Capital_Dave

Seems like no way that should have been a game winning sac fly. But I'll take it!

FLETCH!

Fletcher has such exceptional bat control -- I'm not sure you bunt here, maybe just tell him to hit the ball to the right side and trust him to do it.

Buchter and Ramirez look good this year. I had no problems with Buchter's walk. Every pitch had purpose, even the 3-2 slider was the pitch he meant to throw.

This is absurd. We know that COVID has an incubation period during which you test negative. Just because you test negative today doesn't mean you won't be contagious in 2-3 days. Doesn't MLB have anyone advising them who knows this?

Infinity this year.

Wimp. 2AM here.

FTFY

As one of the few Angelswin folks in the Eastern Time Zone, I approve of the new extra inning rule.

If Pujols grounds into a double play here... I will officially lose my shit.

Not sure why Maddon is using our closer here. Usually visitors will reserve their closer to pitch the bottom of the inning in extras, wouldn't that be even a BETTER idea if there was a guaranteed baserunner on 2nd in the 10th?

If Ohtani (God forbid) makes the last out here, he starts on second base next inning!

I've gotta say, kudos to the A's field staff for having recorded horns and drums. Don't know how they got that recorded, but it definitely adds to the atmosphere.

Meanwhile, the Angels in 2011 were wasting their time drafting this guy, who was described at minorleagueball.com as "a decent relief prospect as he has a nice fastball-slider combination and a herky-jerky delivery that requires a lot of effort." His hair was a lot shorter back then...

In a surprise, Strat-o-matic simulated the rest of the season in one fell swoop and posted everything at once today. The Angels finish the season four games over .500, but 7 games back in the Wild Card. The Dodgers beat the Phillies in the NLDS (3-1), the Nationals in the NLCS (4-1), and the Astros in the World Series (4-1) to win it all. Trout, Rendon, and Simmons must have been pretty pedestrian in the last few months of the simulated season. They were all batting above .310 as of yesterday's results, but they ended up at .292, .303, and .306 respectively. Regression to the mean, I guess... According to Stratomatic, your individual award winners were: AL MVP: Alex BregmanNL MVP: Trevor StoryAL Cy Young: Justin VerlanderNL Cy Young: Clayton KershawAL Rookie of the Year: Luis RobertNL Rookie of the Year: Shogo Akiyama Story and Soler are their leagues' home run kings, each with 51. Batting champions are Arraez (.356) and Arenado (.338) Clayton Kershaw's the only 20-game winner in either league, finishing with 21. Final Angels stats are attached, along with the final (chalky) playoff bracket. Thanks for following along this season. It was interesting to watch the season play out one game at a time, but it will be more interesting to see real life baseball in the months to come. Go (REAL) Angels!

Angels mix small ball and long ball in this one for a nice 7-5 victory at Yankee Stadium. If you're new to Strat-o-matic, this is what a "play account" file looks like, here for the second inning: The first part shows the number of outs, then which bases are occupied, after the name is the dice roll (with what's called a "split roll" after that, for rolls that have two possible outcomes), then the description, then the progression of runners on that particular play. The rest of the way, Angels play long ball. A two-run homer in the fourth by Trout, then solo shots in the fifth by Upton and Adell. Canning gets the win with the bare minimum (5IP, 5ER) (he looked much better IRL last night!) but again it's the usual bullpen progression of Bedrock, Middleton, Barnes, and Robles that throws shutout ball from there.

I'll stop daily updates on Thursday. I agree, once the season starts it's unnecessary. But until then: baseball content!

That's true. But I suspect that the only players who are called up from AAA are those known commodities that are on the 40 man roster. I was referring more to the phenom who has a breakout season and forces consideration. I'm sure Rengifo, when he comes up, has a card just based on what he did last year, so there's nothing dynamic about that. I guess I was just lamenting, with the way Strat-o-matic is simulating this, that there is no opportunity to add a missing piece or fix a glaring hole through solutions like trades.

Angels are starting to lose touch with the Wild Card leaders. They drop Game 1 of the series to the Yankees and now sit five games back of the Twins for the second Wild Card slot. More concerningly, they are now in danger of getting passed by Boston and KC, who are also at 49 wins in the win column. Final score of this one, 6-3. Yankees outslug the Angels three homers to none. It occurs to me that one huge downside of this simulated season is that the teams are so static. There are no trades (that I know of) (they haven't given you any ability to do so, have they @Jeff Fletcher?) So it's essentially what you see is what you get for 162 games. Tough to address your obvious shortcomings or try to load up for a pennant run without the ability to trade or call up youngsters who might be tearing it up in AAA. This is around the time of year you might see some of those deals...

Angels drop 2 of 3 to the Phillies at Citizen's Bank Park, and lose the finale of the series 3-2. A good -- if wild -- Sunday outing by Ohtani, who goes 7 strong giving up just 1 earned run (7 Ks) (with 4 (!) wild pitches) but a costly error by Tommy La Stella doom the effort. Andrelton Simmons with another two-hit effort, his season batting average remains at a robust .330.

This makes me wonder: will the "fake noise" in the Oakland Coliseum feature fake drumming from that guy in the right field bleachers?

When you lament not having Angels Baseball in your life, you are forgetting that there would have been nights like this that would have made you happy for a worldwide pandemic, if only to save you from your own personal baseball heartache. Angels lead 2-0 in the bottom of the ninth behind brilliant shutout pitching by Bundy, Buchter, and Barnes. But a two run homer by Alec Bohm (whoever that is) ties it in the bottom of the ninth. Luis Rengifo hits a go-ahead homer in the top of the 10th and then this Bohm guy steps up to the plate again in the bottom of the 10th and walks it off with a base hit, scoring a runner from third. Fuck Pretend Alec Bohm. That is all.

Angels start the second half with a nip-and-tuck 4-3 victory over the Phillies. A quality start and win for Julio Teheran (8-6) as Hansel Robles gets his 24th save. Jo Adell hits his 9th homer of the season, a three-run homer in the first that starts off the second half with a bang

Seems like the week before the season starts is typically when you see long-term extensions for current players. Would love to see Simmons extended for 3 or 4 years. @Jeff Fletcher is there any expectation the Angels might extend (or have extended) an offer? Would 3 years/ $70 million get it done? He's just 30 years old...

Indeed. Carey managed the AL All Stars, vs. Slim Jim Phantom (drummer for the Stray Cats) who managed the NL. Both are long-time Strat-o-matic players. Since Carey has a more-than-passing resemblance to Joe Maddon, I thought he was a good choice.