Scott Fennessy: 2015 American League Recap

Well, my first 21st century regular season is in the books. A lot of things happened in the just over 2 years since I rolled the first game between the Blue Jays and the Yankees, which saw New York win 3-2. I joined my first ever league, had my biggest sports dream come true, and lost my bench kitty of 7 years.

So, do you want to hear about how a dead ball ERA guy dealt with modern day baseball? Well unlike some other replays that were literally just me randomly taking a season, as soon as the Cubs real 2015 season was in the books I knew I wanted to see if I could beat Theo Epstein to the title.

While I knew it would take roughly two years to finish the journey I felt like I could win the challenge. How thankfully wrong I was. Thank you, Ben Zobrist, for the biggest two base hit ever, and Mike Montgomery for being able to be the guy on the hill that could somehow get that seemingly forever elusive third out.

Even from the beginning this replay seemed like more of a challenge than I was capable of. I had to make some difficult decisions, and thankfully with the support and guidance of both Tom Nelshoppen and Jim Saska I was able to at least get the foundation of this replay built.

So first I had to address these issues:

How many games? As usual I went with my 140. That will be the same for every season. But to ensure the starters didn’t get TOO unrealistic I moved from a 3 man rotation to a 4 man rotation. I also had a very difficult time debating divisions, and finally went with no divisions. Win the most games or go home.

Interleague play? Possibly the hardest decision. I had to either drop a team or move teams around to get rid of it. I chose to just bump as much out as possible. Thankfully by dropping to a 40 game schedule it made it where I only had about 20 or so interleague matchups.

And last, and least difficult of all the DH. Adios non-fielders. Play a position or sit. DH abandoned, with a smile on my face.

I got underway sometime ago where I cannot remember the exact date, and I also want to clarify a couple of things. I have not yet mastered a modern bullpen, and combined with my preference of complete games vs. saves I will have unrealistic results in those categories. Also I had several stretches where closers/bullpens cost me many games in a row and I adopted the “bullpen, YOU’RE FIRED” approach for days at a time. At last here is my results for the American League.

Final 2015 American League Standings

W L Pct
Astros 92 48 .657
Royals 82 58 .583
Blue Jays 81 59 .579
Indians 78 62 .557
Rays 75 65 .536
Twins 74 65 .532
Yankees 71 68 .511
White Sox 71 69 .507
Orioles 67 73 .479
A’s 64 76 .457
Angels 63 77 .450
Mariners 62 78 .443
Tigers 59 81 .421
Rangers 57 83 .407
Red Sox 54 86 .386

Houston Astros 92-48

And it took just one replay to get Houston to the World Series. I haven’t actually played it yet, but they were a really dominating team. Basically, the season was over in early May. The Twins led for a week, the Royals, Blue Jays and Indians all led for a week each afterwards, and then the Astros moved into first and were never seriously challenged again. There was a time in late August when a critical 4 game series in Kansas City that saw Houston sweep the Royals and basically sealed their fate.

Carlos Correa .279 36 HR 26 SB and “Instant Offense” Jose Altuve .281 9 HR 42 SB had seasons in reverse order of what I expected. Correa hit 30 of his 36 dingers by the mid-season point and cooled off tremendously. George Springer .275 23 HR 94 RBI started slowly. Marwin Gonzalez chipped in at .275 with 15 homers. James Gattis led the team in HR with 29.

The bottom of lineup was very weak and is where the NL champions will have to take advantage. Carlos Gomez, Lius Valbuena, Hyun Conger, Max Stassi and Matt Duffy all tried and failed badly during the season. On a positive note, Jonathan Villar hit .444 in pinch hit role.

If they are going to win the championship, it will have to be done on the mound. Pitcher of the year Dallas Keuchel 24-6 2.14 ERA .76 WHIP was nearly untouchable at times. Collin McHugh 17-11 2.88 ERA was a solid number two. Scott Kazmir 20-10 3.03 ERA kind of fizzled late. Michael Fiers 14-10 was both brilliant and frustrating at times.

The bullpen also is at times tough to work with. The top end, led by Will Harris 1-2 21 SV 2.25 ERA, Tony Sipp 2-0 1 SV 1.49, Josh Fields 1-1 .82 ERA, Joe Thatcher 2-1 2.24 ERA were awesome, but the middle/bottom were very hittable and had a combined ERA well over 6.00. Roberto Hernandez 0-1 8.18 ERA was the worst offender and was limited to use in blow outs.

Kansas City Royals 82-58

Well the Royals had a fine season, but in a way disappointed me. When I first started playing APBA they were the first “non-Cub” team I liked. And this was my first replay with a KC team that actually won the series in the real world.

Unfortunately, they only spent a week in first, and had to fight off the Blue Jays and Indians for a good portion of the year. Arguably the biggest issue they had was they were just not consistent. They would win a couple in a row and follow that up with a three game losing streak.

Another issue is that other than Eric Hosmer .282 23 HR 77 RBI, nobody else really stood out. Again, that is the consistency I was speaking about. While none of the regulars had terrible years, plenty had what would be considered underperforming ones.

Mike Moustakas .269 23 HR 82 RBI, Lorenzo Cain .251 22 SB, Salvador Perez .267 18 HR and team leading 83 RBI were ok. Ben Zobrist reeled off a 9 game hit streak to finish the season at .264 and 11 RBI.

The bench was a very big problem as only Kendrys Morales .271 4 HR hit above .230.

The starting pitching was very good for KC, but had a tendency to serve up the long ball. Johnny Cueto struggled a bit but still went 14-11 with a 3.79 ERA. Edinson Volquez was very good at 19-12 with a 2.63 ERA. Yorando Ventura was the surprise pitching star at 21-9 2.78 ERA and led the team with 207 K’s. Chris Young went 13-9.

The bullpen was very good, and even with a couple of mop up men that got pounded hard managed an ERA under 3.00.

Wade Davis 1-2 27 SV 2.55 ERA was one of the more better closers in all of baseball. Ryan Madson 3.13 ERA, Kelvin Herrera 2-0 2.40 ERA, Franklin Morales 1-1 1 SV 2.57 ERA and Luke Hochevar 3-1 1.13 ERA really held down the fort.

Unfortunately, there were some bottom feeders in the bullpen that really hurt the cause. Scott Alexander 8.01 ERA, and Miguel Almonte 6.92 ERA were the two that other teams hoped to face.

Cleveland Indians 78-62

Cleveland had a run late in the season where it looked like they could actually arrive in October a year ahead of reality, but like every other team that tried to overtake Houston, a head to head defeat awaited them. In this case losing 2 of 3 in Houston in early August.

But this team was a lot of fun to roll with. Francisco Lindor .299 20 HR 31 SB was a real pain for pitchers leading off. Michael Brantley showed what he can do if he stays healthy all year, finishing with 12 homers and a .302 average.

The middle of the lineup was somewhat a disappointment though and I had to mix and match a lot. Abraham Almonte hit 14 homers, Lonnie Chisenhall hit 11 dingers and Carlos Santana hit 12. Roberto Perez chipped in with 19, but none of them hit over .230. Ryan Raburn hit .286 in a pinch hit/platoon.

Pitching was the strong suit for Cleveland. Carlos Carrasco 21-11 2.98 ERA also was a .325 hitter. Danny Salazar 18-11 2.38 ERA was actually better than him for a short stretch. Corey Kluber led the team in strikeouts with 225 despite dropping out of the rotation late in the year with an injury and managed a 14-9 record. Josh Tomlin 2-1 2.57 ERA filled in nicely for him.

The bullpen was a bit of a mess though. Jeff Manship had 24 saves, but blew 5 games in April, and was a big part of the slide out of first. Cody Allen 2-1 1.27 ERA was almost moved into the closers spot. Kyle Crockett had a 1.50 ERA in limited use. The rest of the bullpen was inconsistent though and caused a lot of stress on the rotation.

Tampa Rays 75-65

Tampa had what I would describe as a pretty vanilla season. Nothing too horrible, yet never too exciting. The offense was rather tame, but sometimes did bite the other team.

I had some worries about using Evan Longoria .279 15 HR in the 2 spot, but he still drove in 84 runs. John Forsythe hit .287 and James Loney was a bit of a surprise at the bottom of the order, hitting .292 and had a 15-game hit streak. The big story was September call up Mike Mahtook. In pretty limited time he bashed 10 homers, including a grand slam and drove in 21 runs and stole 6 bases while hitting .280. Brandon Guyer led the team with 34 steals but hit just .239. John Jaso hit .400 in a pinch-hit role.

Pitching was a bit of a concern all season. Chris Archer 10-18 struggled constantly. Jake Odorizzi won 16 games but was very hittable. It was two unknown pitchers to me that were the anchors of the staff. Alex Colome went 13-9 with a 3.00 ERA despite missing some time to injuries and Nathan Karns, whom I probably overused a bit. Nathan stayed in games longer than I would prefer, thus leading to his 17-9 record, but he hit 9 homers, including two game winners.

The bullpen was pretty deep, but surprisingly bad. Jake McGee -23-22 SV blew 7 games. Xavier Cedeno 2-1 1 SV blew 4 more. D reliever was a big shock in limited use with a .98 ERA. Unfortunately, the rest of the pen was a disaster and cost the Rays many games.

Minnesota Twins 74-65

The Twins were not expected to do much by me, and I was pleasantly surprised. Playing at a max effort at all times they never gave up. Their pitching was thin, but their defense more than made up for it. They set a record by committing only 42 errors on the season.

Aaron Hicks struggled at times, but still hit 16 homers and stole 22 bases. Torii Hunter’s final season was not star studded, he finished the season with a bang. He picked up 5 assists, hit 8 homers and reeled off a 9-game hit streak over the final month of the year. Ending with a .249 average and 24 homers.

Joe Mauer is also nearing the end. Hitting just .252 with 9 homers, but he never really cost the team any games. The rest of the regulars struggled at times. D.J. Dozier hit 16 homers and a .261 average. Miguel Sano hit like a bull after being given the starting job over the final 30 games. Although his average was just .265 he was almost all power. In just a small sample he hit d 10 doubles and 10 homers. Jorge Polanco hit .312 in a pinch hit only role.

Kyle Gibson and Tommy Milone each picked up 15 wins to lead the team and Phil Hughes had a 3.42 ERA despite going 12-16. The bullpen was both rags AND riches. Blaine Boyer 0-1 17 SV 2.33 ERA was at times the reincarnation of Bruce Sutter, but still managed to blow a league high 12 saves. Kevin Jespin 2-1 2.80 ERA was almost moved into the closers spot. Casey Fien was the most difficult Twin hurler to hit with a sterling 1.64 ERA. Unfortunately for the rest of the staff it was “all aboard!!!” as they had a combined 5.97 ERA.

New York Yankees 71-68

I had expected the bombers to be fighting for the pennant all summer, but they never really were a factor. They just plodded on content to be about .500.

The biggest issue for the Yankees was offense. I cannot recall a weaker hitting NY team, even in the dead ball era.

Mark Teixeira hit 27 homers, but just a .248 average. Alex Rodrigues was the most consistent, and productive Yankee, hitting a team high 30 homers and tied for team high .264 average.

Carlos Beltran .255 26 HR and Didi Gregorius .264 were the only other regulars who put up any kind of fight in the batters box. September call up Slade Heathcott hit .250 with 6 homers.

Thankfully for the Yankees, their pitching was much better than their offense. Adam Warren was 20-11 with a 2.88 ERA and Masahiro Tanaka and Michael Pineda won 15 and had ERA’s at about 3.20.

They were also armed with one of the best bullpens in the AL and used it like a weapon. Dellin Betances 0-1 27 SV, Andrew Miller 1-1 1.17 ERA, Chasen Shreve 1-2 2.83 ERA, Justin Wilson 1-1 1 SV 3.87 ERA (why can’t he do that for my ILLOWA league team) and specialist Caleb Cotham 1-1 3.46 ERA were usually the end of any chances for the other team.

Chicago White Sox 71-69

That thump you just heard was Chuck Lucas falling off his chair. I am actually going to say nice things about the White Sox.

I expected a much lower finish than this. Granted the offense did everything in their power to make it happen, but a great overall season just the same.

Melky Cabrera led the regulars at .279. Jose Abreu led in homers with 24. Adam Eaton had a decent year, and in one of the biggest flukes I have ever seen hitting in the six spot all year hit .261 with 12 homers, but lead the league in RBI with 113 and stole 12 bases.

Tyler Flowers and Avi Garcia were decent, hitting .260 each. Micah Johnson hit .262 while subbing for the struggling Gordon Beckham and his .198 average.

The star of the White Sox season only got to play for a month, but what a month. September call up Trayce Thompson hit .304 with 7 homers and 22 RBI. Of the 7 homers, two were game winners, and one was in the bottom of the ninth when they were losing.

The pitching, similar to New York was what carried this team. Chris Sale overcame a brutal first half to finish at 17-13 with a 2.95 ERA. The biggest reason for his bad first half was his mysterious inability to cash in on a K rating and finished with just 191 for the year.

Jose Quintana 17-10 2.51 ERA and Carlos Rodon 16-12 were workhorses. The rest of the starters would rather forget the season.

The bullpen was where the money was at. David Robertson was the closer for most of the year and managed quite well, finishing at 1-1 with 14 saves and a 1.34 ERA. Jake Petricka was almost perfect at 1-1 and a .95 ERA. Zach Duke had a 1.38 ERA and almost a 10 K per 9 rating.

Dan Jennings, Zach Putnam and a cast of D’s that pitched more like C’s helped a lot. The pale hose were one of the rare teams that had both a pitcher and hitter shine at call up time as Matt Albers was moved into the closers role. He went 8 for 8 in saves and allowed just 2 hits and ZERO runs allowed. His biggest moment was in his 4th appearance. He came in with the bases loaded and nobody out. 1 pitch, 3 outs, game over on a triple play.

Baltimore Orioles 67-73

Well the O’s were not that much fun for me to roll this year. They had their moments, but I just couldn’t get them to produce much.

Nobody really matched their numbers and no matter how many substitutions and lineup changes I made they just couldn’t hit.

Chris Davis gathered some MVP votes with his 36 HR, 95 RBI, .264 season. While Manny Machado really underperformed he did hit 24 homers and steal 15 bases.

Adam Jones had a decent year at .260 27 HR 80 RBI. Unfortunately, the rest of the rosters and almost all the reserves were just useless.

All except Reynaldo Navarro, who hit .282 in a pinch-hit role and Steve Clevenger, who finally stepped into the lineup for the final three weeks after I could not stand Matt Wieters and his .206 batting average.

Clevenger hit .375 with 3 homers down the stretch and really embarrassed the pitchers he faced.

The pitching was actually an occasional bright spot. Wei-Yin Chen 16-10 2.63 ERA was very solid and consistent. Ubaldo Jimenez had a real eye-opening season at 19-10 with a 2.86 ERA, but the rest of the starters were very bad.

The bullpen, which should have been one of the best in baseball was actually pretty bad. Darren O’Day 1-3 15 SV and 8 blown saves had an ERA near 5.00. Zach Britton fared no better.

The good news was that Brad Brach 2-0 1.56 ERA and Brian Matusz 3-2 1.50 ERA. The bad news is that nobody else was worth much.

Oakland A’s 64-76

Wow, did the A’s trick me! I thought for sure they would be a top 5 team. Billy Burns .274 24 SB and Danny Valencia .262 20 HR struggled badly for the first 3 months before coming around. Josh Reddic .287 18 HR, and Billy Ray Butler .265 15 HR had to supply most of the offense.

Stephen Vogt provided 17 homers, but not much else. Marcus Semien, Brett Lawrie and Eric Sogard phoned in the season. Only Josh Phegley .279 and 2 homers off the bench were of any value as reserves went.

Like most of the AL teams, the pitching seems to be better than the hitting. Sonny Gray seemed to be the victim of poor hitting by his team on the nights he pitched. Sonny went 16-12 with a 2.12 ERA and .90 WHIP and finished 3rd in the POY voting.

Drew Pomeranz was 15-13 with a 3.04 ERA. After that the starters struggled pretty badly until late season changes saw Jesse Hahn 3-0 1.73 ERA and Sean Nolin 2-0 2.25 ERA arrive.

The bullpen was actually better than expected, given how they only had 1 B reliever. Ferdnando Rodriquez 1-3 22 SV 2.87 ERA was the closer by need more than grade.

Evan Scribner 3-1 2.38 ERA, Ferdnando Abad 2-1 2.57 ERA and Dan Otero 2-1 2.86 were outstanding in multi-task roles.

Anaheim Angels 63-77

Well, the Angels were not expected to do much, but I was certainly expecting a better year than this. Maybe I watched less baseball than I thought that year.

Unfortunately, only superstar Mike Trout .289 35 HR and David Murphy hit above .250. The rest were simply horrible. Albert Pujols hit 34 homers, but only .255.

For a brief moment in May the starters ran together a string of solid starts, and it looked like a run at the upper division might happen. Too bad the bullpen let them down many times.

Garrett Richards 15-13 2.74 ERA and Hector Santiago 15-12 3.71 ERA were the only relatively consistent starters, but Mat Latos got hot in August and finished at 6-6 with a 3.94 ERA. The highlight of the season came on the net to last day of the season when struggling veteran Jered Weaver 8-12 6.65 ERA tossed a no hitter.

Huston Street saved 20 games and had a 1.70 ERA, but after that only Cesar Ramos 2-1 1 SV 2.97 ERA, Trevor Gott 2-1 2.24 ERA and Joe Smith 1-1 1.06 ERA were any good. The remainder of the bullpen was well north of 5.00.

Seattle Mariners 62-78

Well it was a tough summer in the Pacific Northwest. There were flashes of fun and wins with more than enough blowouts to make this a forgettable season.

Robinson Cano seemed to not hit his power numbers anywhere enough and settled for just 11 dingers but did hit .304. Nelson Cruz was almost benched in early May but went on a monster tear through the fall and would up with a .283 average and hit a team high 29 homers.

Kyle Seager hit 24 homers but struggled at times. “Casey’s Brother” hit .267 after faltering in September. Franklin Gutierrez was put in the lineup for the final month ahd did hit 14 homers, but only .265. The rest of the hitters were downright awful.

“King” Felix Hernandez still had enough left to win 16 games and have a .305 average, but his strikeout total of 207 was below what I expected. Vidal “El Nuno” Nuno managed 14 wins. Unfortunately, there was Edgar Olmos, who was officially the worst starter in all of baseball at 6-23 with a 5.38 ERA. September call up Roenis Elias went 3-0 with a 2.16 ERA, but walked a ton of hitters in a short stretch, providing the answer to the question “Who wants to walk with Elias?”

The bullpen was one of the worst also. Carson Smith managed 18 Saves and a 2.11 ERA, and middle reliever Joe Beimel went 3-0 with a superb 1.11 ERA, but after that the bullpen hurlers ranged between ERA’s of 4.50 and 8.18.

Detroit Tigers 59- 81

As bad as this season was, there was a time where Detroit seemed headed for the worst record in the AL. They don’t do a lot of things well and it cost them. Rajai Davis struggled bad in September, but still managed to ht .253 with 18 home runs and stole 42 bases.

J.D. Martinez hit a team high 32 homers and drove in 92, but only Miguel Cabrera shone, and even he struggled for a stretch in July. Miggy still hit 25 homers, drove in 98 runs and hit .301 and finished third in the MVP voting. They also continued their unique run of defense. They turned a triple play this year, making 8 out of 9 years they have pulled this off.

This is where the Tigers really paid the price for weak hitting. They were already overmatched anyway, but when your pitching cannot stop the other team from scoring lots of runs, well even the weaker teams take advantage.

Shane Green 15-11 3.14 was the teams only reliable starter. Justin Verlander was on the DL almost the entire season and finsihed at 2-1 with a 4.45 ERA.

William Wilson had 17 saves but blew 6 too. only mop-up men Guido Knudson and Angel Nesbitt had ERA’s under 4.00.

Texas Rangers 57-83

Well Texas had a less than stellar season, but they did one thing well, and that was play defense. Turning 2 triple plays and among the leaders in double plays only slowed the tidal wave, not stop it.

Prince Fielder hit .271 with 17 homers. Shin-Soo Choo also tied for the team lead with 17 homers, and “led” the team with a shockingly bad 69 RBI. That was the offense for the most part of the year.

While the regulars were brutal, the bench was one of the better ones in the league. Kyle Blanks hit .323 with 3 homers, Mitch Moreland hit .288 with 3 bombs and Chris Gimenez hit .353 with 3 homers.

Cole Hamels only won 10 games, but I lost track of the number of times his team got held to just one or two runs. His ERA of 2.88 was spectacular. Yovani Gallardo was the other lone stellar starter. Gallardo went 17-9 with a 2.37 ERA.

Keone Kela didn’t get many opportunities, but with 14 saves and a 2.98 ERA he was reliable when given the chance. Sam Freeman 1-2 2.38 ERA was a good set-up man. Stolmy Pimentel 1-1 1.29 ERA got a lot of work over the final 2 weeks of the season.

Boston Red Sox 54-86

I cannot describe how stunned to see the Red Sox in the cellar. I know they had some injuries and some key players underperformed, but last place should not have happened. One of my worst managing jobs ever.

The top of the lineup was the one bright spot. Mookie Betts hit .285 with 14 homers despite a slump over the final two weeks. Xander Bogaerts also slumped over the final week but hit .297. Perhaps the one surprise for me was David Ortiz. Despite a terrible April he would finish with a .277 average and his 38 homers and 103 RBI were good for second in the league for both.

Dustin Pedroia was on the DL until about the final week of August, and I felt his presence in the lineup instantly. He finished with 4 homers and a .277 average. Brock Holt was put in the lineup in May and finished withh a .270 average to provide Ortiz and Pedroia some protection. And to describe the Red Sox season in a nutshell was Travis Shaw. Travis was called up in September and put in the cleanup spot. He instantly began producing but got injured and was done for the year. He hit .288 with 9 bombs in just two weeks.

Pitching was an odd little mix of good and bad. Joe Kelly went 10-16, and despite being a C starter flirted with no hitters 3 or 4 times during the year. Rich Hill came off the DL in time to make 4 starts and went 2-2 with a 2.68 ERA. Unfortunately, the other starters were brutal.

The bullpen was equally horrible. Koji Uehara went 0-2 with 14 saves but blew 6 and yet managed a 3.98 ERA. The rest were so bad they don’t deserve mention.

Photo by Keith Allison on Flickr (Originally posted to Flickr as “Josh Donaldson”) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0 )], via Wikimedia Commons