Calling All Angels

[SeanRobinson]

I've done a number of dynasties before, but none planned out like this...

Ok, so here we go.

MODs: Ultimate Rosters, no MVP06 (want to be able to add the classic players[Ruth, Gehrig, Ryan, etc.]--if there's a mod to put them back into 06, let me know!)

DIFFICULTY: Pro. My hand-eye coordination ain't great, so I'll get KILLED while actually playing if I put it to anything higher.

SETTINGs: Default.

I will probably play a few games/month and sim or manage the rest.

Rosters: Here's where I'm having some difficulty. The Angels are speculated to be making certain acquisitions, so I'm wondering which ones to confirm. I know they aren't getting A-Ramirez now (boo), but Zito/Soriano remain decently strong possibilities, there's a chance of a trade for Vernon Wells, and a remote possibility of acquiring Matsuzaka. Any thoughts?

Anyway, here's what I'm thinking. I also don't have a stats/box score extractor (and wouldn't know how to use it if my life depended on it), so bear with me.

1B--Casey Kotchman

2B--Howie Kendrick

SS--Orlando Cabrera

3B--Dallas MacPherson

C--Mike Napoli/Jose Molina

RF--Vladimir Guerrero

LF--Juan Rivera/Garret Anderson

CF--Vernon Wells

DH: Garret Anderson(/players needing to rest [e.g., Vlad])

Utility: Chone Figgins

Rotation: Bartolo Colon, John Lackey, Barry Zito, Jered Weaver, Kelvim Escobar

Bullpen: Brendan Donnelly, Chris Bootcheck, Hector Carrasco

Setup: Scot Shields

Closer: Francisco Rodriguez (to be signed to a long-term deal at the start of the season)

BENCH:

Robb Quinlan

Maicer Izturis

Erick Aybar

Hopefully I didn't leave anyone off there. Any thoughts on batting order?

Wish me luck!

[fred13]

I think your rotation should be Zito, Lackey, Colon, Weaver, Escobar.

[SeanRobinson]

Duly noted. Thanks! It's probably good to have Lackey second, as he didn't do quite so well in 2006 when he was first (at least for the latter half of the season)...but Zito first? Hmm...

[amanriquez5]

I agree with fred13

[SeanRobinson]

So a few technical difficulties have presented themselves, meaning the dynasty's not going to get going for a bit (hopefully later today).

If anyone's reading, I'd appreciate assistance with the following.

1. UR installation. I installed patches 3 and 5 then followed the readme instructions, but the default rosters didn't change. Any thoughts? I've tried looking through the forums for a relevant thread, but this didn't turn up anything. I'm sure there's something incredibly simplistic that I'm not doing right, but I can't figure out what it is.

2. MVP06 fix. After I couldn't figure the UR installation out, I installed MVP06, which took a while, to say the least. Now I've got it installed, but it's apparently not the patched version as Dynasty mode keeps freezing at April 30. When I originally had MVP06 installed I found the patched version, but a forum search isn't turning it up.

Again, thoughts/help are appreciated.

[SeanRobinson]

OK, we're good to go!

A couple technical things: I got MVP06 to work, so I will using that (albeit on low graphics settings).

The ratings for Kotchman, McPherson, and Napoli made them look like high A players instead of MLB. Since they're all clearly MLB-ready (Kotchman's abysmal performance last year is due to Mono, not lack of ability; similarly, MacPherson's difficulties are largely due to chronic injury), I boosted their ratings accordingly.

I couldn't bear to part with Santana, so I traded Colon for Wells, straight-up. I figure that Colon's not coming back in any event.

So the final roster stands as follows:

Rotation: Zito, Lackey, Santana, Weaver, Escobar

Bullpen: Donnelly, Carrasco, Gregg

Set-up: Shields

Closer: Rodriguez (re-signed to 4 year deal at $7.20 million)

1B--Kotchman

2B--Kendrick (re-signed to 5 year deal at $2.10 million/year)

SS--Cabrera

3B--McPherson

RF--Guerrero

CF--Wells

LF--Rivera

C--Napoli (against RHP)/Molina (against LHP)

DH--Anderson

Utility--Figgins

Bench: Quinlan, Aybar, Izturis

40-Man: (included here are only those likely to be called up) Saunders, Willits, Mosley, Murphy, Bulger

I plan to play opening day (against Seattle) later this afternoon or tonight. I'm downloading Fraps, so should be able to post some screenshots.

[SeanRobinson]

ANGELS THUMP MARINERS IN SEASON OPENER

Last season, Angels owner Arte Moreno promised the acquisition of an impact bat, and if the first game of the season is any indication, General Manager Bill Stoneman has delivered. Vernon Wells went 4 for 5 in the team's road opener, hitting two singles, a double, and a homerun. Mike Napoli and Howie Kendrick contributed to the melee, Napoli with a homerun on his first AB and Kendrick with two extra base hits, being robbed of two homeruns. The only player left out of the fracas was shortstop Orlando Cabrera, who has entered the season in a 0 hit slump.

For all their success in this first game, however, the Angels' collective swings pointed to potential future problems. About four of the Angels' 18 hits were cue shots that Mariners fielders barely missed in the outfield. The Angels struggled mightily in the first two innings before they blew the game wide open in the 3rd with ten hits and seven runs, and they struggled for the next six innings as well, scoring four more times.

Newly signed pitcher Barry Zito picked up his first win of the season, giving up five hits and one run while striking out one in six innings of work. Zito was pulled at the beginning of the seventh after he struggled over the previous 1 2/3 innings. Reliever Hector Carrasco pitched two acceptable innings, giving up one run when Ichiro Suzuki doubled, stole third, and ran home on a sacrifice fly. Ichiro had a fantastic day in the field, reaching over the fence on one occasion to rob Howie Kendrick of a homerun and making spectacular catches on numerous other plays. He struggled at the plate, however, earning one hit in four appearances.

"All in all, we seem to have started things out right," commented manager Mike Scioscia. "Hopefully we can keep things going."

In the next game, the Angels will once again face the Mariners at SafeCo field. John Lackey will make the start for the Angels; the Mariners have yet to announce who they will send to the mound.

*Note* Can't seem to get Fraps working properly. I hope to have screenshots up the next time around.

[drbeep97]

was the score 11-2? i would suggest posting the score and maybe the linescore at the top of the recap so i know a little more about what's going on

but anyways... good win w/ my favorite team in the AL! good job!

[xcrunner4623]

OK, we're good to go!

(Kotchman's abysmal performance last year is due to Mono, not lack of ability

Mono will only slow someone down for 4 weeks...i just had it...lol

I think if a ballplayer misses 4 weeks he'll be alright

[SeanRobinson]

Yes, the score was 11-2 in the first game. Unfortunately I screwed up when using MVP points and had to start the season over (i.e., forgot to save), but the Angels still won the first game.

Now, with 5 games played and one time through the rotation, the Angels are 4-1, having dropped the last game to Seattle in a heartbreaker but going to sweep the Yankees in their home opener. In the latest game (score not available), Kelvim Escobar fanned nine in a near complete game to earn the win. Things got shaky with two outs in the ninth, so K-Rod got the call and earned his second save of the season.

Now, to address the Mono. I'm not terribly qualified to give an expert opinion on this, but it's pretty well agreed that the disease affects different people differently. Kotchman started coming down with it sometime around last December, but he played through it in the offseason in the hopes that he'd be ready for the regular season. In fact, he pushed himself very hard, earning a .330-something BA in spring training. One can only push oneself so far, however--imagine how ravaged his body must have been by the time the regular season started, having had virtually no time to heal. This is why Kotchman collapsed early on; the Angels hoped he'd recover and couldn't afford to lose him, so they hung on as long as possible. Kotch went on the DL in early May (in the same move that brought up Napoli, who hit his first major league pitch out of the park) and didn't do anything baseball related until early July, so about two months--seems pretty normal for an extreme case of mono. He began a rehab assignment at AAA Salt Lake in late July but experienced dizziness and went back on the DL for the rest of the season.

There's a fair amount of speculation that Kotchman might actually have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS), which was aggravated by the mono. I'm not sure what the Angels would do if this were the case. However, the fact that he hit solidly above .300 in the latter half of 2005 shows pretty definitively that he's plenty capable of hitting major league pitching, and hitting it well.

Now, back to your regularly scheduled dynasty...

[SeanRobinson]

ANGELS STRUGGLING, WITH A FEW PLEASANT SURPRISES

As of the end of April, the Angels may be tied for first in the AL West, but this belies larger problems. Vernon Wells has not managed to keep up his strong offensive performance, having dropped to a mere .200, while Howie Kendrick can't seem to break .175. Fortunately, a batting-order shuffle seems to have revitalized the offense to an extent, and collective batting averages are on the rise.

There have been a few very pleasant surprises, however. Although he only plays against lefties, Jose Molina is hitting an uncharacteristically high .470 with a career-high 4 home runs. Juan Rivera has started out extremely well at .375.

INJURY REPORT:

Ervin Santana went down for nine days with a strained hamstring but has since come back strong.

Casey Kotchman went on the 15-day Disabled List in mid-April with a strained muscle; he is expected to be back at the end of the month.

In the most serious injury, Kevin Gregg suffered a fractured leg on a tough play. He will be out for 64 days.

NOTE: MVP06 froze up last night, even though I tested the rosters before starting the dynasty. If I can't get it to work properly, I'll have to start the dynasty over, which would be highly unfortunate. Please bear with me!

[SeanRobinson]

Breaking News:

PAM EWING REALIZES APRIL WAS JUST A DREAM.

In a bizarre twist, Pamela Ewing awoke today and related to her husband, Bobby, that she'd had "the strangest dream about this team called the Angels that played decently in the first month of the season."

The real Angels season is scheduled to begin shortly.

Yeah, so I had to reinstall. Will get things going again tonight.

[SeanRobinson]

Notes: On the reboot, I decided to look at things a bit more realistically. The Angels aren't going to give up on Colon, and they're going to avoid trading Santana at all costs. Toronto is also increasingly unlikely to give up Vernon Wells. With that in mind, I decided it's much more likely that they'll sign Soriano and stick him in CF and then sign Zito.

So the lineups are the same as I originally had them, just with Soriano in place of Wells and hitting leadoff.

The rotation is: Colon, Lackey, Zito, Santana, Weaver; Escobar went back to the bullpen.

ANGELS OPEN STRONG, SORIANO DISAPPOINTS

The Angels opened their first homestand by sweeping Texas, though they dropped the next series to the Royals. Anderson and MacPherson have shined in the first five games, going .400 and .667 respectively. "Clearly these numbers will go down," manager Mike Scioscia commented. "But we're hoping they're indicative of season-long success."

Free agent acquistion Alfonso Soriano, on the other hand, has thus far been a disappointment, going only .173 with one homerun to start the season. The Angels hope he can get things going as the season progresses.

[SeanRobinson]

Halfway Through May, Angels Struggling With Offense While Defense Sparkles

It's May 15 and the first All Star votes have begun to come in: at this point, Shortstop Orlando Cabrera (.326) and RF Vladimir Guerrero (.302, 9HR) are in contention, though are by no means guaranteed a spot.

The offense has struggled through the first part of the season, often getting as little as one to three hits in a game. Alfonso Soriano has provided some power with 7 HR, but is hitting a mere .228, even after being moved down the lineup. Garret Anderson is also struggling at the Mendoza line, while Juan Rivera has been steadily improving over the past few weeks to go from .182 to .246. After going .190 in the first weeks of the season, Howie Kendrick made a trip to Salt Lake for two weeks, where he honed his swing; he is expected to perform much better on his call-up. Casey Kotchman went down for 12 days with a strained leg muscle, since coming back he has also continued to struggle with offense. Robb Quinlan seemed to be a solution at 1b in the interim, but after hitting .378 in his first few games has dropped over one point to .267 with no homeruns.

The defense, however, is a different story. Free agent acquisition Barry Zito has shined in his initial starts for the Angels, going 5-1 with a 2.54 ERA. John Lackey won his first three starts before being shelled in a devastating loss to Kansas City; he is now 5-3 with a 1.83 ERA. Bartolo Colon is also doing well at 3-3, while Jered Weaver has gone 2-2 with an ERA of 4.73. Ervin Santana is the lone exception, having struggled to post 1 win among four losses and a 5.11 ERA; there is rumor that the front office may soon push him into the bullpen while Kelvim Escobar fills his spot.

The Angels are tied for first in the AL West with Seattle, while Silicon Valley and Texas trail by about two and four games.

NOTES:

Yeah, so Howie Kendrick and Casey Kotchman are hitting abnormally low. I tried moving them around in the lineup, but this didn't seem to work, so I fiddled with their hitter ratings a bit. I also boosted Anderson slightly (not much, though). I thought about giving Santana a lift as well, but then I realized that this is technically still the 2005 season, so I'll give him through this offseason before I make any drastic changes.

I've been simming most games in order to get back to this point. I'll try getting back to detailed game write-ups soon.

[SeanRobinson]

OK, this just isn't working so far. As you can see, I've had issues uploading images and actually getting the durn thing going. Now that I've figured it all out, though, I think I'm going to reboot the dynasty in a different thread. However, as I did sim through the entire 2005 season (and made it through the World Series!), I'm going to start with opening day 2006 and try going game by game.

Be on the lookout...