockhart (1986)
Darryl Hamilton (1986)
Chris Hoiles (1986)
Steve Reed (1988)
Greg Hibbard (1986)
Moises Alou (1986)
Tim Wakefield (1988)
Curt Schilling (1986)
Mickey Morandini (1988)
Ron Coomer (1987)
David Justice (1985) - Not putting him in my farm system yet for no reason
Jeff Shaw (1986)
David Segui (1987)
Woody Williams (1988)
Stan Belinda (1986)
Albert Belle (1987)
Greg McMichael (1988)
Pete Harnisch (1987)
Steve Foster (1988)
Gregg Olson (1988)
Randy Tomlin (1988)
Pat Combs (1988)
Mike Timlin (1987)
Mike Bordick (1986)
Mike Remlinger (1987)
Jack McDowell (1987)
Mike Butcher (1986)
Steve Olin (1987)

Returned Bobby Bonilla to Pirates (1986)

Deviations

Mogul McNamara seems to prefer Reid Nichols starting in CF over Andre Dawson, who is benched. This appears to be based entirely on a small difference in fielding rating. Mogul McNamara gets my best "we're going to have problems, aren't we?" look as I overrule him.

Mogul McNamara prefers Evans in RF, Dawson in CF, Gwynn in LF, and Lynn at DH over my original posted configuration of Evans-Lynn-Dawson-Gwynn at those same positions. Mogul McNamara gets his way here, because I was mostly guessing on that anyway.

Mogul, at long last, does not bump one of my 5 primary starters from the rotation for David Cone! It bumps one of them for Greg Maddux instead. While I may look forward to letting Mogul McNamara have his way during injury re-shuffling, Bob Ojeda is not starting the season as a long reliever. Maddux goes down to make room for Bruce Kison as the long man/6th starter. I will not admit to rooting for non-Clemens/Saberhagen injuries to let Mogul put Maddux into the fire.

Mogul McNamara, for all his faults, gets along well with Eck, who happily takes on the setup role. Huzzah!

1985 Simulation Results are next.

[JMDurron]

I getcha, I've been buying mogul for a few years now, great game. I like it a lot more than OOTP.

Yeah, it is a great game. It's a great, affordable, fun game that isn't either dumbed down or too complicated, but that has some very specific issues that just happen to cause problems for what I want to do in this circumstance. I don't want to come off as a hater, just as someone who is trying to fight his way around a few "features" that aren't helping. If this game ever gets real draft data (I know a project was underway late last year, not sure what came of it), it will be awesome.

[JMDurron]

1985 Simulation Results

Historically, the 1985 Red Sox went 81-81 (pyth 89-73), finishing 5th in the AL East, 18.5 games behind the Blue Jays.

100 Season Simulation Results

This was another expected World Series year, and Mogul seems to agree. The projected record is 113.03-48.98, with Toronto following in 2nd at 94.15-67.86. It's about time somebody besides NY came in 2nd in this simulation. The Red Sox win the AL East every single time. This leads to 2 ALCS losses, 13 World Series losses, and 85 World Series wins. It's not quite 1984, but it's close.

For the individual awards, Don Mattingly leads the field with 40. Tony Gwynn (14), and Fred Lynn (6) are 2nd and 4th. I think Mogul is auto-shuffling on its own during this sim. For the Cy Young, the Red Sox have the Top 4 winners. Roger Clemens blows away the rest of the field with 76, followed by Greg Maddux at 10 (has to be shuffling, I demoted him before simming), Bret Saberhagen with 6, and Bruce Hurst with 2. I think that bodes well for the pitching staff! Greg Maddux wins Rookie of the Year 6 times. Tony Gwynn hits .400 5 times.

Single Season Walkthrough

Pythagoras is kind again, as the Red Sox match the pyth and actual records at 115-47, 22 games ahead of the 2nd place Yankees. In spite of losing Bruce Hurst, John Tudor, and Dennis Eckersley for various parts of the postseason (Tudor missed all but 1 game, which he did not appear in), the Sox defeat the White Sox in 5 to claim the NL Pennant. As it turns out, the 1985 World Series really is a showdown with the NY Mets after all. The Red Sox win the World Series in 6 games, clinching at Shea Stadium behind the pitching of Roger Clemens. Don Mattingly is his own defensive replacement.

Awards:

MVP: Don Mattingly
Cy Young: Roger Clemens
C Gold Glove: Carlton Fisk
ALCS MVP: Ryne Sandberg
WS MVP: Bret Saberhagen



The Real 1985 Stats

Carlton Fisk really ate his Wheaties this year, even with missing some games to minor injuries. 1984 Don Mattingly shows up a year later, and dominates the league. Ryne Sandberg does not seem to be taking to Fenway Park quite as I had hoped, but at least he loves the ALCS. Ozzie Smith is pretty much equal to himself historically, which is a huge upgrade over the real 1985 Red Sox. Wade Boggs was good, but not as great as he originally was. Dwight Evans was a bit of a disappointment, to the point that Mogul McNamara benches him for a glimpse of the future during injury shuffles, in the person of Ellis Burks, who was great in limited action. Andre Dawson is over 60 points of OPS better than his historical self, which still would have been an upgrade over Steve Lyons. Tony Gwynn was fantastic, easily surpassing what would have been expected from Jim Rice. Fred Lynn was a bit better than he was historically, and was a good upgrade from Mike Easler.

On the bench, there are two things of note. Mogul avoided George Hendrick like the plague this season, in spite of solid production out of him. He was classified as an OF in 1985, as opposed to a 1B/OF from 1984, so I think that was why he was passed over by Dave Stapleton when Mattingly went down for a week or two. The other note is the glimpse of a positive future, as Ellis Burks and Jody Reed both performed well in limited time as injury replacements.

Roger Clemens was far superior to his real 1985 performance, as there were no injury issues. Bruce Hurst also blew past his real self, but the rest of the rotation had periodic injury problems. Bob Ojeda was roughly equivalent to his real world self. Saberhagen was not nearly as dominant as expected, and missed time to injury. John Tudor was also very disappointing, making both of the expected dominant starters from 1985 problem areas. It's fortunate that they were slightly injured in addition to underperforming, as that allowed Greg Maddux to make an early, and excellent, appearance. Due to postseason injuries to Ojeda and Tudor, Maddux ended up pitching in 3 postseason games, posting a 1.09 ERA over 24.2 IP. Timing is everything!

The Top 4 in the bullpen were all positive contributors, which is all that you can ask. A pleasant surprise was found in Tom Bolton, who pitched effectively in limited action due to other relievers being injured.

The Red Sox led the AL in Runs Scored, Runs Allowed, AVG, OBP, SLG, ERA, K/9, and Fielding Percentage. Plus, there's finally that elusive MVP award.

Still on track with the World Series count, 1977-1978-1982-1984-1985 in the original run, compared to 1974-1981-1982-1984-1985 in the actual simulations. 4 in 5 years is nothing to sneeze at.

1986 Roster Setup is next on tap. There's no telling when that will be, as the Culling means that I need a large time window to get the setup finished.

[JMDurron]

1986 Roster Setup

My Original 1986 Post

Draft Picks to Add

David Justice
Greg Maddux
Bret Saberhagen
David Cone
Tony Gwynn
Darren Daulton
Don Mattingly
Ryne Sandberg
Ozzie Smith
Andre Dawson

Players to Bring Back

Fred Lynn from Orioles
Carlton Fisk from White Sox
John Tudor from Cardinals
Dennis Eckersley and Mike Brumley from Cubs for Bill Buckner
George Hendrick from Angels
Bob Ojeda and John Mitchell from Mets for Wes Gardner, Calvin Schiraldi, and LaSchelle Tarver
Mark Clear from Brewers for Ed Romero

Players to Remove

Don Baylor to Yankees (no Easler trade)
Mike Easler to Pirates (no Tudor trade)
Return Tony Armas to Oakland A's (Never traded Carney Lansford for him)
Release Marty Barrett (Never Drafted)
Release Steve Lyons (Never Drafted)
Release John Marzano (Never Drafted)
Retire Rick Sutcliffe (Retires due to injury as per my 1982 post)
Release Sam Horn (Never Drafted)
Jim Rice and Al Nipper to Cardinals (Sutter/Hendrick trade)
Mo Vaughn (Not Drafted Yet - 1989)
John Valentin (Not Drafted Yet - 1988)
Tim Naehring (Not Drafted Yet - 1988)
*Placeholder for Oil Can Boyd Going Forward*

It looks like Rich Gedman has this year left before becoming a FA, so he's around for at least this season.

Players to Modify

None

Trade Market Moves

I trade Oil Can Boyd to the Minnesota Twins in exchange for Rory Lee Jackson.

Culling

Craig Biggio (1987)
Buddy Groom (1987)
Orlando Hernandez (1998
Mike Magnante (1988)
Steve Finley (1987)
Kevin Brown (1986) - on OD roster
Steve Reed (1988)
Tim Wakefield (1988)
Curt Schilling (1986) - on OD roster...the wrong OD roster, no less.
Mickey Morandini (1988)
Ron Coomer (1987)
David Segui (1987)
Woody Williams (1988)
Albert Belle (1987)
Greg McMichael (1988)
Pete Harnisch (1987)
Steve Foster (1988)
Gregg Olson (1988)
Randy Tomlin (1988)
Pat Combs (1988)
Mike Timlin (1987)
Mike Remlinger (1987)
Jack McDowell (1987)
Steve Olin (1987)
Tino Martinez (1988)
Luis Gonzalez (1988)
Kenny Lofton (1988)
Vinny Castilla (1990) - Purchased from Mexican League
Robin Ventura (1988)
Tom Gordon (1986) - on OD Roster
Marquis Grissom (1988)
Eric Young (1989)
Ray Lankford (1987)
Mike Stanton (1987)
Kevin Appier (1987)
Andy Benes (1988)
Ben McDonald (1989)
Reggie Sanders (1987)
Dave Hollins (1987)
Chris Nabholz (1988)
Hal Morris (1986) - on OD Roster

Deviations

Mogul wants Gedman over Daulton as the backup C. Since I explicitly state that Daulton is the backup, Gedman gets demoted. Mogul gets the usual leeway during roster reshuffling for injuries.

Mogul wants the usual OF/DH shuffling. Evans instead of Dawson in LF. Lynn in CF for once! Gwynn instead of Evans in RF. Dawson instead of Gwynn at DH. I'm not overly concerned, the defensive ratings determine enough of that for me to let Mogul decide.

Without Marty Barrett, Dave Stapleton and Glenn Hoffman are my IF backups. Yay. Here's hoping that Jody Reed progresses quickly and impresses MacNaMogul.

Here's one hell of a deviation. I've never seen Mogul do this before. When I sort the pitching staff just to get guys initially setup, Mogul changes the team's pitching rotation to a 4-man rotation. As it turns out, Clemens, Saberhagen, Hurst, and Tudor all have such high Endurance ratings that Mogul actually told me "Since your Top 4 starters have high endurance ratings, your 5th starter will pitch very few innings." It's 1986, not 1966, that's kind of awesome! I force a 5-man rotation and put Ojeda in the 5-hole. Injuries are going to be what decides this anyway.

Of course, once I go to the 5-man rotation, Mogul says "use Greg Maddux!" Ojeda goes over Maddux.

Going to post this and work on the Culling as I can via Editing. More to come.

EDIT1 - Still more culling to do. Never Forget Mark McGwire's Premature MVP! Such travesties must be prevented.

EDIT2 - Deviations Complete.

1986 Simulation Results to come.

Edited by JMDurron, 24 January 2011 - 10:45 PM.

[JMDurron]

1986 Simulation Results

Historically, the 1986 Red Sox went 95-66 (Pyth 90-71), finishing 1st in the AL East by 5.5 games over the Yankees. The Sox then won an epic, 7-game ALCS against the Angels before losing an epic, 7-game World Series against the Mets.

100 Season Simulation Results

As expected, Mogul loves this team once again. 116.33-45.67 is the average record, besting the 95.38-66.62 mark of the 2nd place Blue Jays. The Red Sox win the AL East 99/100 times, lose in the ALCS 3 times, lose in the World Series 4 times, and win the World Series 92 times. The next most frequent World Series winner is, not surprisingly, the NY Mets, at 4 times.

Don Mattingly leads the AL MVP frequency with 25 wins. Roger Clemens (13), Ryne Sandberg (9), and Andre Dawson (6) place 2nd, 4th, and 5th. As one might expect from the MVP vote, Clemens dominates the Cy Young, winning 81 times. Saberhagen (10), Greg Maddux (3), and Bruce Hurst (2) come in 2nd, 3rd, and 5th. Greg Maddux comes in 5th in the RoY voting with 6 wins. Tony Gwynn has 1 .400 season. There are 3 perfect games across 100 seasons, and all 3 are noteworthy. 1 is for Roger Clemens. 1 is for Bret Saberhagen. That concludes the Time Machine Red Sox portion of Perfection, but the 3rd pitcher just can't be left unmentioned...Matt Young. I guess he probably won that day, at least.

Single Season Walkthrough

This season went in a completely unexpected direction, twice! I feel like it deserves a touch of narrative.

The season starts off badly, then gets worse. By the end of May, the team is below .500 and in 5th place. 5th place! The culprit was the pitching staff. John Tudor's ERA reached 8 by June. Tudor, Hurst, and Ojeda all missed time due to injury, usually two at a time, preventing Greg Maddux from soaking up all of their innings. Clemens and Saberhagen were both good, but not great for most of the season. The offense was good, and better than the historical 1986 squad's, but it wasn't as great as it should have been.

At the start of August, the Red Sox manage to climb back into 2nd place...7 games behind the Detroit Tigers.

The Red Sox finish the season at 94-68, a far cry from the Pyth record of 102-60, and even further from the so-called true talent level of the 100 season simulation. The Tigers finish at 93-69, the Red Sox win the AL East by 1 game. The pyth looks good, but much of that was due to Maddux pitching in for the injured pitchers who were inferior to him, but naturally, all of Tudor, Ojeda, and Hurst are healthy for the postseason, so he gets bounced off the playoff roster. The Red Sox sweep the Royals out of the ALCS, to meet the Mets in the 1986 World Series. The Red Sox are victorious in 5 games.

So, I got shocked twice. Once with how crappy the pitching staff was, then at the end of the year by how the team came roaring back (Clemens, Saberhagen, and Maddux were key to this), into and through the playoffs.

Awards:

Cy Young: Roger Clemens
OF Gold Glove: Tony Gwynn
ALCS MVP: Wade Boggs
World Series MVP: Ryne Sandberg



The Real 1986 Red Sox

Carlton Fisk defies history and outproduces Gedman, even though he missed a couple more games. Don Mattingly is not even close to his historical norm, but is still better than Bill Buckner. Ryne Sandberg outdoes himself by a healthy margin. Ozzie Smith is slighly under his historical production level, but is still a slight upgrade at the plate, and is certainly one in the field. Wade Boggs just refuses to meet his historical level of awesomeness, once again. Dwight Evans falls slightly short of his previous output. Fred Lynn is not awesome, but is still pretty good, and a significant upgrade over Tony Armas. Tony Gwynn mostly makes up for the lack of 1986 Jim Rice, and wins a Gold Glove with his play in RF in the process. Andre Dawson falls short of both himself, and Don Baylor as the DH.

Ellis Burks was Mogul's go-to guy during any injury shuffling. He was good, but not good enough to be a real upgrade over any of the OFers. Daulton gets shunned. Gedman does poorly in the backup role, and The Gator awakens.

In the rotation, Roger Clemens wins the Cy Young in spite of underperforming compared to his historical self. He tied for the AL lead in ERA, so it seems like offense as a whole was up in this simulation. Saberhagen stays healthy and actually leads the team in starts, which was the difference between the playoffs and the golf course in October. Bruce Hurst was injured and mediocre at best. Bob Ojeda was injured off and on and well below his historical output. John Tudor flat out sucked. Ojeda and Hurst being injured enough to give Greg Maddux a significant number of starts was, aside from Saberhagen's health, the key to the season. Maddux's 15-2 mark in 18 starts was absolutely what was needed. David Cone got the "two guys are injured" starts, but wasn't particularly helpful.

The bullpen was particularly good, but was still no worse than the real team's historical pen. There was no Schiraldi-level excellent performance, but none of the main guys sucked like Tim Lollar did historically.

The Red Sox led the league in Runs Scored, Runs Allowed, AVG, OBP, K/9, and fielding percentage.

1974-1981-1982-1984-1985-1986. That's now 5 in 6 years, and I'm one title ahead of schedule!

1987 Roster Setup is Next.

[JMDurron]

1987 Roster Setup

My Original 1987 Post

Once again, this may get posted and then edited again later. Or I might just do the culling in its own post, we shall see.

Draft Picks to Add

Tom Gordon
David Justice
Greg Maddux
Bret Saberhagen
David Cone
Tony Gwynn
Darren Daulton
Don Mattingly
Ryne Sandberg
Ozzie Smith
Andre Dawson

Players to Bring Back

Carlton Fisk from White Sox
John Tudor from Cardinals
Mike Brumley from Cubs for Bill Buckner
Dennis Eckersley from A's
John Mitchell from Mets for Wes Gardner and Calvin Schiraldi
Mark Clear from Brewers for Ed Romero
Rey Quinones, Mike Brown, Mike Trujillo, and John Christensen from Mariners for Spike Owen and Dave Henderson

Players to Remove

George Hendrick (Retires)
Don Baylor to Yankees (no Easler trade)
Release Marty Barrett (Never Drafted)
Release John Marzano (Never Drafted)
Retire Rick Sutcliffe (Retires due to injury as per my 1982 post)
Release Sam Horn (Never Drafted)
Jim Rice and Al Nipper to Cardinals (Sutter/Hendrick trade)
Retire Mo Vaughn (Not Drafted Yet - 1989)
Retire John Valentin (Not Drafted Yet - 1988)
Retire Tim Naehring (Not Drafted Yet - 1988)
Retire Oil Can Boyd (Dead)
Release Rich Gedman (Would not re-sign with Fisk and Daulton ahead of him on the C Depth Chart)

Players to Modify

None?

Trade Market Moves

None, Ojeda is already on the Mets, so I don't actually have to do anything here.

Managerial Change

McNamara is out, Joe Morgan is in. With Joe Morgan comes my increased influence over the roster and the manager's thinking, so I will actually be using my own judgment far more often about roster moves due to injuries, performance, etc. If a guy is underperforming, I reserve the right to bench/demote him if there is a solid replacement on the roster, provided that said replacement actually played in 1987. I will also be overriding some of the David Cone-style early callups, as I will be exerting more of my own influence to keep the roster accurate within the timeline at the same time that I pay closer attention to performance.

Deviations

Mogul wants Mike Greenwell in LF over Andre Dawson, with Burks in CF and Gwynn in RF. I overrule this, but I'll keep an eye on Dawson's performance and make the switch later in the season if necessary.

Mogul starts Daulton over Fisk at C. That's not happening.

I have 6 starters to choose from. Mogul decides that the 6th starter out of my options is...Bret Saberhagen. I think not.

Mogul also wants a 4-man rotation due to excessive starter awesomeness. I switch to a 5-man rotation. Either way, I finally get to let Greg Maddux off the leash!

Forgot another one - Mogul wants to start Tom Gordon in the bullpen. Gordon does not first appear until 1988, so he is demoted for Steve Crawford, at least at first. I won't let Gordon come up, but Crawford might get bumped for Tom Bolton or someone else as the season goes along. We shall see.

The Culling is still to come.

EDIT - Added Deviation

Edited by JMDurron, 26 January 2011 - 06:56 PM.

[JMDurron]

1987 Culling



No idea why I didn't think to use that before now.

Orlando Hernandez (1998)
Mike Magnante (1988)
Steve Reed (1988)
Tim Wakefield (1988)
Mickey Morandini (1988)
Woody Williams (1988)
Albert Belle (1987) - OD Roster
Greg McMichael (1988)
Steve Foster (1988)
Gregg Olson (1988)
Randy Tomlin (1988)
Pat Combs (1988)
Jack McDowell (1987) - OD Roster
Tino Martinez (1988)
Luis Gonzalez (1988)
Kenny Lofton (1988)
Vinny Castilla (1990) - Purchased from Mexican League
Robin Ventura (1988)
Marquis Grissom (1988)
Eric Young (1989)
Andy Benes (1988)
Ben McDonald (1989)
Chris Nabholz (1988)
Jeff Bagwell (1989)
Mike Piazza (1988)
Mike Mussina (1990)
Frank Thomas (1989)
John Olerud (1989)
Chad Curtis (1989)
Pat Meares (1990)
Chuck Knoblauch (1989)
Tim Salmon (1989)
Hideo Nomo (1995) - sigh
Jeff Kent (1989)
Matt Stairs (1989)
Shane Reynolds (1989)
Kazuhiro Sasaki (1999) - @#$@!
Jim Abbott (1988)

Curt Schilling - Move to Red Sox Farm System (1988)

For the record, I doubt that these culling posts make for particularly good reading, but they serve three purposes. 1) A way for me to keep my notes straight
2) A way for me to go back and replicate this roster if I so choose in the future (and if something happens to the savegame)
3) A way for someone else with Baseball Mogul who might be interested in doing something similar to have at least some idea of where some of the players to be removed are.

And yes, I'm still a little peeved about that McGwire MVP award. That belonged to Dewey, damnit!

1987 Simulation Results are Next.

[JMDurron]

1987 Simulation Results

Historically, the 1987 Red Sox went 78-84 (Pyth 83-79), finishing 5th in the AL East, 20 games back of the Detroit Tigers

100 Season Simulation Results

As expected, Mogul approves of finally unleashing Maddux. The Red Sox average a record of 112.76-49.24, well ahead of the 2nd place Blue Jays at 88.71-73.29. The Red Sox win the AL East all 100 times. There are 7 ALCS losses, 6 World Series losses, and 87 World Series wins. The next closest club is Oakland, with 4.

For the awards, Don Mattingly (22), and Tony Gwynn (5) place 2nd and 5th. Jose Canseco paces the field at 29. The AL Cy Young Award is a very tiny field. Roger Clemens destroys all opposition with 82, Greg Maddux places 2nd with 10, and Saberhagen, Cone, and Hurst all tie for 4th...with 1. Jose Rijo is the only non-Red Sox pitcher on the list, with all of 5 wins, good for third place. Greg Maddux comes in 3rd in Rookie of the Year awards, with 9. Mark McGwire (grrr) wins that award 62 times. Tony Gwynn gas 1 .400 season. Roger Clemens tosses 4 perfect games across 100 seasons.

Single Season Simulation Results

There were not any pitching problems this time around, but a couple of star position players found themselves losing playing time to superior, up-and-coming players. After watching a gimpy Carlton Fisk struggle through the first two months of the season, Darren Daulton claims most of the starts at C. Andre Dawson also loses the starting LF job to Mike Greenwell in June, but gets back on his feet to reclaim the position in August.

This time, the Red Sox have some serious competition in the AL East from a dominant club, the Toronto Blue Jays. The Blue Jays finish at 100-62, leaving them a mere 16 games behind the 116-46 Red Sox (Pyth 115-47) after 162 games. Even with Toronto's great season, at no point are the Red Sox not in 1st place. The postseason is an even more lopsided affair, with the Oakland A's being swept aside in the ALCS, being outscored 19-5 in the 4 games. The Montreal Expos manage to at least score in every game, but are swept away in the World Series.

Awards:

Cy Young: Greg Maddux
ALCS MVP: Ryne Sandberg
World Series MVP: Roger Clemens - That's just funny.



The Original 1987 Red Sox

Carlton Fisk falls well short of his historical production, which would still have been a huge upgrade over Marc Sullivan, but Darren Daulton just played his way into the lineup as the season went along, and dominated once he got there. Don Mattingly was dominant at 1B once again, roughly in line with his own historical production. Ryne Sandberg actually outproduces himself, which of course only destroys Marty Barrett's historical numbers by an even more obscene margin. Ozzie Smith misses some time due to injury, and falls well short of his real 1987 season, but is still better than Spike Owen. Wade Boggs simply refuses to match his historical numbers, apparently Mogul doesn't juice the baseballs in 1987. Andre Dawson obviously falls far short of his 49-HR 1987 season, and loses significant playing time to Mike Greenwell. Greenwell does not match his historical production or playing time, but is still better than Jim Rice was. Ellis Burks outdoes himself, proving to be an able heir to the throne of Fred Lynn. Tony Gwynn falls short of his historical production, but still easily trumps Todd Benzinger. Dwight Evans is excellent, and an upgrade over Don Baylor, even though he does not match his real 1987 numbers.

In the starting rotation, Mogul's habit of accelerating the peak of young star players pays off bigtime with Greg Maddux, who leads the AL in ERA while absolutely annihilating his real 1987 performance. Roger Clemens actually falls a bit short compared to his real 1987 season, but is still very good. Saberhagen essentially does what he was expected to do, matching his 1987 performance. Bruce Hurst underperforms slightly, but is not bad enough to cause a problem, and eats plenty of innings. David Cone is essentially right on track. Maddux's dominance leaves fewer innings to John Tudor, who actually was much better than expected in limited action. This group managed to avoid being injured simultaneously, to the point that they cover all but 1 start (Jeff Sellers) between them.

In the bullpen, Steve Crawford and Tom Bolton suck badly enough to lose their jobs to Joe Sambito and Rob Woodward. That made for a pretty dominant top 5 in the bullpen by the end of the season.

The Red Sox lead the AL in Runs Scored, Runs Allowed, AVG, OBP, SLG, ERA, K/9, and Fielding Percentage.

Still one title ahead of schedule, at 1974-1981-1982-1984-1985-1986-1987. 4 in a row, and 6 of 7. The original posts had the team at 1977 - 1978 - 1982 - 1984 - 1985 - 1987 by now.

Notes on Standards for Losing Jobs

I came up with a rough couple of rules for when to bench projected starters as I do this. In the Morgan/Francona era, I am taking a more active role in team management, basically to simulate the increased level of cooperation between Manager and GM. Since the straight statistics from the historical seasons are no longer in play, I feel it is valid for individual players to potentially lose playing time if they suck/are injured during the course of the season. I still obviously want to bias towards the guys who are the starters in my original post, but it's just not reasonable to say that Joe Morgan would not have given Daulton more playing time over an obviously struggling Fisk in this 1987 simulation, for example.

So, here's what I came up with for position players. I leave the starters in place (barring outright injuries) for the first two months of the season, regardless of performance. If, one June 1, the backup player is outperforming the starter by 100 points of OPS or more, the underperforming starter gets benched (or the awesome new guy gets the starting job, whichever way you prefer to say it). At the first of every subsequent month, as well as when other injuries cause lineup shuffling, I check to see if that OPS spread still applies, and if not, the original starter gets his job back. In the case of 1987, Daulton kicks Fisk's ass and never looks back, but Dawson was back inside of 100 points of OPS of Mike Greenwell by August 1, and never fell out of range again. Particularly for the older players, I feel like this is a reasonable way to approximate Mike Lowell-type situations of guys who are playing through pain, as they are far less effective than they should be in that given year. I just don't think its reasonable to say that a manager would never promote/demote a player due to performance, particularly once the starter has been given a significant enough sample of 2 months to "snap out of it."

In the bullpen, it is a little different. Variation in bullpen performance is expected, and I think it's reasonable for roles to change based on performance. Since I can't actually "see" the players, I am doing a mixed stat/IP analysis. If a reliever has at least 10 IP, has an ERA over 5.00, and has a DICE (Defense Independent Component ERA) over 5.00, he gets bumped from the bullpen and replaced by the next guy on the depth chart who pitched in that historical season. If I run out of guys, I go with the least bad option based on DICE over ERA. I wait for 10 IP to give every guy at least some chance to not be killed by a single bad outing.

I haven't had to try to figure out the rotation yet, I've just been ordering guys in the order I put them in my original post, and trying to maintain that during injury shuffling as best I can. It worked quite well this time, but we'll see going forward. I only shuffled the starters heading into the postseason, putting the best ERA/DICE performers ahead of the lesser guys among the full-time starters.

1988 Roster Setup is next.

[doc]

Hey what happened to your tables, I liked those

[JMDurron]

Hey what happened to your tables, I liked those

Do you mean the ones from the end of the original Time Machine thread? Those were to project out the Games/OPS+ and IP/ERA+ for the various position players and pitchers that I left Theo in the system. That was for multiple seasons, not the individual year posts.

If you mean the stats sheet for each simulated season, there should be one there for 1987. I've been using Photobucket, so perhaps you are dealing with a workplace block?

[doc]

Do you mean the ones from the end of the original Time Machine thread? Those were to project out the Games/OPS+ and IP/ERA+ for the various position players and pitchers that I left Theo in the system. That was for multiple seasons, not the individual year posts.

If you mean the stats sheet for each simulated season, there should be one there for 1987. I've been using Photobucket, so perhaps you are dealing with a workplace block?

Ok that's it then it was the stats tables and yes the bastards just got my office blocked recently , I'll have to relook at home, carry on

[JMDurron]

1988 Roster Setup

My Original Post

Draft Picks to Add

Ray Lankford
Tom Gordon
David Justice
Greg Maddux
Bret Saberhagen
David Cone
Tony Gwynn
Darren Daulton
Ryne Sandberg
Ozzie Smith
Andre Dawson

Players to Bring Back

Carlton Fisk from White Sox
John Tudor from Cardinals
Dennis Eckersley from A's
John Mitchell from Mets for Wes Gardner
Rey Quinones from Mariners for Spike Owen
Curt Schilling from Orioles
Steve Crawford from Royals

Players to Remove

Retire George Hendrick
Release Marty Barrett (Never Drafted)
Release John Marzano (Never Drafted)
Retire Rick Sutcliffe (Retires due to injury as per my 1982 post)
Release Sam Horn (Never Drafted)
Jim Rice to Cardinals (Sutter/Hendrick trade)
Retire Mo Vaughn (Not Drafted Yet - 1989)
Retire Oil Can Boyd (Dead)
Release Rich Gedman (Would not re-sign with Fisk and Daulton ahead of him on the C Depth Chart)
Ed Romero to Brewers (No Mark Clear trade)
Release Bob Zupcic (Never Drafted)
Retire Scott Hatteberg (Not Drafted Yet - 1991)
Randy Kutcher to Giants (No Dave Henderson trade)

Players to Modify

Mike Greenwell has his role forcibly changed from LF to 1B.

Trade Market Moves

Bruce Hurst, Curt Schilling, and Brady Anderson to the Cubs for Lee Smith

Deviations

In my original post, I neglected to realize that Wes Gardner is never on the Red Sox due to the lack of the original Bob Ojeda deal. So, my bullpen here will vary from the one in my original Time Machine post.

Mogul wants to put David Justice on the bench, but he does not appear until 1989. I demote him in favor of Kevin Romine, the next most used OF still in my system.

Mogul wants to make my 1B/DH/OF alignment as follows - Evans at 1B, Greenwell in LF, Burks in CF, Gwynn in RF, and Dawson at DH. Since I made such an issue of shifting Greenwell to 1B, I feel obligated to force that change here as well. This leaves Evans at DH, Greenwell at 1B, and Dawson in LF. I am fine with flipping Dawson and Gwynn here.

Mogul wants me to have a 4-man rotation. I change it to a 5-man rotation.

Mogul wants Tom Gordon starting in the bullpen instead of making occasional appearances as a long man/6th starter. I am fine with this, as I might have done this anyway if I had realized that Wes Gardner was not an option in my original post.

Mogul puts Dennis Lamp in the bullpen over Tom Bolton. I mention signing Dennis Lamp in my 1989 post, but I think that was mostly due to my completely overlooking him in 1988. I keep him here and admit that I made a goof in my original post. Bolton might beat him out over the course of the season anyway.

The Culling is to come.

[JMDurron]

1988

Orlando Hernandez (1998)
Greg McMichael (1988) - Not in my system yet
Randy Tomlin (1988) - OD Roster
Pat Combs (1988) - OD Roster
Vinny Castilla (1990) - Purchased from Mexican League
Eric Young (1989)
Andy Benes (1988) - OD Roster
Ben McDonald (1989)
Jeff Bagwell (1989)
Mike Piazza (1988) - OD Roster
Mike Mussina (1990)
Frank Thomas (1989)
John Olerud (1989)
Chad Curtis (1989)
Pat Meares (1990)
Chuck Knoblauch (1989)
Tim Salmon (1989)
Hideo Nomo (1995)
Jeff Kent (1989)
Matt Stairs (1989)
Shane Reynolds (1989)
Kazuhiro Sasaki (1999)
Jim Abbott (1988) - OD Roster
Mariano Rivera (1990) - Already the closer in 1988. This will be a problem in 1991.
Jeff Cirillo (1991)
Fernando Vina (1990)
Marty Cordova (1989)
Jeromy Burnitz (1990)
Damian Miller (1990)
Troy Percival (1990)
Alex Fernandez (1990)
Damon Mashore (1991)
Todd Jones (1989)
Bob Wickman (1990)
Rusty Greer (1990)
Charles Nagy (1988) - OD Roster
Tripp Cromer (1989)
Kevin Roberson (1988) - OD Roster

1988 Simulation Results are next

Edited by JMDurron, 28 January 2011 - 03:19 PM.

[JMDurron]

I'm open to suggestions if anyone else is having the results page blocked at work. I'm just using photobucket because I've had the account forever. I'm not sure which other sites might not be blocked, but it doesn't really matter to me where I link the things from.

Edited by JMDurron, 28 January 2011 - 03:23 PM.

[JMDurron]

So, it turns out that Mogul is certainly tweaking the rosters to suit its fancy during the 100-season simulation. It's in season 38 now, but you can see some of the headlines that Mogul displays for "articles" about your team during the season. Apparently, Mogul will even make trades with your roster, because I saw the following headline:

"Saberhagen Packaged in 5-Player Deal"

I have no idea what went on there, but apparently Mogul's Season Simulator is a bit more independent than I had thought.

[JMDurron]

1988 Simulation Results

Historically, the 1988 Red Sox finished 89-73 (Pyth 93-69), winning the AL East by 1 game over the Detroit Tigers.

100 Season Simulation Results

The Red Sox finish with a record of 114.09-47.91, again demolishing the 2nd place Blue Jays with their 90.31-71.69 mark. The Red Sox win the AL East every time, lose in the ALCS 3 times, lose in the World Series 6 times, and win the World Series 91 times.

After the bash brothers, Ellis Burks come in 3rd in the MVP vote with 13. There are a grand total of 2 out of 100 Cy Youngs that are won by non-Red Sox pitchers. Roger Clemens (52), Greg Maddux (39), David Cone (4), and Bret Saberhagen (3) are the top 4. Greg Maddux has 3 Perfect Games, and Roger Clemens has 1.

Single Season Simulation Results

I miss the days of "Sort all", and throwing my hands up in the air when Mogul played someone ahead of schedule. The combination of injuries and self-restraint led to way more Dana Williams in the OF and Rey Quinones in the IF than I enjoyed, as David Justice and John Valentin/Tim Naehring taunted me from the minors with their presence. Stupid ground rules.

Two surprising candidates played themselves into the minor leagues with poor performances - Tom Gordon, and Dennis Eckersley. I guess Eck had a party year? No position players lost their jobs, mostly thanks to the bench being generally ineffective.

The Red Sox finish the season at 107-55 (Pyth 105-57), winning the AL East by 9 games over the Toronto Blue Jays. The postseason rotation is reorganized by effectiveness over the course of the season, to Clemens-Maddux-Cone-Saberhagen. The Angels go quietly in the ALCS, as the Red Sox sweep. The Fearsome Foursome make the Cincinnati Reds look like complete fools in the World Series, as the Reds score 2 runs in the course of being swept. 3 of the 4 games were shutouts.

At this point, the last postseason loss by this Red Sox franchise was in Game 4 of the 1986 World Series, against the Mets. That's 17 straight postseason wins.

Awards:

Cy Young: Roger Clemens
ALCS MVP: Mike Greenwell
World Series MVP: Greg Maddux



The Original 1988 Red Sox

Not a whole lot of guys with 150+ games played this time around.

Carlton Fisk is an upgrade over Rich Gedman, even though he isn't close to his historical 1988 offensive level. The same is true for Mike Greenwell at 1B, who never makes any kind of legitimate case for himself at MVP. Ryne Sandberg has the best year of his career, which is a slight upgrade over Marty Barrett. Wade Boggs finally produces like he did historically, and compensates by being injured. Ozzie Smith falls short of both Jody Reed and his own 1988 seasons. Mogul really hates the Wizard's bat. Andre Dawson makes up for his 1987 campaign by putting on a show that was better than all but 1 of his real world seasons. Ellis Burks is great in CF, even better than he was historically. Dwight Evans is on the mark with the rate stats in reduced playing time due to injury. Tony Gwynn handily passes Jim Rice's contribution, and improves on his own historical 1988 campaign.

On the bench, Darren Daulton is the lone bright spot, surpassing his real 1988 numbers. The rest of the group is putrid, aside from a couple of PAs that Mogul slipped past me to give to Justice and Naehring in September.

Thank goodness for the pitching staff. In the rotation, Clemens is right on target. Greg Maddux is essentially right on with his real 1988 campaign as well. Saberhagen comes up a bit short, but at least stays healthy enough to keep the starting 5 together for most of the season. David Cone is quite good, although not nearly as dominant as his historical 1988 campaign for the Mets. John Tudor falls far short of his 1988 campaign as well, but is not bad either. I would prefer to clone a pitcher other than Steve Ellsbury, thanks for asking, Mogul.

In the bullpen, Lee Smith is not quite himself, but is good enough. Dennis Lamp and Bob Stanley are above average, with Tom Bolton and Steve Crawford, who stays healthy, bringing up the rear with average performances.

The Red Sox lead the AL in Runs Scored, Runs Allowed, AVG, OBP, ERA, and K/9.

Still 1 World Series win ahead of schedule, but the 1980s just look ridiculous for this team. 1974-1981-1982-1984-1985-1986-1987-1988, now at 5 in a row, and 7 of 8! The 5 straight titles matches the mark set by the 1949-1953 Yankees, and the 7 Titles in 8 seasons trumps the "6 in 8" dominance of the 1936-1943 Yankees. The Yankees won 7 titles in 10 seasons from 1943-1952, so I have 2 seasons to best that mark. The 7 titles in a single decade breaks the record of 6 in the 1950s by the Yankees.

I think that age is starting to catch up to some of the core guys, so more injuries and less offense are probably around the corner, but hopefully the pitching staff can keep up the pace.

1989 Roster Setup is next.

[JMDurron]

1989 Roster Setup

My Primary Original Post

There's some contracts stuff in a previous post, but nothing of significance about player moves.

Draft Picks to Add

Greg McMichael
Jim Edmonds
Tim Wakefield
Ray Lankford
Tom Gordon
David Justice
Greg Maddux
Bret Saberhagen
David Cone
Tony Gwynn
Darren Daulton
Ryne Sandberg
Ozzie Smith
Andre Dawson

Players to Bring Back

Carlton Fisk from White Sox
John Tudor from Dodgers
Dennis Eckersley from A's
John Mitchell from Mets for Wes Gardner
Rey Quinones from Mariners
Steve Crawford from Royals
Todd Benzinger from Reds for Nick Esasky and Rob Murphy

Players to Remove

John Dopson and Luis Rivera to Montreal Expos (No Spike Owen to trade for them) - I rather wish I had thought of Quinones here, maybe I just substitute him instead, but oh well. I live with my mistake in this case.
Release Marty Barrett (Never Drafted)
Release John Marzano (Never Drafted)
Retire Rick Sutcliffe (Retires due to injury as per my 1982 post)
Release Sam Horn (Never Drafted)
Jim Rice to Cardinals (Sutter/Hendrick trade)
Retire Oil Can Boyd (Dead)
Release Rich Gedman (Would not re-sign with Fisk and Daulton ahead of him on the C Depth Chart)
Ed Romero to Brewers (No Mark Clear trade)
Release Bob Zupcic (Never Drafted)
Retire Scott Hatteberg (Not Drafted Yet - 1991)
Randy Kutcher to Giants (No Dave Henderson trade)
Mike Boddicker to Orioles (Never traded for)
Retire Bob Stanley (Retirement)
Release Eric Hetzel (Never drafted)
Release Danny Heep (Not signed)
Jeff Gray to Reds (Not signed until 1990)

Players to Move Around League

Curt Schilling and Brady Anderson from Orioles to Cubs (Lee Smith Trade)

Players to Modify

Change Mike Greenwell from a LF to a 1B.

Trade Market Moves

None

Deviations

Mogul no longer tries to force David Justice onto the bench, now that he's supposed to appear in 1989. This isn't a deviation so much as it is a "GFY, Mogul" moment.

Mogul wants to put Ellis Burks in LF, and Tony Gwynn in CF. The best part is that even Mogul's own defensive ratings say this would be a terrible idea. Overruled.

Mogul wants to start Daulton over Fisk. Overruled, but we'll see how these two produce relative to each other as the season progresses.

Mogul sees Tom Gordon as a reliever, not a starter at this stage of his career. As I only counted on him as the 6th starter in the original post, due to a John Tudor injury that is no longer certain, I am fine with this.

Mogul wants Greg McMichael in the bullpen in 1989, when he does not first appear until 1993. Denied. Tom Bolton is called up to take his place.

The Culling is next to come.

[JMDurron]

1989

Orlando Hernandez (1998)
Vinny Castilla (1990) - Purchased from Mexican League
Ben McDonald (1989) - OD Roster
Jeff Bagwell (1989) - OD Roster, Wrong Roster, Not In System Yet
Mike Mussina (1990)
Frank Thomas (1989) - OD Roster
John Olerud (1989) - OD Roster
Pat Meares (1990)
Hideo Nomo (1995)
Jeff Kent (1989) - OD Roster
Kazuhiro Sasaki (1999)
Mariano Rivera (1990) - Already the closer in 1988. This will be a problem in 1991.
Jeff Cirillo (1991)
Fernando Vina (1990)
Jeromy Burnitz (1990)
Damian Miller (1990)
Troy Percival (1990)
Alex Fernandez (1990)
Damon Mashore (1991)
Bob Wickman (1990)
Rusty Greer (1990)
Tripp Cromer (1989) - OD Roster
Jim Thome (1989) - OD Roster
Paul Byrd (1991)
John Mabry (1991)
Steve Trachsel (1991)
Mark Grudzielanek (1991)
Jim Mecir (1991)
Mike Cather (1993)
Jon Lieber (1992)
Ricardo Rincon (1997) - Purchased from Mexican League
Rich Croushore (1993)
Takashi Saito (2006)
Denny Neagle (1989) - OD Roster

1989 Simulation Results are next.

[JMDurron]

1989 Simulation Results

Historically, the 1989 Red Sox finished 83-79 (Pyth 85-77), 3rd in the AL East, 6 games back of the Toronto Blue Jays.

100 Season Simulation Results

The average record is 113.56-48.44, once again smashing the second place Blue Jays and their 89.86-72.14 mark. A perfect record of winning the AL East leads to 6 ALCS losses, 9 World Series losses, and 85 World Series wins.

Ellis Burks comes in 2nd in AL MVP wins, with 18. Marc McGwire dominates the field with his 53. There are actually only 4 Cy Young winners in the AL - Roger Clemens (56), Greg Maddux (37), David Cone (4), and Bret Saberhagen (3). That bodes well, I think.

Single Season Simulation Results

I goofed up this time, because I forgot to acquire Greg Harris in August. I keep the b-ref transactions page for each season open as I go, but the mid-80s years of no meaningful midseason moves got me into some bad habits. Oops. A minor impact to the bullpen, but still annoying.

Carlton Fisk was good for most of the season, but Darren Daulton became awesome later in the year, and took most of the starts in August and September. Steve Crawford sucked his way out of the bullpen. Dana Williams was actually so good in the backup OF role that he stole the job from Kevin Romine, and made calling up David Justice a moot point.

The Red Sox finished the season at 115-47, underachieving relative to their 122-40 pyth record. The AL East is won by 20 games over the Toronto Blue Jays. Saberhagen ends up being the 4th starter instead of the 1st, and the rotation of Clemens-Cone-Maddux-Saberhagen tears through October once again. The Royals are swept away in the ALCS, and the Mets meet the same fate in the World Series.

Make that 25 straight postseason wins, 6 straight World Series titles, and 8 in 9 years.

Awards:

AL Cy Young: Roger Clemens
ALCS MVP: Wade Boggs
World Series MVP: Ryne Sandberg



The Original 1989 Squad

Now, this is what I'm talking about when it comes to staying healthy!

Carlton Fisk didn't quite match his real 1989 numbers, but he eventually lost his starting job to a dominant campaign from Darren Daulton. Why, yes, I will take a .900 OPS from my catcher, thanks for asking. Mike Greenwell underperformed both himself and Nick Esasky's real 1989 campaign. Ryne Sandberg was a huge upgrade over Marty Barrett, even though he came up a tad short of his real 1989 numbers. This IS the Wade Boggs we've been looking for! I just got his 1988 prodcution a year late, apparently. Mogul continues to hate Ozzie Smith's bat, which ends up only being a very mild upgrade from Luis Rivera.

In the OF and at DH, though, it's party time! Andre Dawson outdoes himself, trumping historical Mike Greenwell in the process. Ellis Burks is just obscenely good, only a 60-HR campaign from Mark McGwire keeps him out of the MVP award. Tony Gwynn is not to be outdone, annihilating historical Jim Rice and surpassing his own 1989 season by 100 points of OPS. Dwight Evans also joins the 900 OPS club, as he also has an awesome year.

On the bench, aside from Daulton, Todd Benzinger and Dana Williams are also effective in limited action. Jody Reed continues to disappoint.

The starting pitching tells the tale as well as the OF/DH production does - the league had no hope against this team. Roger Clemens blows past his real 1989 campaign. Greg Maddux manages to produce a lower ERA in the AL and Fenway Park than he did in the NL in 1989. David Cone also outdoes himself. Saberhagen has quite a letdown relative to his real 1989 season, but he stays healthy enough to prevent worse options from having to carry the load. John Tudor stays pleasantly healthy relative to his real campaign, although it probably helps that he was mostly bored and kept getting skipped as the 5th starter.

In the bullpen, Smith, Eckersley, and Lamp are all good. Tom Gordon and Tom Bolton are adequate, and Steve Crawford pitches himself out of a job, as Mike Rochford replaces him by putting up a 1.83 ERA in 34.1 IP (his stats are cut off in this screenshot). Crawford managed a 9.58 ERA in 10.1 IP.

The Red Sox lead the league in Runs Scored, Runs Allowed, AVG, OBP, SLG, ERA, and Fielding percentage. The FPct is interesting, given the lack of Gold Gloves. Of course, it appears that Mogul awarded no Gold Gloves in 1989, for some reason.

I suppose I could mention individual leaders as well, now that I think about it. We'll go with guys who lead the league. You can see the numbers in the screenshot above.

AVG - Wade Boggs
Hits - Tony Gwynn
Wins - Roger Clemens
Ks - Roger Clemens
WHIP - Greg Maddux
CG - Roger Clemens
IP - Roger Clemens
DICE - Roger Clemens

1990 Roster Setup will be next.

[JMDurron]

1990 Roster Setup

The 1990 Preaseason Post

1990 Roster Post

Draft Picks to Add

Jeff Bagwell
Greg McMichael
Jim Edmonds
Tim Wakefield
Ray Lankford
Tom Gordon
David Justice
Greg Maddux
Bret Saberhagen
David Cone
Tony Gwynn
Darren Daulton
Ryne Sandberg
Andre Dawson

Players to Bring Back

Carlton Fisk from White Sox
John Tudor from Cardinals
Dennis Eckersley from A's
Todd Benzinger from Reds for Rob Murphy

Players to Remove

Wes Gardner to Mets (no original Ojeda trade)
John Dopson and Luis Rivera to Montreal Expos (No Spike Owen to trade for them) - I rather wish I had thought of Quinones here, maybe I just substitute him instead, but oh well. I live with my mistake in this case.
Release Marty Barrett (Never Drafted)
Release John Marzano (Never Drafted)
Retire Rick Sutcliffe (Retires due to injury as per my 1982 post)
Retire Oil Can Boyd (Dead)
Release Rich Gedman (Would not re-sign with Fisk and Daulton ahead of him on the C Depth Chart)
Release Bob Zupcic (Never Drafted)
Retire Scott Hatteberg (Not Drafted Yet - 1991)
Randy Kutcher to Giants (No Dave Henderson trade)
Mike Boddicker to Orioles (Never traded for)
Release Eric Hetzel (Never drafted)
Release Danny Heep (Not signed)
Release Jeff Reardon (Not signed)
Release Tony Pena (Not signed)
Release Greg Harris (Not signed)
Release Dennis Lamp (Not signed)

Players to Move Around League

Curt Schilling and Brady Anderson from Orioles to Cubs (Lee Smith Trade)
Ozzie Smith from Cardinals to Padres (That's where I had him sign, for some reason. I honestly don't even remember why)

Players to Modify

Mike Greenwell from LF to 1B

Greg Maddux is set to use Carlton Fisk as his personal catcher.

Trade Market Moves

Andre Dawson to Houston Astros for Larry Andersen.

Deviations

Mogul, as usual, wants an odd OF configuration. Mogul puts Gwynn in LF, Burks in CF, Evans in RF, and Justice at DH. This wouldn't seem so odd if Mogul didn't give Gwynn lousy ratings as a LF. More importantly, Justice as rated as a better LF than Gwynn or Evans, so Gwynn goes to RF, Justice goes to LF, and Evans goes to DH. This is still a deviation from my original post, but it seems that Mogul is telling me that my initial idea that Gwynn needed to be a LF was wrong from the start, so I'm ok with that. Evans at DH is a key point that I enforce in this case.

There are three issues on the bench, and each gets a separate bullet.
- Mogul prefers Kevin Romine to Ray Lankford as the backup OF. Overruled, Lankford is called up and Romine sent down.
- Mogul prefers Ron Pankovits to Tim Naehring as the backup IF. Overruled, Pankovits goes down for Naehring.
- Mogul prefers Todd Benzinger to Carlos Quintana as backup 1B. Accepted, because I just completely forgot about Benzinger in my original post, and I'm neutral between the two.

Mogul gets the entire pitching staff...correct. Paramedics are en route to my house as I type this.

The Culling is next.

Edited by JMDurron, 31 January 2011 - 05:02 PM.

[JMDurron]

Added Jeff Bagwell above under "Draft Picks to add", since Mogul has him in the Astros' system.

1990

Orlando Hernandez (1998)
Mike Mussina (1990) - OD Roster
Hideo Nomo (1995)
Kazuhiro Sasaki (1999)
Mariano Rivera (1990) - OD Roster
Jeff Cirillo (1991)
Alex Fernandez (1990) - OD Roster
Damon Mashore (1991)
Paul Byrd (1991)
John Mabry (1991)
Steve Trachsel (1991)
Mark Grudzielanek (1991)
Jim Mecir (1991)
Mike Cather (1993)
Jon Lieber (1992)
Ricardo Rincon (1997) - Purchased from Mexican League
Rich Croushore (1993)
Takashi Saito (2006)
Ray Durham (1990) - Haven't drafted him yet
Mark Loretta (1993)
Billy Wagner (1993)
Matt Lawton (1991)
Rich Aurilia (1992)
Carlos Crawford (1990) - OD Roster
Brendan Donnelly (1992)
Jason Giambi (1992)
Ryan Karp (1992)
Phil Nevin (1992)
Scott Sullivan (1993)
John Dettmer (1992)
George Glinatsis (1991)
Tyler Green (1991)
Larry Thomas (1991)

1990 Simulation Results are next