California Angels 1970

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Fred Lynn will have a season full of milestones as 1991 opens. He is just 9 hits short of 3000 hits and 7 home runs short of 500.

Against righties we will use this lineup to start the season

Willie McGee-RF
Roberto Kelly-SS
Fred Lynn-LF
Dave Clark-CF
Julio Franco-2B
Mike Stanley-C
Von Hayes-3B
Hensley Meulens-1B

While against lefties we will use
Kelly
Franco
Lynn
Stanley
Clark
Ellis Valentine-RF
Meulens
Hayes

Andy Hawkins
Sid Fernandez
David Cone
Kevin Houston
Mike Morgan

I decided to use rookie Greg Olsen as our closer right from the beginning of the season. He's averaged 25 saves a season in AA-AAA since we drafted him

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We took 2 of 3 in our season opening series against Atlanta, but the results are rather secondary to Hensley Meulens hitting a grand slam for his first hit in his 2nd at bat in the opening game, and then hitting 2 home runs in the last game of the series.

We may have ourselves a 23-year old power hitting first baseman .

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We were 14-7 in April the 3rd best record in the league, but the Reds have raced off to a 17-3 record, so we sit 3 1/2 back despite the best offense and 3rd fewest runs allowed.

Dave Clark led us in April hitting .319 and leading the league with 8 HR 29 RBI. Rookie Hensley Meulens hit .293/.393/.547 and he is 4th in the NL with 5 HR's and 3rd in RBI with 19. They more than made up for Fred Lynn struggling through a .210 April.

After a grand slam opening night, new addition Willie McGee struggled a bit hitting just .220, but he drew enough walks to have a .333 OPB, so he's actually scored more runs than he has hits so far. Mike Stanley and Roberto Kelly are each hitting over .300, as is Ellis Valentine who has split time with McGee.

My Dodger pitchers have never been strikeout specialists. I tended to finish between 6th and 10th in strikeouts, but so far our staff is 2nd in the NL. New addition David Cone is 4th in strikeouts and Sid Fernandez is 2nd in K's per 9 innings and ace Andy Hawkins is getting about 6 K's per start, so we have shot up the table.

Meulens isn't our only rookie standout. Closer Greg Olson is a perfect 7-7 in saves, striking out 6 in 8 appearances. Olson's movement rating just went up to perfect and his stuff is A- as well, so we may have 2 gems as rookies this season.

In April, it was Meulens named Rookie of the Month

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Originally Posted by sharknut

In his last spring training start, Elliott tore his UCL and is out for the year. He hadn't been injury prone, this was his first trip to the DL in 8 years. He has 2 years at $1.1 million a year after this season, hopefully he can come back.

He was our ace, he led the NL in ERA last year. Our trade for Andy Hawkins looks like a very important move. He basically replaces Elliott as we were going to move our 5th starter Mike Morgan back to the pen, but he will fill the 5th starter role again, at least to start the season.

And now Hawkins is out for 6 weeks. We are 17-9, but the Reds are 19-7 and we are without our top 2 arms. Going to move Willie Hernandez back to the starting staff. We promoted our top prospect, 20 year old Sterling Hitchcock to AAA after a 6-0 start at AA. I hope we don't have to call him up , but 1 more starter going down may make that necessary.

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Originally Posted by sharknut

And now Hawkins is out for 6 weeks. We are 17-9, but the Reds are 19-7 and we are without our top 2 arms. Going to move Willie Hernandez back to the starting staff. We promoted our top prospect, 20 year old Sterling Hitchcock to AAA after a 6-0 start at AA. I hope we don't have to call him up , but 1 more starter going down may make that necessary.

2 weeks into the Hawkins injury, Hernandez pulled a hammy and is out for 3 weeks.

Hello, Mr. Hitchcock

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We went 16-11 in May which gives us a 1 1/2 game lead over the Reds. We've taken 4 of 5 against the Reds and we have 2 more with them to start June. We are really bashing the ball, after 48 games we've scored 45 more runs than the 2nd highest scoring team in the NL.

Dave Clark is 3rd in home runs with 13 and Fred Lynn and Hensley Meulens are tied for 5th with 10 each. Clark is 2nd in the league with 49 RBI with Lynn sitting 4th with 35 and Meulens 6th with 33.

Julio Franco is 3rd in runs with 36 while Clark and Lynn are tied for 5th with 33 each. Roberto Kelly, Meulens and Von Hayes each have scored 30 runs.

Our pitching ain't too shabby, either. 3rd in the NL in runs allowed and 2nd in strikeouts. Hitchcock has gone 1-0 with a 3.08 ERA in his 2 starts. I am limiting him to 90 pitches as he is just 20 years old and he has had 1 minor arm injury already.

Our other top pitching prospect, Sam Militello is out for 13 months with a UCL, so it really pained me to see the prospect we traded in the off-season, Rafael Novoa, win Rookie of the Month for St Louis. We dealt him along with Tom Brunansky for Andy Hawkins. Not only has Brunansky been better than he was for us, now Novoa looks like he was the prospect I should have kept over Militello. I had the choice and I chose unwisely.

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Originally Posted by sharknut

it really pained me to see the prospect we traded in the off-season, Rafael Novoa, win Rookie of the Month for St Louis. We dealt him along with Tom Brunansky for Andy Hawkins. Not only has Brunansky been better than he was for us, now Novoa looks like he was the prospect I should have kept over Militello. I had the choice and I chose unwisely.

In our first game against the Cardinals since we traded him, Brunansky hit a walkoff home run in the bottom of the 10th. I clicked "finish day" and the trainer said Hawkins isn't recovering well and will be out longer than expected.

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Our rotations made it so that game 2 in St. Louis matched up Hitchcock and Novoa, so the prospect we kept versus the prospect we traded and was just named rookie of the month.

Novoa was 4-4 with a 3.01 ERA in 10 starts as he was in the rotation for St Louis since opening day. Hitchcock stared the year in AA, had 3 starts in AAA and was 1-0 in 2 starts for us.

Novoa was great. 9 innings, 6 hits 1 run, 0 walks and 9 strikeouts.

Hitchcock was great-er. 7 innings 1 hit 0 runs 4 walks and 6 strikeouts.

Our bullpen was called upon as I allowed Hitchcock to get to 105 pitches, breaking my 90 pitch rule, but going up against his former teammate in A and AA, I took the risk. They shut them down and we won a really fun 1-0 game

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We are in a bit of trouble as the 2nd half begins. 16-17 in June and in a handful of games in July finds us 4 games behind the Reds. We had minor injuries all month, at one point we had 7 players were injured day-to-day while Fred Lynn was on the DL with a muscle injury.

We are still 1st in runs and 2nd in pitching, but we are 8-12 in 1 run games and 0-4 in extra innings as we are winning a lot of blowouts but not able to get the big hit in close games.

While we are 4 games out in 2nd place, in the NL, all 6 teams are within 4 games. Everyone is between 42-40 and 38-44. The Tigers are the best team in baseball at 58-25 and 13 games in front in the AL East. The Twins are 4 games up on Oakland in the West

Rookie Hensley Meulens has really cooled off, he's down to .232 but he is 2nd on the Dodgers with 13 HR's. Dave Clark has been great, hitting .300 with 19 HR's and 59 RBI and starting in the All-Star game.

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We are at the trade deadline and now we are 6 games back. I do not know what to do. I only have 1 pending UFA, Mike Stanley, and I can't get much for him based on me shopping him. ALL of my pitchers are signed through next year, and being 1st in pitching, I could only be a seller of pitching.

Stanley is asking for almost $30 million over 9 years, which is a joke. I won't give more than 4 years and $10, so I am going to guess he'll walk, but I think I just have to play the season out with who I have. 11 of our last 51 games are against the Reds, so even though we are 6 back, we can do this. Even a 7-4 record would mean we would be 3 back with 40 to go.

I am going to trust the team I built before the season.

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We scored 5 runs over 3 games in Houston prior to the Reds series and were lucky to get 1 win. Since the Reds won 2 of 3, we were 7 back to start the series.

Game 1 didn't start well as our #1 Andy Hawkins gave up 2 in the 2nd and 4 in the 3rd and we were down 6-0. Dave Clark and Von Hayes hit solo home runs in the 4th and 5th and Fred Lynn's 2 run shot in the 6th got us back to 6-4. It was 7-4 in the 8th when Mike Stanley and Julio Franco knocked in runs with singles and we came all the way back after Hayes doubled in Stanley and Franco and it was 8-7. I brought in Rick Moore in the 8th, but he spit the lead up, giving up a 2-run double to Craig Biggio. But in the 9th, Lynn hit a 2-run double to give us the 9-8 lead in an amazing game. We brought in Joe Beckwith to close it out. He was 9-9 for us in saves. So of course Jeremy Burnitz hit a walk-off 2-run home run, his 27th, and we lost game 1 11-10.

Heartbreaking.

When Kevin Houston gave up 3 runs in the 1st in game 2 of the series, I was about ready to think it wasn't our season. But Houston settled down and Lynn and Hensley Meulens hit solo shots to get us back to 3-2 after 5. But Tim Raines and Ken Caminiti knocked in runs and we were down 5-2. We made it 5-3 on a wild pitch and then Dave Clark hit a 2-run homer to tie it 5-5 in the 6th, and it stayed that way until extra innings. Julio Franco then hit his 8th home run on the year and we scraped out a 6-5 win and we weren't ready for golf yet.

In game 3, we cracked out 19 hits, 3 doubles, 3 triples and 2 home runs and won in a laugher, 20-1. Hayes went 3-5 with a grand slam and 7 RBI. He came up 4 times with the bases loaded in the game, he could have had an all-timer of a game. Starter Sterling Hitchcock hit the other homer and knocked in 4 runs.

We had a chance to get back to 6 games behind the Reds in the 4th game of the series, and unlike game 3, it was a nail biter. Hayes continued to light up the Reds, hitting his 15th homer in the 2nd and a Clark sac fly put us up 2-0 after 3. The Reds put together 5 singles in the 5th, however and they clawed out 3 runs to put the Reds ahead 3-2. Hayes did it again with a 2-run double in the 6th to put us up 4-3.....and that was how it ended.

We took 3 of 4. So after blowing the 1st game and being down 3-0 after 1 inning in game 2, I am glad to be 6 game back again with 7 games left with the Reds

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After dropping 2 of 3 to the Giants, we had another 3 with the Reds sitting 6 games back. Game 1 went the way of the Reds as Hitchcock gave up 4 runs in 6 and then our bullpen allowed 4 runs late and they held us off 8-5.

Another must win game 2, we had to take the last 2 games. It was a great game, the Reds put up single runs in the 1st/2nd/4th and 5th and we put up singles in the 2nd/3rd and 6th, which put us down 4-3 in the 9th. With 1 out, Earnie Riles singled and Lynn singled him to 3rd. Roberto Kelly then hustled out a potential double play ball and we were on our way to extras. We had scoreless 10th, 11th and 12th and in the 13th, Reds RF Jeremy Burnitz dropped a 2-out flyball and then pinch-hitter Larry Sheets sent everyone home happy with a double and the Dodgers took it 5-4

Game 3 was 1-1 through 4 when we put together 4-2 out hits in the 5th to break it open and went on to a 7-2 win. David Cone knocked in 2 to help his own cause and now we are 5 out.

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I was going to wait until the end of the August, but we have had some interesting things happen.

39 year old Fred Lynn got his 3000th hit earlier in the year, I had forgotten to post about it. Last week, he got his 500th home run and he is just 144 RBI away from 2000. All around amazing career.

We lost David Cone for 5 weeks to a pulled groin. Not ideal, but at least it's not an arm. I didn't make any major moves at the deadline, but I picked up 25 year old Chris Nabholz. He had won 12 games his 1st 2 years in the league, but the Giants had him in AAA for some reason despite sub 4.00 ERA's and a 4-star potential. So we called him up and had to decide between him and Willie Hernandez to start in Cones' spot.
Given Hernandez' history with me, it was a no brainer and we went with Hernandez.

And in his 1st start back in the rotation, he threw a no-hitter! My first in 22 years of managing. He only allowed 1 walk in a 1-0 win over the Cardinals. We committed an error with 2 outs in the 9th, but he struck out Mike Marshall to end the game.

6 games left in August and we have the lead down to 3 1/2 games.

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We were up and down the rest of August and early September and after losing 3 of 4 to the Reds, we were 5 1/2 back with 16 to play. After another week we were 5 back with 11 to play, not much hope, but a glimmer.

Our pitching flexed their arms in back-to-back 3-1 wins in San Diego to cut the lead to 4 with 10 to play. Hitchcock upped his record to 9-6 with 8 k's in the first game and Fernendez had a rare complete game in the 2nd game striking out 6 Padres.

After a day off, David Cone did one better, shutting out the Giants on 3 hits and striking out 12 while walking just 1 in a 1-0 win.......and the lead is 3 with 8 to go.
In the 2nd game against the Giants, we jumped on them for 4 runs in the 1st as Lynn cleared the bases with a double. The bad news is that Willie Hernandez strained his back in the 2nd and is out for 2 weeks, so basically the rest of the season. Our bullpen only allowed 3 runs the rest of the way and we won 8-4, but the Reds won as well and the lead was still 3 with 7 to go. Andy Hawkins got roughed up in the 3rd game of the series and the Giants won 7-5, but a Reds loss meant we were still 3 back.

Hitchcock had his best start as he shutout the Padres on 3 hits, striking out 10 in a 2-1 Dodger win. The Reds.....lose again and it's 2 back with 5 to go.

The next game was an 18 inning classic. Our bullpen allowed just 3 hits and 2 walks and no runs in 11 innings of work. Their bullpen was great as well, allowing just 3 hits and 7 walks in 13 innings of work........but they allowed a single run as we won 3-2 in 18. The Reds won though, and it was 2 with 4 to go.

The last game against the Padres was a pitchers duel until John Jaha hit a 3-run homer off Cone in the 5th and we were down 4-2. But singles by McGee, Hayes and Lynn gave us a 5-4 lead in the 6th, and the bullpen did the rest as we won 5-4. The Reds won again. 2 back, 3 to play.

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Game 160 in San Francisco started well, Roberto Kelly hit his 13th HR in the 1st to give us a 2-0 lead. A 2-run homer by Mo Vaughn in the bottom of the 4th gave the Giants a 3-2 lead. They held a 5-4 lead in the 8th when Clark hit a 2-out-2-run double and we took a 6-5 lead in the 9th where Joe Beckwith took the mound and after a 1-out single, he left the game injured. We had to bring in Kevin Houston cold pinch hitter Jessie Levis his a 2-run walk-off single.......and we lost a heartbreaker 7-6. The Reds held a 6-4 lead over the Padres in the 8th when San Diego exploded for 6 runs and we were still in it. 2 back with 2 to play.

In game 161, Lynn and Clark went back-to-back in the 1st and we were off to an easy 8-3 win. Lynn was 4-4 with 2 runs and 3 RBI to lead us as he always does. Hitchcock was great again, 1 run allowed in 7. And the Reds were hapless against Roger Clemens, shut out 3-0 on 3 hits.

1 game back. 1 to play

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In the last game of the year, Ellis Valentine, sitting on the bench for the last week, hit a 2-run bases loaded single in the 1st to give us a 2-0 lead. Vaughn touched up Fernandez for a single homer in the bottom half and Palmiero singled in another run in the 5th to tie things up. We look up to the scoreboard and the Reds are down 5-1 in the 5th.

In the 7th, Roberto Kelly hit a triple off Al Leiter to give us a 3-2 lead. Clark followed up with a double and after a Lynn single, it was suddenly 5-2....and the Reds are now down 10-1. If we win, there will be a playoff.

With our closer hurt and bullpen overworked, I but in David Cone in the 8th to go the rest of the way......until Rafael Palmiero hit a 2-run homer and it was 5-4 Dodgers with no outs after a walk to Mike Sharperson, I decided to bring in Chris George, who had a grand total of zero saves to try to force a playoff by getting 3 outs. On his 1st pitch, he inticed Jessie Levis to hit into a 4-6-3 double play and we were 1 out away. After a walk, Dave Martinez grounded to 2nd, and we did it. We made up 5 games in the last 9 games going 7-2 as the Reds went 2-7.

We will throw veteran Kevin Houston 15-12 3.09 ERA against Greg Swindell 14-13 4.18 ERA at home in Dodger Stadium tonite. Still no word on Joe Beckwith's injury, so we will go with Rick Moore if we need a closer

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The playoff game didn't have much drama. We broke open a scoreless game with 2 in the 3rd, 2 in the 4th, 1 in the 5th and 2 more in the 6th and we won the west in game 163, 7-1. Kevin Houston went 8 1/3 and the Reds went out losing their last 5 games. All they needed was 1.

And if you think the west was close, the NL was a 3-way race.....to .500. After 162 games, not a single team was over .500. With 5 games to go the standings looked like this:

Montreal 78-79
Phillies 77-80
Cards 77-80

Montreal 79-79
Phillies 78-80
Cards 77-81

Montreal 79-80
Phillies 79-80
Cards 78-81

Phillies 80-80
Montreal 79-81
Cards 79-81

Expos 80-81
Phillies 80-81
Cards 80-81

.....3 way tie going into game 162!

The Phillies and Expos had easy wins, but the Cards lost in a walk off-2 run home run Another playoff saw the Expos beat the Phillies 4-3 to setup a rematch with us in the NLCS

In the AL, the Tigers won the East by 17 with 104 wins and the Twins won the West by 13 with 102 wins.

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I failed to mention that the Expos lost their MVP Larry Walker to an ACL injury a few months ago, so we faced a .500 team without the league MVP

Game 1 was a pitching duel in a quick 2:25 minutes as Andy Hawkins and Steve Bedrosian combined to allow just 1 run and although we just scored 2 runs, it was enough in a 2-1 win.

in game 2 Expos rookie Sherman Obando knocked in 2 runs and 2 Dodger errors led to 2 unearned runs as the Expos tied the series up with a 5-3 win.

Game 3 back in Montreal and things are starting to slip away. David Cone allowed a 3-run shot to Reggie Sanders in the 1st inning and Rey Sanchez hit a 2-run triple as the Expos took the series lead with a 6-3 win.

Game 4 was a tight pitching matchup between Sid Fernandez and Dave Otto through 7 innings, but in the 8th we had to go to the bullpen in a 1-1 game, and Chris George allowed a 2 run double to Sanders and the Expos have won 3 in a row now as our bats stayed quiet in a 3-1 loss.

In game 5, we trailed 2-0 in the 5th when Dave Clark hit a 3-run shot to give us a lead that Andy Hawkins held on to until Willie Hernandez and Joe Beckwith closed it out in a tidy 3-2 win. Dave Smith hit Clark with a pitch in his next at bat, breaking his foot and knocking him out for the year. Dick.

Another pitchers duel in game 6 saw Andy McGaffigan and Sterling Hitchcock match zeros through 6 when Von Hayes hit a 2 run single to give us a 2-0 lead. The Expos scored a single run off Rick Moore in the 8th to make it 2-1, but we brought in Beckwith to close it out and we were tied at 3.

In an alternative universe.

Beckwith gave up a leadoff single in the 9th to Rob Zambrano and after a strikeout and a fielders choice, we were 1 out away from the win. But a single by Sanchez put the tying run on 3rd and then Obando tied it up at 2 with a single. Albert Belle followed with a single and the Expos went ahead 3-2 and that was how it ended.

We lost to a .500 team without the league MVP. Very disappointing

And I never took revenge for Smith breaking Clark's foot with a pitch. The first time we face him, he's going down.

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As expected, the 82-81 Montreal Expos without their league MVP easily won the World Series, beating the 102-60 Minnesota Twins in 5 games. What a funny year. Funny like Tommy in Goodfellas, funny.

Chili Davis won his 3rd MVP and 1st with the Twins going .338/.412/.578 with 30 home runs. 23 year old Paul Quantrill won his 1st Cy Young for the Tigers going 16-9 with a 2.67 ERA and a 6.9 WAR. It was a very weak rookie group, Bret Boone winning ROY with just a .221/.275/.365 with 16 HR and a .1 WAR.

23 year old Gary Sheffield of the Giants won his 1st MVP with a season of .296/.393/.498 with 30 HR and a 9.8 WAR. 22 year old Alex Fernandez won his 1st Cy Young for the Pirates going 17-8 with a 2.40 ERA and an 8.1 WAR. Marty Cordova won the Rookie of the Year in an AMAZING group of rookies:

Cordova-Padres .306/.357/.537 with 29 HR, 80 RBI 4.5 WAR
Ivan Rodriguez-Cubs .301/.326/.430 with 9 HR 31 doubles 2.9 WAR
Meulens-Dodgers .230/.320/.399 with 21 HR 82 RBI 2.3 WAR
Kevin Young-Giants .336/.382/.577 with 16 HR 58 RBI 4.6 WAR in just 110 games

The guy I traded for Andy Hawkins, Rafael Novoa SHOULD have won Rookie of the Year

Novoa-St Louis 18-10 2.64 ERA 194 strikeouts 7.7 WAR
Hitchcock-Dodgers 11-6 2.82 ERA 155 strikeouts 3.6 WAR in 25 starts

....keep Rafael Novoa in mind......I've started to trade.

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We have the largest budget but I never spent anywhere near to the limit. I'd leave 10-15% unspent because I didn't want to spend money just to spend it. But this loss-season, I am changing course. I am going all in.

27 year old 2B Barry Larkin was the prime target in free agency and we had to battle the Orioles and Mets as they both offered 10 years whereas I offered 8, but my $$ equaled theirs, so Larkin took the shorter term and signed for us: 8 years/$52,500,000 with a player opt-out after 4 years. He's a 4-time All-Star and 3-time Silver Slugger winner with career 162-game averages of .293/.365/.447 15 HR 35 2B 70 RBI 91 R 22 steals and a plus fielder at 2nd.

So now that we have a new 2b, what to do with Julio Franco. We shopped the 33 year old around, and we got a response that RF John Kurt was available. Franco just had 1 year left on his deal at $2.4 million and Kruk has 2 years left at $3.1 a year so I pulled the trigger to acquire the 28 year old. His 162 game averages are .300/.377/.438 14HR 28 2B 71 RBI 77 R and 15 steals, this Kruk can run and field.

At the same time, soon to be 40 year old Fred Lynn opted out of his last season at $4 million a year. I was not going to let him end his career anywhere else, so we signed him for 3 years/$12,000,000. He's coming off .277/.370/.501 26HR 32 2B 95 RBI, so I don't think he's going to just stop being an all star, even at age 40.

More to come, it's just January. I need to shed some salary, we went over re-signing Mike Stanley to catch again. We have 15 pitchers who should be starters, so I am going to try to package a few pitchers for an upgrade somewhere or a prospect