Wednesday, February 14, 2007

If EA Sports is in any way accurate

Here's what the season will look like.

I just played through an entire season of MVP Baseball 2005 (updated to 2006) with the current rosters, though I was on the 2006 schedule. I physically played probably 60-70% of the games and managed or simmed the rest.


Also, this got a fair amount of criticism on Halos Heaven. So I'm not an idiot and I know this isn't in any way accurate. The only numbers vaguely likely to be representative are Vlad, GA's, and Weaver's. Maybe Molina's. I think that's pretty damn good for the formula that was used to program the batter ratings (i.e., power/contact v. LHP/RHP, baserunning ability, plate discipline, etc.).

If my dynasty is accurate, here's what will happen:

The Angels will start off strong and will be on a nice hot streak in first place in the middle of June, when interleague play begins. They'll struggle some in interleague play but will come out still in first, though only 2.5 games ahead of Seattle, of all teams. Choakland will by this point already be 11 games in the cellar.
July will start off reminiscent of April 2006, with a six game losing streak, snapped by one game. Overall, will start the month something like 2-10. Ouch. This will result in a sharp tumble from first place to seven games behind a streaking Seattle, though we'll still be in second. The team will struggle for the rest of July and into August before lighting up at the end of the month and going on an eight-game winning streak to come within half a game of the Mariners. Taking a crucial Seattle series, we'll regain first place and at the beginning of October will be 4.5 games up to clinch the division.
The playoffs will potentially be heartbreaking. We will beat Cleveland in the ALDS, 3-1 before going on to sweep Boston away in the ALCS (woo woo!). We'll then face the Mets in the WS and will be defeated 2-4. (Note that I tried simming a couple of other times, and on one occasion we lost to Boston and in the other we beat Houston for the championship.)

Here's how the stats will look, batting wise. (Note that the program I used for the rosters makes the batter ratings based upon a formula of past performance, etc.)

--GMJ will continue his surprising career turnaround, making a limited number of errors in CF and going .288 with 33 HR and 94 RBI.

--Cabby will have a career year in 650 AB, going .303 w/ 29 HR and 99 RBI

--Figgy will also have a stellar year, going .341 w/ 16 HR and 81 RBI, while stealing only 34 bases. He will also make a league-leading 23 errors at 3B.

--Vlad, unsurprisingly, will hit .326 with 36 HR and 107 RBI. He will also lead the MVP race for a few weeks.

Other batting stats (listed AB/AVG/HR/RBI):
Shea: 624/.274/26/106
GA: 603/.275/22/74
HK: .284/12/47
Kotch (starts off strong, winds up splitting time w/ Quinlan): 397/.267/8/39
Naps: 391/.294/13/46
Quinlan: 216/.269/6/26
Molina: .255/5/27
Aybar: 65/.185/0/5
Izzy: 59/.305/4/8
Murphy: 30/.367/0/1

And now for pitching (sorry if this is getting long!):

Surprisingly, the rotation and bullpen will struggle this year, though Lackey and Weaver will continue their general dominance (this is partially due to the pitch meter I was using being really hard to deal with). The season will start with Saunders in the rotation, who will flail around for a while before being sent down to AAA after compiling a 2-4 record w/ a 8.69 ERA. Fortunately, this will be just in time for Colon to make a strong come back, going 2-0/2.68 in his first two starts before coming back down to Earth. Santana will also struggle early but regain some control as the season continues. There will be rumors in August that Lackey and Weaver could be in the running for a Cy Young, but after performance dips in late August and early September, they will fall out of the running.

--Lackey: 12-13, 4.54, 172 SO
--Colon: 12-7, 3.54, 134 SO
--Santana: 11-12, 4.02, 175 S0
--Escobar: 12-12, 4.71, 162 SO
--Weaver: 16-11, 4.49, 161 SO
--Carrasco: 2-1, 5.90, 34 SO
--Resop: 7-2, 3.76, 76 SO
--Oliver: 6-1, 6.21, 56 SO
--Shields: 8-4, 3.07, 46 SO
--Speier: 2-2, 3.91, 32 SO
--K-Rod: 2-1, 2.18, 39 SO, 45 SV

So there you have it. Let the flaming/discussion begin!