California Angels 1970

[sharknut]

Originally Posted by sharknut

So far so good for Edmead. I started him off in A ball and he's .387/.418/.597 after a week.

Heh

After 48 games he is at .339/.404/.497 on pace for 20 doubles, 14 triples, 13 home runs......and 105 steals.

He's ok.

[sharknut]

Originally Posted by sharknut

A little more realistic May had us going 15-13 while battling through the injuries to our #1 and our CF. Rivers will be back this week, Briggs has barely hit .200 but has a couple of HR's, which isn't his game. I was expecting .260 or so with double and triples.

Rivers will be back in a week, but Briggs isn't cutting it. He's just 22, so maybe he needs more time in AAA. Meanwhile, I have a prospect named Gregory Foreman. He was our 2nd round pick in 1970 and has been a two-star guy each of his 4 seasons despite putting up good numbers, with a 5.5 WAR in A ball two years ago, a 4.4 WAR in AA last year and so far this year he is on pace for a WAR of 8.2 in AAA.

So I've called him up after a .380/.469/.641 start with 13 HR's and 49 RBI's after just 51 games. He's also a 60 in LF with potential to be 70. I'll give him a week before Rivers gets back and see what happens.

Foreman IRL was a REALLY good Braves prospect who passed away a few years ago and I can't find out why he quit baseball. This is the only thing I found was actually here at the OOTP message board

"In the most recent Topps Vault releases was a Braves minor league phenom for the early 70s, Greg Foreman, in his first professional camp in 1971.

Foreman, a lefty hitting outfielder, was undrafted because in part his high school did not have a baseball team and in part because he'd signed a football grant-in-aid with LSU. But according to the Braves' 1971 media guide, Braves general manager Paul Richards signed Foreman himself as a favor to a former Southern Association teammate, Jack Sudyam, who was a friend of the Foreman family. He was invited to spring training after hitting .467 in American Legion ball.
Richards: "He has as pretty a swing as any youngster I've ever seen."

And it seemed he had promise, hitting 23 homers for Greenwood in 1971 and 21 and 27 homers for Savannah in 72-73. He had eight for Richmond in 1974 along with more walks than strikeouts (66-62), but played no more.

A "Where are they now?" story written in 2014 indicated that Foreman recently was making a living selling paint at a Sears in his Lake Charles hometown.

[sharknut]

A 19-9 June puts us 7 games clear of the Royals. It wasn't our bats, we are still 1st in the AL in pitching with Tom Bradley winning Pitcher of the Month after a 5-0 June. He's now 12-1 with a 2.48 ERA/1.13 WHIP.

Rudy May is off the injured list and is now 6-0/2.35 ERA/1.10 WHIP. Our closer Gerald Lewis will be off the injured list this week, he's been great this season going 3-0 with 10 saves and a 0.90 ERA. Once he's back, we will be 100% healthy.

Our AAA team and one of our A teams are in first place. The AA club is in 3rd and our other A team along with rookie teams are 4th.

[sharknut]

A week before the all-star break I dealt our 23-year old 3b good-looking youngster Rudy Meoli and a 3 or 4 star 1b prospect who would be buried behind Eddie Murray forever for disgruntled 30 year old 3b Sal Bando.

Guess I go for it

[sharknut]

We hit the All-Star break 60-38 with the 3rd best record in baseball...and we have 2 All-Stars, one of whom, Sal Bando, we've had for 1 week!

Baffling.

We are first in ERA and only Tom Bradley made the team. Rudy May is 9-0 with a 2.22 ERA in only 15 starts and that wasn't good enough. William Sheets 10-5 with a 2.84 ERA and 3rd in strikeouts, nope.

Actually, I should be glad. We are 100% healthy and Bradley just started a game so they may not even use them. Gives everyone else 4 days off before we have 3 with the Royals, 6 1/2 half back in second.

[sharknut]

The players just had a players only meeting to "clear the air". Our team mood is "estactic" and it was called by our captain who I have a great relationship with and nobody has complaints about chemistry.

Odd timing.

[sharknut]

We have dropped 7 out of the first 8 in July, our lead has dropped to 2 over the Twins and 3 1/2 over the Royals giving up 6 runs a game and the top of the lineup has gone cold.

Great team meeting.

[sharknut]

1-6 home stand and now we are in a tie for first with the Royals and the Twins are 1/2 back.

Taking on water....

[sharknut]

My whole life I've had a bit of a fascination about the study of what causes plane crashes or how pilots save hundreds of lives by recovering from a potentially fatal incident.

With that in mind, we opened August 2-13 and into a tie for first on 8/15. Two things were going to happen; nose down into Disneyland or the plane leveling off at 5000 feet.

We finished up 8-5 while the Royals went 5-9 and the Twins fell into one of those lakes up there going 3-13. So we open September with a 4 game lead over the Royals and 7 clear of the Twins.

My injury list is clear. I still have no idea who is playing CF and LF from day to day. Al Bumbry and Mickey Rivers have combined for barely a .300 OPB and we can't have the table setters not setting tables. Rookie Dan Briggs has knocked in more runs than both in less than 200 AB's and recent call up Gregory Foreman was hitting .330 with 30 HR's in AAA. Would like 2 of them to get hot. The Yankees will be formidable and if we get THAT far, the Astros look like a dynasty 97-36 so far:

Bob Watson 28 year old catcher .306/.357/.448 10 HR
John Mayberry 23 year old 1B .248/.350/.419 17 HR
Joe Morgan 30 year old 2B. .268/.388/.381 40 SB
Mike Easler. 23 year old LF .328/.393/.523 21 HR
Cesar Cedeno 23 year old RF .341/.393/.537 22 HR SB

Their pitchers are just as young and great, being 1/2/3/5 in ERA.

[Pelican]

Originally Posted by sharknut

1)Expos-Fred Lynn
2)Brewers-Robin Yount!!! Yount, Jim Rice and Gorman Thomas are all 21 and younger. Nice future I could have had if I picked them over the Angels when I started the sim, those were my options
3)Cubs-Pedro Guerrero
4)Angels-Murray
5)Rangers-Jack Clark
6)Cleveland-Dave Winfield
7)Royals-Jonathan Astroth
8)Pirates-Mitchell Page
9)Padres-John Montefusco
10)Braves-Ellis Valentine

....one of these things is not like the others

Yeah, no record of any Jonathon Astroth in MLB. Joe was a defense-first catcher for the Philly (and KC) A’s, one of the best ever at throwing out would-be base-stealers. He had three sons; but no Jonathon. Is Jonathon a catcher? Could he be a fictional player thrown into your draft for some odd reason? What were the Royals thinking??

[sharknut]

Originally Posted by Pelican

Yeah, no record of any Jonathon Astroth in MLB. Joe was a defense-first catcher for the Philly (and KC) A’s, one of the best ever at throwing out would-be base-stealers. He had three sons; but no Jonathon. Is Jonathon a catcher? Could he be a fictional player thrown into your draft for some odd reason? What were the Royals thinking??

Yes, he is a catcher but nothing at all about him in the game, empty page of "real life stats"

He's already with the Royals at age 23 and he is a 4 1/2 star potential guy

[Edster007]

Originally Posted by sharknut

Yes, he is a catcher but nothing at all about him in the game, empty page of "real life stats"

He's already with the Royals at age 23 and he is a 4 1/2 star potential guy

He is in the baseball reference minor league page. He was a 23rd round pick by Texas in 1973. Bounced around their minor league system for 4 seasons, that was the extent of his career.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[sharknut]

Our 4 game lead is gone. We had a 4 1/2 game lead over the Royals when they came to California and took all 3 games and after we lost 2 of 3 to the White Sox, the Royals kept winning and took all 4 games against the Twins and now we are tied at 81-66.

We have 3 games in KC in a week which will likely mean everything,

[sharknut]

After 161 games the Angels and Royals are 88-73.

We are at Oakland and we have our ace Tom Bradley (18-4 2.46 ERA 1.11 WHIP) going and KC has their slightly tired ace going at the White Sox. We have to face LaDon Boyd, who led the AL in ERA last year and the Royals face Goose Gossage.

Going to play this later today.....

[sharknut]

Knowing that the Royals already lost 5-4 our ace Tom Bradley went out......and gave up 8 runs in 4 innings, we lost 11-4.

So we had a 1 game playoff, It turns out the Royals rested their ace and threw a rested #1 at us as we put out a 25 year old who has gone 2.39/1.20WHIP since picking him up on waivers and had won his last 4 starts with a 1.33 ERA.

I was going to do a thorough re-cap of the playoff game, but we took it really easily 13-5 as we knocked out 16 hits and 3 different players knocked in 2 runs each.

So it will be the 89-74 Angels vs the 103-59 Yankees in the AL and the 92-70 Cardinals vs 114-48(!!!) Astros in the NL

[sharknut]

In game 1 of the 5 game ALCS, William Sheets only gave up 1 run through 7 and we took a 2-1 lead into the 8th, but Jerry Tabb hit a 3-run HR pinch-hitting for Thurmon Munson (who hit .340 with 20 HR's in the regular season...I mean...really?), so we dropped game 1 4-2.

We jumped all over Fritz Peterson in game 2 evening up the series with a 12-6 win. Sal Bando and Joe Torre hit home runs and Torre and Dave Cash knocked in 3 each as we flew west and had our top 2 pitchers going.

Game 3 saw Rudy May give up 5 runs in the first. Lee May, who should win his 2nd straight AL MVP this year, hit a 2-run HR and we had a steep hill to climb. In the 2nd, we put together 6 hits to cut it to 5-4. We tied it in the 4th and in the 5th, rookie CF Gregory Foreman hit a 2-run home run and we went up 6-5. The Yankees worked a few singles to tie it in the 7th and we were tied going into the bottom of the 9th.

In late September as we struggled to make the post-season, we couldn't find someone to take CF and make it their own. Al Bumbry, Dan Briggs and Gregory Foreman all had at least 60 AB's and only Foreman was hitting over .200 in September at .215, so we went with him. Foreman is 22 and has been a 2 and 2 1/2 star guy after being drafted in the 2nd round 4 years ago.

In his 2nd year, he won the MVP in A-ball going .289/.380/.485 with 21 HR's and 29 SB's. In his 3rd year, he won the MVP in AA, going .275/.375/.471 with 24 HR's, 102 RBI's and 19 steals. This year in AAA, he was named the MVP AGAIN this week after he went .343/.443/.637(!!!) with 31 HR's 108 RBI's in just 105 games. Yet he is not a top 100 prospect and just a 2 1/2 star player.

With 2 outs in game 3, he ripped a 2-out, 3 run HR off Alan Tetrault to give us a 9-6 walkoff win and a 2-1 advantage and a chance to go to the WS with 1 more win. Foreman ended up 3 for 5 with 2 HR's, 5 RBI's and 3 runs scored.

Our ace Tom Bradley, who was ripped in the play in game, was ripped for 3 runs in the top of the 1st, but Jim Wynn homered in the bottom of the 1st and we scratched a run across in the 5th to make it 3-3. However, the Yankees scored twice in the 6th to go up 5-3 and after we pushed a run across in the 7th, we trailed 5-4 going into the 9th. Our bullpen messed the bed and gave up 5 in the 9th and despite Foreman's 3rd HR's in the series in the 9th, we fell 10-5 and there would be a game 5.

We started William Sheets who we acquired FROM the Yankees in the off-season. He was a 25-year old swing man last year for New York going 13-9 with 2 saves and a 3.62 ERA. We dealt a superfluous prospect for him and he went 13-10 with a 3.22 ERA/1.35 WHIP and 183 strikeouts in 212 innings. We faced off against Robert Elliott, the 1973 Cy Young and pitched through injuries this year, but still went 10-5 with a 2.35 ERA/1.05 WHIP and a 3 WAR in just 19 starts.

Elliott and Sheets threw zeros through 6 1/2, but that man Foreman again led off the 7th with a double and scored on a Dave Cash single and we went up 1-0. Mickey Rivers then broke it open with a bases loaded triple in the 8th and Sheets went 8 2/3 scoreless innings before giving up a meaningless run in the bottom of the 9th and we going to the World Series as we won 6-1.

Foreman was named the series MVP going .389/.500/1.000 with 3 HR's, 6 RBI's, 8 runs scored.

So on we go to face the Astros who swept the Cardinals and look absolutely unstoppable. Frankly, I expected to lose to the Yankees and the World Series is gravy. Just noticed Joe Morgan will miss the first 4 games with a thumb injury. Need to take advantage.

[sharknut]

I didn't realize that Morgan was not on the Astros post-season roster, so even though he was healthy, he didn't play. Did it matter?

In game 1, Wynn and Torre hit RBI singles in the top of the 1st, but Mike Easler and Bob Watson did the same in the bottom of the 1st and it was on. It stayed 2-2 until the 5th when we added a run on another Torre RBI single off Larry Dierker to go up 3-2. But the Astros came right back in the bottom half on a 2-RBI triple by Don Buford off George Dixon and we found ourselves down 4-3. In the top of the 7th, Sal Bando hit a 2-out, 448 foot 3-run HR off Dick Ruthven and we ended up taking game 1 6-5.

The pitchers did not cover themselves in glory in game 2. Former Angels Aurelio Rodriguez and Ken Berry touched Rudy May for RBI singles in the 1st but we scratched together single runs to make it 2-2 going into the 4th. Ron Cey hit a 455 ft HR and it was 4-2 Astros. But not for long. Ken Holtzman didn't have it, Francisco Marquez hit a 2-RBI single and the Angels came back to lead 5-4. It was 6-5 Angels going into the bottom of the 8th where the Astros put together 5 hits to score 3 runs and we fell behind 8-6 going into the 9th. NL ERA leader James Chamberlain entered the game, and when Dave Cash took the first pitch he saw over the left fiel fence for a rare home run, it was 8-7 Astros. After a walk to Rivers and a Bando single, Joe Torre lined a single up the middle scoring Rivers and we were tied at 8. After Jim Fregosi struck out, ALCS MVP Gregory Foreman doubled to the right field gap to score pinch runner Kurt Bevacqua and after a 1-2-3 bottom of the 9th, the Angels went up 2-0 with an exciting 9-8 win.

The Astros put 3 hits together off Tom Bradley to go up 1-0 and Don Wilson had a perfect game through 3 when an error by 3rd baseman seemed to unravel Wilson for a bit as after a single to Rivers and walking Torre, Jim Wynn took an 0-2 pitch over the left field wall for a grand slam and a 4-1 lead. The Angels added 2 more and the Astros 1 and somehow........we were up 3-0 over a team with almost 30 more wins in the regular season.

Game 4 saw Jimmy Ray and Chamberlain scatter 5 hits, Cesar Cedeno hit a 3-run HR and Mike Easler and Bob Watson combined for 9 hits in an easy 5-1 win. The Angles also committed 3 errors and it was 3-1.

The last game in California saw George Dixon and Larry Dierker throw absolute gems. Dixon gave up 1 unearned run thanks to 3 more Los Angeles errors, but Dierker went 1 better, shutting out the Angels scattering 9 hits and after a 1-0 Houston win, it was 3-2 and back to Texas we went.

Game 6 was a rematch between lefties Holtzman and May and both pitched much better than their first efforts. After each team scored in the top of the 1st, John Mayberry knocked in a run and it was 2-1 Houston after 6. Despite the lead and Holtzman pitching well, they unsuccessfully pinch hit for him in the 6th and they went to Dick Ruthven who sailed into the 9th but he walked Jim Fregosi to lead off the 9th. Foreman then singled PR Doug Griffin to 3rd and after a short fly out, our regular season DH, Donn Clendenon, who was forced to the bench since this was at an NL park, hit a long sac fly and we were tied and 2nd. We then sent Foreman on a steal of 2nd and with 2 outs, Cash was once again money in the 9th inning, ripping a single up the middle and after Foreman came around to score, we were three outs from a World Series Championship.

And we got them, 1-2-3.

We won it

[Pelican]

Wow.

[sharknut]

Originally Posted by sharknut

A very active off-season saw over a half-dozen deals to shed salary and then a sudden budget increase where I actually have about $500,000 to play with now.

I had picked up a few veterans who had bad seasons and could get them in cost savings moves like pitchers Wilbur Wood, Tom Walker and John Hiller in those moves that shed about $200,000 but also most of our depth. When I could suddenly add some salary, I dealt a AAA outfielder who has hit over .300 every year but isn't a top 4 outfield prospect for me for a 25 year old pitcher who has struck out 293 in 272 big league innings over a few years of being a swingman, William Sheets.

I am very excited for this coming year with the above additions and earlier acquiring Joe Torre.

Time to toot my own horn. Joe Torre was named the World Series MVP, William Sheets went 13-10 with a 5.0 WAR, Tom Walker was a solid 1.2 WAR in a swingman role and Wood ate up some innings in the bullpen. Then during the season I dealt Ron Fairly for Donn Clendenon, who tied the WS clinching game in the 9th inning.

Lots to do in the off-season. I have about 6 players for 3 outfield spots, so I will be making deals and hopefully have the same luck this offseason

[sharknut]

Originally Posted by Pelican

Wow.

I concur