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OOTP Baseball 2015 - 1967 Boston Red Sox Simulation - All-Star Break

2/28/2015

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by  R.A. Rowell; Co-Owner of Intent-sive Nature & the Brand Shamans network
It's been a long time, but it's finally time to get back to the 1967 Impossible Dream simulation in Out of the Park Baseball 2015! As the game by game hasn't been feasible lately, I decided to go ahead and skip to the all-star break. This was a good idea as you can see from the standings. Apparently, OOTP Baseball really, really loves the 1967 Chicago White Sox – who albeit weren't an awful team for real – but the game seems to favor them an awful lot.

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As you can see from the offensive stats, it's a really potent lineup, with only Mike Andrews not hitting for power, but owning a .349 on-base percentage through 77 games. Carl Yazstremski is understandably being awesome with an OPS over 1.000. Reggie Smith is having a great year. George Scott and Joe Foy are tearing the cover off of the ball, even better than they did historically. Tony Conigliaro not being hit in the head with the infamous pitch has worked wonders for him, as well. Even Rico Petrocelli is having one of the best offensive seasons of his life. Yaz and Foy both made the in-game All-Star team for the American League.

The pitching has sadly been a much different story. A true ace hasn't emerged at this point in the season, although it is nominally Jim Lonborg. The ill-fated first game when he gave up a boatload of runs unexpectedly really threw his season ERA off, but still no one's stepped up and taken a leadership role on this staff. The walk to strikeout ratios are all pretty awful, and although this was a time where strikeouts were nowhere what they are near now, these are not good numbers. The batting average on balls in play, however, are a bit high for some of these pitchers. So we could expect some better performances from Lonborg and others in the second half.

The real 1967 Red Sox were 41-39 going into the All-Star Break and were in 5th place in the American League. But that was only 6 games back of first in a tight race. Our simulation record is 45-35, in second place only 4 games back of the White Sox. The Orioles, Yankees, Tigers, and Twins are all bunched up behind us. Considering that the in-game owner only expected this team to play roughly .500 ball – win as much as we lose – we're already winning on that count. Just need the pitching to step it up, which I'm sure that it will. I'm very proud of this lineup, and it's even better with a healthy Tony C, a hot Joe Foy, and an emerging Reggie Smith.

We'll see if this team can make it all the way to first place and hold it! Things are definitely looking good, though!

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OOTP Baseball 2015 - 1967 Boston Red Sox Simulation - Game 3

2/14/2015

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by  R.A. Rowell; Co-Owner of Intent-sive Nature & the Brand Shamans network
After two really bad games to start this OOTP 15 simulation, I left Game 3 entirely to the computer. Since I let it simulate, it used the historical lineups. Because I am no longer going to be managing in-game, this should be the case going forward. This time, the Red Sox picked up our first victory of the season over the New York Yankees.

Future Hall-of-Famer Whitey Ford did not have a good day, surrendering 4 of the 7 Boston runs. Carl "Yaz" Yastrzemski hit a two-run homer in the first inning and the Sox never looked back. Center fielder Gorman Thomas receieved his first start of the season and went 1 for 5 with 2 RBI. Third baseman Joe Foy also had an excellent game, going 2-for-3 with two walks and 3 runs scored.

What really happened: The Red Sox defeated the Yankees in a shutout, 3-0. Billy Rohr pitched a complete game one-hitter and shutout, although he did walk five. Reggie Smith hit a lead-off home run against Ford which would prove to be the deciding run in the ballgame. Joe Foy added a two-run home run in the eighth. It was a great pitcher's duel for the most part.

Let's see if these Red Sox can win this three-game series against the Yankees, something the real Red Sox did not do.
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OOTP Baseball 2015 - 1967 Boston Red Sox Simulation - Game 2

2/13/2015

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by  R.A. Rowell; Co-Owner of Intent-sive Nature & the Brand Shamans network
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Game 2 of the 1967 Impossible Dream Red Sox simulation ended horribly as you can see from the box score. It was actually quite infuriating with how well it began. I decided to get cute with the in-game managing which was what ultimately cost me a game that the Red Sox actually did historically lose 8-5.

It started off quite well, however. As I said in my game 1 recap, I decided to refer to Baseball Reference to see the actual historical Red Sox lineup. In this game, human managers' teams still have CPU "optimized" lineups. So I replaced Dennis Bennett, the 1967 Red Sox's nominal #2 starter, with the historical starter righty Bucky Brandon.

The game started off beautifully for the Red Sox, with Tony Conigliaro jacking a 3-run home run in the bottom of the first inning, followed up by a "long tater" by first baseman George Scott (who was accurately starting this game). I kept the lineup more like the historic one, although I kept Reggie Smith in center field over Jose Tartabull. That ended up being a good move, as he went 2 for 6 with an RBI. Interestingly, Reggie Smith originally started at second base in this game. Catcher Mike Ryan started over game 1 starter Bob Tillman - Tillman did not play in the historical game 1.

Everything was going quite well until the fifth inning when starter Brandon ran into some trouble. Consulting the historical game, I relieved him for the sixth with Hank Fischer, who pitched two fine innings. It was after that when things went awry. For the eighth, I decided to bring in lefty Sparky Lyle with a 7-4 lead with two lefties due up. He had a rocky inning and surrendered a run. But we were still in good shape going into the ninth. I brought in historical closer John Wyatt. He proceeded to not only let the White Sox tie the game, but imploded so badly that we ended up losing the game 9-7. I was furious and almost replayed the game - alas it saved...

What actually happened: The real Red Sox lost the second game of the season 8-5, but due to horrendous defense in the 9th inning. So oddly enough, in both games, Boston lost in ugly fashion, but it was five total errors by the Red Sox in that game that sunk them historically. In this game, Wyatt, who would be a reliable closer in real life, imploded due to an apparently very poor decision made on my part.

Due to the horrible results of these first two games, I will no longer be doing play-by-play managing of these games. I'll leave the simulation completely to the computer. Especially for the sake of time, it will make the simulations more accurate. Being blown to bits for 20 runs in the first two games by an inept offensive team like the '67 White Sox is simply not cool... and the Yankees are coming up next. Hopefully, this horrendous loss won't cost us the pennant down the road. Let's blame stupid randomness and horrible luck on this sad beginning. After all, the in-game owner only expects us to play roughly .500 ball. Let's prove them wrong.

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OOTP Baseball 2015 - 1967 Boston Red Sox Simulation - Game 1

2/12/2015

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by  R.A. Rowell; Co-Owner of Intent-sive Nature & the Brand Shamans network
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The 1967 Chicago White Sox were not known for their offense. Yet, somehow, the Chicago White Sox exploded for 11 runs in our 1967 Red Sox simulation season debut. You might ask how I allowed 10 runs to score in the first 3 innings off of Jim Lonborg. To be fair, there were three errors, and it all happened very, very fast. Seriously, who would have expected that sort of beginning?

The real Red Sox defeated the White Sox 5-4 at Fenway Park in the real first game of the 1967 season. Jose Tartabull started over the young Reggie Smith in the real game, but Smith was about the only guy in my simulation to do much of anything. The good White Sox pitching shut the lineup down completely.

Was this just a crazy fluke of randomness? What really bothered me was that I had to use a couple pitchers that I didn't really want to use as long relievers: Lee Stange and Gary Waslewski. I also realized, due to the fact that it's pulling actual historical lineups, the rosters are very much expanded beyond what you would ordinarily see, making the benches and bullpens much larger than usual. Actually, it didn't pull the Red Sox historical lineup I noticed, either. I will be referring to the historical lineups from Baseball Reference from now on to try and make it closer to history. It's probably because I'm a human manager, so it's using whatever lineups the game considers "optimized" - not that it made any difference in this particular case.

It's a frustrating and a bit annoying beginning to this experiment, but we shall hope that game two is far more enjoyable.

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The Impossible Dream - Out of the Park Baseball 2015 - 1967 Red Sox

2/12/2015

 
by  R.A. Rowell; Co-Owner of Intent-sive Nature & the Brand Shamans network
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Earlier this year, I purchased Out of the Park Baseball 2015, commonly known as OOTP15 among baseball nerds such as myself. I didn't really want to wait and shell out $40 USD for the 2016 edition, even if it is MLB licensed with all the pretty logos and such. While I was never a huge fan of OOTP 13, I decided to give the franchise another chance. Besides having to manually put in all of the correct team names, the rosters are all quite accurate and the simulation quality is excellent. But for whatever reason, despite the fact I really like managing the games in play by play mode, I've never felt comfortable building a franchise in this game.

So I decided to do something that I used to do in Baseball Mogul, but that many baseball fans agree is something that's better done in Out of the Park Baseball: historical replays. Back in Baseball Mogul, I used to take over all sorts of teams, especially Red Sox historical teams. I was always very good at not only winning World Series, but making perpetual winners. Of course, that can be done with OOTP, but they offer something interesting in this version that I don't recall being a part of Baseball Mogul. They let you use historical transactions and historical lineups. While this obviously hamstrings me from making any moves, I guess that's sort of what I want to do anyway. If I become the manager of the 1967 "Impossible Dream" Boston Red Sox, will they still make it to the World Series like they did in real life. And this time, will it be against the Cardinals? Or someone else? Because the transactions will still be historical, we need not worry about the computer making some really strange and wacky moves as AI tends to do in sports simulation games. That means we get to see the seasons unfold in a pure simulation setting based on the actual stats of the players that played. Through this series, we'll get to actually know the 1967 Red Sox and who they actually put out on that field, and who they played against.

Their ace was a man named Jim Lonborg, a pitcher well known to Red Sox fans. Entering his third season with the Sox, he was coming off back to back stellar campaigns, including a 4 WAR effort in 1966 in which he started 23 games while appearing in 22 others. He compiled 181 2/3 innings and a 3.86 ERA. While that ERA is not bad, offense was booming during this era, so that mark was good for about 11% than league average.

These Red Sox had a pretty solid lineup, too. Of course, they had Carl Yastrzemski, who was already among the best players in baseball at age 27. Young slugger Tony Conigliaro was tearing the league up, and 1967 would be the year that he would famously be hit by a pitch, and never be the same again. This simulation brings up an interesting twist - he will 99 percent most likely not be hit by a pitch in the head that will cause the same injury. That will make young Tony a player to watch during this series.

I'll get more into individual players as I play the games and share with you the box scores. This will be a lot of fun to do and I hope you enjoy reading about this experience as much as I will playing it!



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