California Angels 1970

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As expected, we picked up a ton of post season awards

Dave Clark, Tony Gwynn and pitcher Kevin Houston won Silver Sluggers, Mike Stanley and Candy Maldonado won Gold Gloves and Andy Araujo won the Cy Young.

Sigler obviously won the NL MVP with his 71 home runs. Palmeiro won ROY for the Giants with 42 HR's and a .290 average. In the AL, so many players hit the hell out of the ball, a dozen players could have made a case for MVP, but Barry Bonds won it with 61 HR and a .311 average. Andy McGaffigan won Cy Young going 21-9 with a 3.59 ERA and Kevin Appear won ROY going 18-10 with a 3.53 ERA.

The position of LF in the NL may be better than any position through 1987

Sigler .336/.436/.750 71 hr 160 rbi
Incavliglia .303/.366/.637 55 hr 133 rbi
Greenwell .349/.417/.576 20 hr 101 rbi
Darkis .308/.400/.669 54 hr 140 rbi
Marshall .325/.374/.584 43 hr 136 rbi
Palmiero .290/.372/.574 42 hr 110 rbi
Gwynn .365/.409/.465 11 hr 42 2b 77 rbi 24 steals

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While I had my eyes on Fred Lynn all last season with the thought of signing him this offseason, I hadn't realized that Chili Davis was also going to be a UFA. In this reality, Davis is a Gold Glove catcher who is a .300 hitter who hits 25-45 HR's and steals 40+ bases. He is a unicorn.

However, I have the NL Silver Slugger at catcher, 24 year old Mike Stanley and while I can move him to 1st, Jack Clark is there. So that's not going to happen. So while I have more than enough money to sign him to the 8x4 million plus he wants, it would force another move and I don't think I want that.

Davis signed for the Twins and I got Lynn for 5X4 million to run through his 40th birthday

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As the 1988 season begins, we are the favorites in the NL. After winning the World Series and adding a HOF'er in free agency means that unless we get decimated with injury, we look good.

In the AL, the Twins went out and signed Ryne Sandberg (75% of RL ability) Tony Gwynn (80% of RL) and Chili Davis (150% of RL) and traded for Willie Wilson, so I expect to play them in the World Series as they already had a good club.

[olympia]

this has been a good read. Enjoyed watching as you built the Angels up over the years. I'm sure there is some animosity that you jumped to the cross town rival Dodgers. Hoped to see a 405 freeway series

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Originally Posted by olympia

this has been a good read. Enjoyed watching as you built the Angels up over the years. I'm sure there is some animosity that you jumped to the cross town rival Dodgers. Hoped to see a 405 freeway series

Thanks! Sorry been away for a while. I came down with Covid for the 1st time. It wasn't physically terrible, but I had brutal brain fog and zero energy, so I have been taking my time with this season.

The Angels are doing their part this season, they are in first place. I have to admit, if I was going to stay there I was going to blow it up and go with youth. My replacement did the opposite, they traded ALL their prospects for immediate help. They are last in organizational prospect rankings, but they are in 1st.

And while we have the 2nd best record in baseball, we are 5 games behind the Reds who are 37-14. We are healthy and doing "ok", but nobody is playing great and a few players are underachieving.

Leadoff man Jeff Carter is .254/.323/.350 after hitting .293/.439 as a rookie last year. Brunansky is at .228/.309/.329 while everyone else is doing either as expected or just a little above.

As usual, the AI waived a player that would never be waived. I do my best to ignore those, I feel that's taking advantage of poor design. But this time I picked up Paul Assenmacher as we needed a 5th starter. He was a good middle reliever the last 2 years but was a starter in the past. If he can't fit the bill, he's a trusted bullpen arm and I could use a 2nd leftie other than Will McEnaney and Steve Howe.

Allen Sigler, who hit 71 home runs last year is only on a pace for 30 this year. The guy who is having the monster year is Montreal's 3B Larry Walker. Yes, third baseman. The 21 year old is on pace for .389/.439/.782 15.4 WAR 68 HR 182 RBI 42 steals.

That's a wrap up after 2 months, the Reds have a chance to be good all season. They are 1st in every major offensive category except home runs. They have:
22 year old Craig Biggio who could be as good as IRL
25 year old Ken Caminiti, same
28 year old Tim Raines who is a 2-time AS and 3-time Silver Slugger at 2B
24 year old 3B Mike Greenwell who led the league in batting last year
32 year old SS Robin Yount who will put up 3-4 WAR if healthy
23 year old CF Ron Gant who could be a little better than IRL
30 year old RF Brett Butler who averages a .380 OBP and 40-70 steals

They aren't great in the field or on the mound, so if they get injuries, they may be in trouble, that's what happened to them last year. And as I write this, Raines has an injury waiting diagnosis.

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As we approached the end of June, we were 6 games back of the Reds as we opened up a 3 game series in Cincinnati and we really came through sweeping the Reds and July 1st found us just 2 1/2 back and feeling much better about the club.

We are 2nd in runs and 2nd in runs allowed. We only have 1 pitcher with an ERA over 4 and if I had to guess, our pitching will win out in the long run over the Reds who rely on their offense.

Last year, 6 different players hit over 50 HR's but this year, nobody is on a pace for 50. Last year exploded offensively but this year it's come down quite a bit.

We haven't a single game to injury this year, not one. I can't see that holding up much longer, but our roster is made of players who are very healthy historically.

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I received an awful trade proposal, Oakland offering 10-4 Dennis Martinez for a nobody AA player. He's 35 and a pending UFA, but he's an All-Star and could get a monster package.......so I couldn't do it.

...but I could add in a 28 year old 4-star pitcher who never has hit his potential to make it somewhat equitable. In fact, my assistant said don't do it, but Martinez was a favorite of mine IRL and he is now my #5 starter. My pitching is just unfair

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We closed out the first half just a game behind the Reds and my comment about being healthy was untrue after our very next game. In the next week, Maldonado, Dave Clark and Mike Morgan suffered minor injuries and our utility man Ivan DeJesus hurt his back and went on the DL.

Our team is so balanced, our pitchers go 7 innings every game and I try to get all of the bullpen arms 2 games a week.

Araujo 122 innings 2.88 ERA
Elliott 121 innings 2.45 ERA
Hernandez 115 innings 2.96 ERA
Houston 123 innings 2.48 ERA
Martinez 125 innings 3.16 ERA

Assenmacher 63 innings 3.98 ERA
Gullickson 31 innings 3.48 ERA
Morgan 29 innings 3.38 ERA
Howe 35 innings 2.27 ERA 19 saves
McEneney 28 innings 2.22 ERA
Moore 38 innings 2.13 ERA
Meiliand 38 innings 1.91 ERA 6 wins 11 holds

And our offense is very balanced

Jack Clark 48 RBI 49 runs
Kelly 45 RBI 42 runs
Lynn 41 RBI 52 runs
Brunansky 46 RBI 48 runs
Dave Clark 64 RBI 48 runs

Every other division is a bit of a blowout, the Angels are up 6 games, Red Sox 7 and Phillies 8

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We had a really solid 19-8 July, but so did the Reds, so we still sit 1 game back. I didn't make any deals at the deadline and the Reds picked up a starter, so I'm riding with my team as is.

The Angels dipped in July and only hold a 1 game lead over the Twins while the Red Sox and Phillies are on their way to winning their division.

We open August with 3 against the Reds at home and then have 3 at their place next week and then 6 more in September, so it's all to play for.

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A few notes on the season:

Last year there were 7 players with 50+ home runs while this year only 1 player is projected to even hit 40. Not sure what was in the water last year, but it was a huge deviation to the numbers. Allen Sigler hit 71 HR last year and this year is on a pace for 30.

AAA Albuquerque 56-52 1st place
AA San Antonio 57-51 1st place
A Bakersfield 63-48 2nd place
A Vero Beach 58-49 2nd place
BC Gulf Coast 19-23 6th place
BC Great Falls 16-20 4th place
BC Salem 38-30 2nd place

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Halfway through August and with a 10-4 start, we are now 3 games up on the Reds.
Dave Clark is pushing for an MVP this year, leading the league with 91 RBI, 4th in HR with 23 and hitting .304. Larry Walker is the likely winner, but Clark is on fire this month. I signed 24 year old Clark to an 8-year extension last year at just a little over $1million a year and he is going to be an MVP-level player the whole time.

Speaking of bargains, I re-signed 33 year old Willie Hernandez to a 4 year, $1.4 million extension in the offseason coming off his worst year ever with a 4.30 ERA. My leap of faith paid off as he is 2nd in the league in wins at 15-3, 6th in ERA at 2.69 and a 4-1 k/bb ratio, walking just over 1 batter per 9 innings.

We are now 1st in ERA, 1st in HR's, 2nd in zone rating and 2nd in runs, I like our chances

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I would have hoped that a 20-9 August would open up a lead, but we are still just 3 games ahead of the Reds with 6 games left against them. This has been a really fun season for me, really enjoying a good race against a young team that looks to be a good foe for several years.

The Phillies are still up 10 games and the Red Sox are now up 6 on the Orioles. The Twins are just 1 game back of the Angels in the other nail biter.

Larry Walker is still the favorite for MVP, but Dave Clark just had a monster month being named player of the month. He hit .390 with 10 HR, 24 runs and 36 RBI. He now leads the league in RBI with 112, 20 more than Walker in 2nd. Walker still leads the league in HR with 31, but Clark is right there with 28. Walker has been leading the league in hitting all year, consistently around .350 all year. But Clark is up to 3rd at .318.

Willie Hernandez was named Pitcher of the Month going 6-0 with a 1.75 ERA. Elliott in 2nd in ERA, Hernandez is 3rd and Houston in 4th.

Frank Tanana of the Phillies just picked up his 250th win. He is leading the league with 19 wins. and at age 35, has a great chance at 300.

[sharknut]

Well, we won the division, but September was not a work of art.

We closed the season out going 7-9 to close our worst month of the season at 13-14. But the Reds crapped the bed even worse going 12-15 so we won the West by 4 games with a league best 102-60 record. That's the 2nd time my teams have won 100 games and we will face the Phillies.

With 10 games left, we lost Fred Lynn for a week with a back injury and with just a 3 game lead and playing poorly I was worried that would really hurt us. Then 3 games later while trying for his 20-win, I lost Willie Hernandez to a 2 month injury. So there went my ace. But we limped across the line, but we will have to do it without our best pitcher.

Very happy to have traded for Dennis Martinez, otherwise I would have dig into the bullpen for a 4th starter. With Hernandez out, I decided to add our #1 OF prospect, Ruben Sierra to the postseason roster. He doesn't look like he's going to have the same impact IRL, but he should be a RF starter somewhere.

Hitting 5th, Dave Clark led our club in all the majors: .313 31 HR 127 RBI all led the club. Fred Lynn hit 3rd all year and led the team in runs with 102 and hit .290, but only had 79 RBI, the 1st time in 13 years he had less than 100 when healthy all season.

We need a leadoff hitter, Lynn didn't come up with guys on base enough. The players I used in the 1-2 spot all year, Roberto Kelly, Jeff Carter and Tom Brunansky got on base at a .321 clip, so neither Lynn nor Jack Clark could load up on RBI's. That's why Dave Clark had so many RBI after Lynn and Clark got on base.

We stole bases very successfully, for the most part

Jeff Carter 51 for 62
Tom Brunansky 28 for 33
Dave Clark 19 for 23
Randy Milligan 13 for 16

The exception being Kelly, who was 24 for 46.

Our 4 starters will be:

Michael Elliott 17-7 2.55
Andy Araujo 13-6 3.07
Kevin Houston 14-8 2.94
Dennis Martinez 17-9 2.90

Steve Howe had a great season as our closer as he was 3rd in the league with 29 saves and a 1.91 ERA. But he wasn't close to being our best reliever. James Melliand was 8-3 with 7 saves with a minuscule .99 ERA in 72 2/3 innings. His WHIP was "just" 1.05, and he had 46 k's, so he is not a flame-thrower. He just got everyone out. He had a 2.50 ERA last year and he was planned to be our setup man, but he may just have to be our closer next year.

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In his 1st postseason AB after a season where he didn't get many chances with men on base, Fred Lynn crushed a 2-run home run in the bottom of the first to erase a 1st inning Phillies run to give the Dodgers a 2-1 lead.

But the Phillies came right back in the 2nd. Frank Tanana helped his cause with a sac fly and lead off man Randy Kutcher followed up with a single to put the Phillies back on top of Michael Elliott and the Dodgers 3-2. But with 2 outs and 2 in the bottom half of the 2nd, Lynn jacked his 2nd HR in 2 innings to give the Dodgers a 5-3 lead.

The pitching settled down after that, but the Phillies made it 5-4 in the 5th and left men on base in the 6th and 7th to waste some opportunities. We added a run in the 7th when Brunansky doubled in a run and Melliand and Howe shut down the Phillies and we took 1-0 lead.

In the AL, Gerald Perry went 4-4 with 3 RBI as the Red Sox battered Bruce Ruffin around in an 8-2 win. Rich Murray added a home run for the Red Sox in the win. Eddie's little brother didn't have much of a career IRL. but in this one, the 31 year old has 1044 hits and 92 HR while Eddie has just 995 hits and 120 HR's.

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In game 2, Tom Candiotti and Araujo matched zeros through 3, but Kutcher doubled in a run in the 4th to open the scoring, 1-0. We started to give things away in the 5th after Brunansky dropped a fly ball which eventually led to to 2 unearned runs on another Kutcher double and a Mike Bordick single.

We were generous again in the 6th. A Maldonado error contributed to a 3-run inning and the Phils took a comfortable 5-0 lead. Keith Moreland and Mike Anderson added RBI singles and Araujo's day was over, allowing 5 runs, but only 2 earned.

We got 1 back in the bottom half with a Brunansky home run, and then the amazing Lynn made it back-to-back with his 3rd hr of the series and it was quickly 5-2. But in the top half of the 7th, Bill Gullickson surrendered a monster home run to Allen Sigler and they had a 5-run lead back, 7-2.

That man Randy Kutcher hit a 2-run HR in the top of the 9th, and they almost needed it. We added 3 runs with hits and walks to make it 9-5, and Brunansky came up with the bases loaded, but popped out and the series went back to Philly tied at 1

In the AL, 38 year old Burt Hooton allowed just 6 runners in 9 innings as the Twins literally turned the series around, winning 8-2 after losing game 1 by the same score. Ellis Burks homered and knocked in 3 and Chili Davis hit 2 doubles and had 2 RBI.

Hooton has had a great career. The 38-year old has won at least 10 games 17 of his 18 years and has added 2 years of at least 10 wins and 20 saves. He has 251 wins and after a year going 17-12, he has an outside chance of making it to 300

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In the text book definition of "good news/bad news", we took game 3 6-4, but we lost Fred Lynn to a "awaiting diagnosis" injury in the 3rd inning after hitting his 2nd double of the game and knocking in 2 to give us a 5-0 lead which we never lost.

We didn't score for the next 4 innings as the Phillies made it 5-3, but Brunasnky hit another RBI double and we hung on for a 6-4 lead. Randy Milligan will play left until we find out how bad the injury is. Sigh.

The Twins and Sox played a classic in game 3. Tom Hume faced Bret Saberhagen for the Twins, and Wes Clements made in 2-0 Sox in the 1st with a 2-run home run, but that was all the Sox got off Saberhagen. The Twins pushed across single runs in the 5th and 7th and the game went into extras.

In the top of the 10th, Jeff Montgomery balked in a run and then Ken Landreaux singled in another and it looked like the Sox would win 4-2. But in the bottom half, Chili Davis hit a 2-out, 2-run double off Bill Long to send this to the 11th. In the 12th, Dan Gladden sent the Twins fans home happy with a single off Don Carmen to give the Twins a 2-1 series lead

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No update on Lynn's condition before game 4, so Randy Milligan will go into left field, so our bench will be without our best pinch hitter along with Lynn being out. Dennis Martinez only went 1 inning, allowing 4 runs including another Siegler home run. I normally let my pitchers go longer when they've been lit up in the 1st, but I had a feeling he just didn't have it and that Bill Gullickson would be a better option the rest of the way.

I was right, Gullickson allowed just 1 run over 5 innings, but we could only make it a 5-2 game entering the 7th. Candy Maldonado got us 1 run closer with a solo home run and we were within 5-3 going into the 9th.

Mike Stanley led off with a double and then after back-to-back walks to Maldonado and Jeff Carter, the pitcher spot came up. This is where Randy Milligan should be hitting, but due to Lynn's injury, I sent up Ruben Sierra and his 10 career AB's with nobody out and he popped up to short. That brought up our lead off hitter, Roberto Kelly who does what a lead off hitter should do with the bases loaded and 1 out while down 2 runs in the 9th.......he hit the first pitch into a 5-4-3 double play to end the game and we are all tied up, 2 games all.

In the AL, it's tied up at 2 as well as Rick Rhoden and the Sox bullpen allowed 2 runs and Dan Meier knocked in 3 of the 4 Boston runs as the Twins fell 4-2 and both series are now best of 3

[sharknut]

Good news overnight that Lynn could return in game 5, he's just banged up, so we are back at full strength. The Phillies scratched across runs in the 2nd and 4th off Elliott and we found ourselves behind 2-0 going into the 5th. After a Carter RBI single in the 5th, Brunansky hit his 2nd home run of the series off Tanana in the 6th to tie things up and we remained at 2-2 going into the 8th as the bullpens entered the fray.

Philadelphia has some good bullpen arms, but they brought in their 5th starter, Rich Leggett for the 8th to face Brunansky, Lynn and Jack Clark. Brunansky took his 2nd pitch over the left field wall and we led 3-2. After a Lynn single, Clark hit a 2-run home run to the row behind Brunansky's home run and it was 5-2. Before the Philly fans could stop booing, Dave Clark took the first pitch he saw over the right field wall and Leggett allowed 4 runs on 11 pitches and we had the 6-2 lead which was the final score and we lead the series 3-2 going back to LA

The Red Sox also are going home 1 game away from the World Series after a 7-5 in Minnesota. Ruffin was roughed up again as the Sox dinked around 12 singles and 1 double and they are 1 game away from their 1st World Series since 1980

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In a series where it's gone W-L-W-L-W, could we break that pattern? No, no we couldn't. There were a total of 16 hits in the 3-1 Philadelphia win, but 15 were singles. It was a match of jabs and no knockdown, but it's a win for Philly and we will go to the 7th game.

Tom Candiotti allowed 7 singles and walked 5, but we could only scratch across an unearned run as Araujo pitched well, but gave up 3 of the 5 hits allowed to consecutive batters and we had no fight back.

No matter who wins, they are going to Boston as 38 year old Hooton ran out of gas allowing 6 runs in less than 3 innings in a series clinching 9-3 Boston win. Rich Murray, Ozzie Smith and Jerome Walton each knocked in 2 runs and Ellis Burks was named series MVP in a losing cause, hitting .462 with 2 HR's.

[sharknut]

Game 7's are where the greats become Greats.

Fred Lynn is now 6-6 in League Championship Series and he has been named MVP in 3 of those LCS's. He hit .500 with 3 HR and 9 RBI despite missing 1 3/4 games with injury. He was 3-4 with a run and RBI as we took game 7 4-1 and I am now going to my 6th World Series in 7 years.

But Lynn is something else, I am going to do a post with his career accomplishments after the World Series, but he is a better Derek Jeter in this world. It's amazing the career he has had and he is still ours for 4 more years. '

On to Boston