It took to game 162, a makeup of a rainout to do it, but I finished a game ahead of the A's and won the West.

I took a 2-1 lead into game 4, but we never were in game 4 or 5 and the Red Sox took us out as two former Angels won games in the series. That was fun.

The Red Sox then went on to sweep the Giants with those same 2 pitchers getting wins as they broke the Bambino curse. In 1977! :)

As the off season begins, our system rating is all the way up to 4th. We don't have anyone in the top 15, but we have 9 players between 16th and 78th. Even if we only hit on 1/3 of our top 9 prospects, that's great progress.

Eddie Murray, #16 prospect, will be our 1b next year. But other than maybe #78 prospect P Rick Williams, I don't expect any other prospects to be in the bigs next year.

We will move Darrell Evans from 1B to 3B and trade 23 year old Roy Howell to make room for Murray 1B. We should get quite a bit for young players coming off .269/.334/.451 22 HR 91 Rbi's. Evans is 30, but he just crushed 37 HR and had 110 RBI, I can't move him. The owner wants me to improve at 2b. Maybe I can package Howell and another youngster, 2B Ivan DeJesus for a stud. After that .128 month of April, DeJesus ended up hitting .272 but with no pop. He did play good defense, so I can't take a hit in that department.

I have tried my best to not take advantage when the AI makes no sense, whether that be in trade offers or now in free agency. But this off-season, I had to sign someone who should have asked for at least double what they asked for.

David Rusco is a fictional 28 year old SS who has averaged 5.5 WAR in his 7 years and is a very good fielder. He was the MVP 3 years ago with a 8.2 WAR season. He is an OBP machine, career .250/.373/.359 averaging 105 walks per season.

The Phillies let him walk and I got him for $250,000 a year for 4 years. Top FA's are getting $700,000 and up and he's a 4 time All-Star SS at 28 years old. Crazy. He's also a great 2B, so I am shifting him there until 36 year old Jim Fregosi becomes a UFA in 2 years. Last seasons 2B, Ivan DeJesus will back up each position.

My other plan to deal Roy Howell for pitching help is on hold as I was able to deal 24 year old Tony Armas for 32 year old Steve Carlton, who has 1 year left in his deal. Armas had a good rookie season after I took him in the Rule 5 draft, hitting .305 with 12 hr's in part-time status, but he would be our 5th OF this year. Carlton isn't IRL Steve Carlton, but he's still a 2-time all star who eats innings.

Blue Moon Odom, coming off his Reliever of the Year award, wants a raise from $150,000 to $900,000 next year, which is totally fair. But I am not paying that. Instead, I am shifting him to the rotation and moving Dick Drago to closer.

After dealing for Carlton at $510,000 a year and signing Rusco, I have a grand total of $20,000 left in our budget. I think I am done. For now

Looking back at my first post when I started this, Milwaukee has become a very intriguing team. While I have won the division a few times and 1 World Series, the Brewers have been bad every season until this past year when they got above .500 for the first time in the 8 years I've played on the backs of drafting high and stocking up on young talent like:

24 year old Keith Hernandez .341/.388/.532 17 hr 118 RBI
23 year old Jason Thompson .272/.354/.510 38 hr 110 RBI
22 year old Robin Yount .338/.393/.512 16 hr 53 doubles 124 runs 8.4 WAR MVP
25 year old Jim Rice .286/.340/.429 11 hr 30 doubles
19 year old Rickey Henderson rookie this year

Their job is open and damn, that is a tempting group of young players, but I have to stick with my Angels. I have our prospect group to their highest rating of 4th and I won the division. I have confidence that we will take it all this year

Starting the season with 2 additions to our lineup from last year; 2b and MVP of the ML 3 years ago, David Rusco and rookie 1B Eddie Murray. Going to hang on to Roy Howell until Murray is solidly a major-leaguer.

I moved closer Blue Moon Odom and signed Steve Carlton, so it's Lefty/Blue Moon/Hooton/Blyleven/Wise for my rotation with Dick Drago moving to closer.

Some pretty big injuries during Spring Training, the Braves lost Ken Holtzman and Juan Marichal to season ending injuries. 38 year old Rico Carty, right after signing a huge-3 year extension with the Red Sox, tore up his knee and is out for 3 months and Steve Kemp is out 4-5 months with a concussion

For the 1st time, we are predicted to win our division. We have won 8 games more than predicted on average since I started, so I hope that's a sign of a runaway. *doubts it*

Beware could be like the Sports Illustrated cover jinx.

Given the wild personalities in our rotation, I could see some weird picture with Blue Moon Odom/Steve Carlton/Bert Blyleven/Burt Hooton/Rick Wise dressed up as Angels with some witty headline like:

"Angels Aces Are Atypical, Abnormal.....and Amazing!!!!"

We won our first 7 games and sit 10-3 after the first 2 weeks of the season. Everything is working, we lead the lead in OBP and are 2nd in home runs and we are 2nd in ERA. The team is healthy, now that Drago came off the IL after 10 games.

New additions are playing well, Rusco is .308/.382 in the leadoff spot and playing great defense. Carlton is 2-0 after 2 starts as is Odom after moving him from closer.

I am little concerned about Eddie Murray. He had a herniated disk in his back 3 years ago and he has suffered 3 different day-to-day back spams since then, the most recent being after 3 games this year. I typically don't sit players who are moderately injured, I may have them take more days off, but I will still play them 50-75% of the time. But I think if I do that with Murray, the game is telling me, "DON'T". Keeping Roy Howell has made that decision easier, he hit 20 HR's last season.

April is in the books and we are 1/2 games ahead of the Twins in 1st place. We are still 2nd in runs, but we are down to 7th in pitching, we lost some high scoring games the last few weeks. Darrell Evans is the only guy struggling at the plate, hitting under .200 with just 3 HR's after a great year last year.

The Red Sox. The Red Sox are 19-2. They are scoring a little less than 7 runs a game. It literally PAINS me to see Graig Nettles in a @$!#$!& Boston jersey. And he finally has become an all-star at age 31 in Boston.

They now have 22-year old Ozzie Smith.....at 2B and DH. He's a good fielder, not great. But this version of Smith can hit, he's leading off and hitting over .300. Rick Burleson is on pace for a season of 16 WAR. Dwight Evans is on pace for 15 WAR and free agent signee SS Al Cowens on pace for 14 WAR.

Last season MVP Robin Yount had an April of .451/.468/.692 4HR 6 doubles 3 triples 5 steals while committing 1 error at SS. He's good

After a good April, Odom came back asking for 6 yrs at a little under $700,000 a season. He is turning 33 in a few weeks, so I can't sign him at term, so I countered for the same annual pay but for 4 years, the last a player option. I also bumped up bonus payouts and he took it. The fan interest went from 82 to 86 as he is an extremely popular player.

Carlton, Freehan and Wynn are also wanting to sign rather than test free agency, we will see how the season goes a little bit on them.

A solid but not spectacular 15-11 May puts us in 1st place, 2 1/2 up on both the A's and Twins. I did lose Rick Wise to a shoulder injury, likely for the season, which is a big loss not only this year, but he has 2 years left at $300,000 a year after this year and this is his 2nd major shoulder injury. I am going to audition 3-4 people for his spot in the rotation and I signed recently released 35-year old Jim Rooker to a minor league deal in the hopes he can join the big club in a few weeks.

The Red Sox cooled off considerably after that 19-2 start. They are still in first, but at 35-17, they are just 16-15 since then.

Gary Matthews is playing great for us, he's 3rd in the AL at .335 and in RBI at 37 to go with 10 steals. Bert Blyleven is 6-0 and is 5th in ERA at 2.29. The major difference this year has been our fielding. We were between 10th and 14th the last few years in every category, but this year we are 5th in defensive efficiency and 6th in range. David Rusco at 2nd, Eddie Murray at 1st and Dan Briggs in either LF or RF have been really great in the field, my 3 new additions to the every day lineup have all OBP over .360 as well.

But my bullpen has been poor, which means I have been poor. If I pull a starter late in the game, the bullpen blows it. If I keep him in, the starter blows it. We are 3rd in ERA but the bullpen in 9th....and I point the finger at me. We should have 4-5 more wins if I had pushed the right buttons.

I wouldn't be able to tolerate that. When you started this I told you the only thing I don't do straight up if I am playing this era is to have Nettles on my roster. I try to make a fair trade and if the Twins don't accept I force it.

While Nettles was always my favorite the Yankees of the 70's were my youth. I did a save where I took on the Padres in 1970 and in 1975 got a news story that the Yankees traded Munson to the Expos for Ron Fairly and Jerry Hairston, nearly made my head explode. Same season The Red Sox traded Yastremski to the Tigers for Willie Horton-I'm sure Sox fans wouldn't have like that one.

I started a Henry Aaron career to see how he would do. As it turned out, he was a regular all-star, but he wasn't Aaron. Eddie Mathews was a better player, which makes some mathematical sense given how he started his career prior to Aaron. But this simulation I was just the manager, I wasn't the GM and the idiot GM traded Aaron in 1962 to the Dodgers for 23 year old Tommie Davis......and I rage quit. LOL

I've been a GM and manager ever since.

I may have just had a lucky break. Immediately after a save, I played a game where Blyleven was injured with the 'Red Cross' next to his name pre-diagnosis. But after the game ended, which I won, the game immediately shut down and lost all details of that game. Blyleven could have just been day-to-day and a only lost a win. But he could have had a serious injury and I dodged a serious bullet.

This is weird, 1 game after you posted about the Yankees trading Munson, the Yankees traded 31 year old Munson, who averages 5 WAR a season and is on pace for 5.5 this season.......he's signed for 5 more years....and the Yankees get a decent but not great 1b prospect and middle reliever Vern Ruhle.

There was no reason for the trade, none. I'm glad he's out of the AL, 8 time all-star, 6 time gold glove, he's going to the HOF, he's hitting over .300 for his career and they just dumped him

We were a mediocre 14-14 in June, but that included 15 games against the Orioles, Yankees and Red Sox, and they are all playing .595 ball or better. I am not happy that we were 6-9 against them because if we win the West, we will get one of these teams.

The better news is everyone else chasing me in the west were awful, so our lead went from 2 1/2 to 5 1/2 games. Barring injuries, I think it's clear we are the best team by far in the west.

Prized rookie Eddie Murray is in the midst of a 15-game hitting streak and has been better than I could have hoped. He's 4th in the AL in hitting at .330 with .401/.483 to fill out the slash lines. He's added 6 HR's and 20 doubles so far and you would think he would be running away with the ROY. But he is not first in the running, and may not even be second.

Bob Horner has burst on the scene in Detroit this year going .331/.368/.555 with 14 HR's. On top of that, Ozzie Smith in Boston has started his career with a .319/.374/410 with 25 steals and 26 doubles.

I'm a moron, not even out of June and the A's have caught us. :)

I am not sure what to do about 31 year old Darrell Evans. He has 4 years left at $460,000 a year and last year he hit .270 with 37 HR. But he is under .210 this year with just 6 HR. In his 9 years he's had 7 years between 13-19 HR and 2 over 35 HR. I have 23 year old Roy Howell coming off a 20 HR season who has been backing up at 3rd, but he can't field well but will add to the offense for sure.

I can get my old SP 34 year old Rudy May back from Houston for Evans. He only has 1 year left at $550,000 and he's still a #2 or #3 starter and my #5 has been ass ever since Rick Wise went out. It will give me more room in 2 years when some of my younger players start getting arbitration eligible so, I will pull the trigger.

Now in his 5th year in our system, he has struggled when promoted to AAA, but he is over .300 in AA in the 3 seasons he's been there and has stolen an average of 80 bases a season. In AAA, however, he is hitting just .210 in 100 AB's. He is average defensively and has zero power at all.

I have a feeling he will be a AAA player, tops.

I remember Ken Oberkfell as just 'a guy'. Never that good, never bad....his 162 average was 1.9 WAR a season. He was never why you won, but he wasn't why you lost either.

In this world, though, Oberkfell rakes. He hit .292 as a 20 year old rookie for Atlanta and followed that up with .307 last year and was at .351 on a pace for 50 doubles when he blew his knee out. Kinda bummed for "him".

We ended up 15-14 in July and thanks to a loss to the A's on the last day of the month, we are 1/2 behind Oakland now.

Lots of players had meh or worse months, Eddie Murray may have hit the rookie wall as he is down to .293. The trading deadline passed and I had a decent offer to acquire Tommy John, but I decided to go with what I have. We are pretty much healthy but I have obviously lost some of my confidence in the club.

Another mediocre 14-13 month and we are now 6 games behind the A's. We have the 3rd best run differential in the major leagues, 45 runs better than Oakland but we are 6 games behind them. We "should" be 3 games up, but that really doesn't matter. We are just 23-23 since the All-Star game and Oakland is 32-13.

Not sure how we will make up ground, we have zero games left with them and we both play no teams that are over .500 the entire month of September. Can I install a wild-card in the game in 1978? :).

I re-signed pending free agents Carlton and Bill Freehan a few weeks ago and they've been crap since and Rudy May has been poor since trading for him.

GM of the Year here

ETA.....I was wrong about the A's not playing any teams over .500. Their first 3 were against the Red Sox and they were swept as we outscored the Blue Jays 32-8 in a 3 game sweep.

3 back now and the bats are getting warm, 3 players on *fire*