OOTP 13 Simulation Of The Angels Season

The fine people over at Out Of The Park Baseball were kind enough to send me copies of their CPU and iPad simulation games. While it’s a must buy for any baseball fan, the significant other or children will wonder why you don’t have a job anymore and why you’re covered in Cheeto dust.

You can run every minute detail with OOTP but I ran a simple sim for the 2012 Angels season for this post. It didn’t go so well. The Angels finished fourth in the AL West with a 75-87 record, good for 20 games behind Texas. I’m pretty sure I was fired on the spot and the game tried to light my iPad on fire.

It wasn’t all my fault. Chris Iannetta, Ervin Santana and Peter Bourjos all suffered major injuries. After having no shot at being decent, the Angels also lost Kendrys Morales on 9/29 for eight months. Hopefully that isn’t prescient. *knocks on wood, puts on lucky socks* The robotic GM of the Padres hung up on me when I tried to make the Ernesto Frieri trade, proving a game should run the San Diego front office.

Alright, the Angels weren’t great, more of that in a minute. The Rays beat the Rangers and Tigers on the way to the World Series (no second wild card in the version I played but might be updated). The Reds toppled the Rays’ run in six games to win the World Series. While a last place finish for the Halos doesn’t seem likely, a Reds-Rays World Series could happen.

Okay, back to the Angels.

Mike Trout got off to a slow start but finished with 14 HR, 48 SB and a .276/.332/.409 line. Which would be outstanding for a 20-year-old rookie but Trout is the second most valuable player in the AL next to Josh Hamilton according to fWAR (Fangraphs wins above replacement). Surprised Trout didn’t break the simulator.

Albert Pujols hit 41 homers and .303/.412/.555. Sounds like what I thought he’d do before the season started. After a miserable start, Pujols looks like the Pujols of old but probably won’t reach those numbers.

Mark Trumbo, who I stuck in left field and wasn’t pretty, hit 17 HR and .235/.271/.376. He has 17 HR and a .324/.378/.636 line right now. Oops. That’s on all of us.

Jered Weaver went 8-19 with a 4.35 ERA. Woof. Weaver has looked every bit as good as the ace he is so far in 2012.

C.J. Wilson went 14-12 with a 3.81 ERA. He represented the Angels in the All Star Game with Santana (haha) and Pujols.

The game is great. The iPad/iPhone version is $4.99. Buy that right now. Enter the promo code MJ for a $2.00 upcharge.