NL Central - Preview or What-if Season to Date

This blog includes summaries of interleague games which count in our AL Statis-pro season but do not count in the official NL Statis-pro seasons.

With Major League Baseball hoping that play an 82-game schedule, this blog covers the results of our NL Central games using Statis-pro cards for current rosters. These cards and rosters simulate the projected hitting, pitching and fielding for each player on a 2020 team (including rookies and new stars from Japan and Cuba). 

These might be previews of an upcoming 82-game season or if MLB is unable to play it might become a "what-if" blog like our 2020 March Madness. You can also click on the AL West, AL East, AL Central, NL East, or NL West. We use ballpark factors.

Division Statis-Pro Results to Date

1. St. Louis 10-2 - Cards won't win 5 of 6 all year, but they have the potential to beat out the Brewers.
2. Milwaukee 8-4
3. Cincinnati 10-8 - Sonny Gray is the ace of a strong rotation with three great relievers to back them up. The addition of a great new leadoff man in  Shogo Akiyama and getting Moustakas from the Brewers to hit cleanup gives the Reds a chance for a winning record.
4. Chicago Cubs 10-8
5. Pittsburgh 6-6

Click for google doc grid of all games.

NL Central vs. AL Central

Detroit won 6-2, then Chicago Cubs swept 8-2. One interesting moment arose in the second game. Cubs starting pitcher Quintana was due to hit in the bottom of the 3rd with 2 outs and bases loaded. 

When the pitcher is hitting you skip the PB and go straight to the 11-88 random number (unless his career ops is at least .425) and refer to the column below for the hitting card. I misread at first, but Quintana has the standard NL pitcher hitting card which gives him a single on an 11-14, and all pitchers strike out up to 48.

The card was a 15 - missing an RBI hit by one. However, if Cubs starter Jon Lester had been on the mound, he would have doubled. His .317 career OPS puts him on the .300 ops line which as you can see from the chart gives him a double on a 15 or 16.

Cincinnati 7-1 sweep and 2-0 over Royals. The combination of four excellent PB2-8 reds pitchers - ace Sonny Gray and 3 relievers in the second game - allowed only 6 hits in 2 games to the Royals. The Reds hit 5 home runs to the 6 total Royals hits. Suarez hit 2 of the HRs in the first game to propel a 7-1 sweep. Moustakas hit a 2-run Homer in the second game to break a scoreless tie in the 6th.

Milwaukee won 10-8 in 11 at KC which win 6-5

Cincinnati win 4-3 (10) at Detroit 9-8 (10). 3 games each. Reds Shogo Akiyama leading off as perhaps the most exciting new card.

Pittsburgh at Chi White Sox won 16-2, 1-0 White Sox 5 games to 1

Chi Cubs sweep 17-7 at Minnesota won 5-2 (Cubs 4 he's to 2)

St. Louis win 4-1 and (sweep) 6-1 at Cleveland. The Indians still have the scary top of the order, but if they don't produce in a given game they are much weaker because the once mighty bullpen looks very average this year and they just don't have the sluggers in the bottom half of the order they often had.

• St. Louis 6, KC 1. Sweep. Flaherty (pb2-8 and HR 23 when hitting) had 2 hits in sweep.
• St. Louis 4, KC 3. Mondesi, only speed AA led off both games with doubles and in the 9th beat out a single and stole 2nd with potential tying run, but Gallegos got last 2 out for save. KC Keller had no-hitter and 3-0 lead when Molina pinch hit (I normally make catchers play one of two games) and hit a 3-run HR.

• Milwaukee 2, Detroit 0. Woodruff and Hader combine on shutout.
• Milwaukee 11, Detroit 3. We tried dropping the 1-2 hitters to 7-8 to have Yelich lead off and Hiura 2nd to get them as many at bats as possible. Garcia from TB and Smoak from Toronto put nice bats behind them and with Suter and Claudio upgraded to pb2-8 cards they have a killer trio to wrap up games. Looks like a contender.

• Cleveland 5, Cincinnati 2.
• Cleveland 4, Cincinnati 3. Great simple new batter and pitcher cards (see below), and Lorenzen gets the "Babe Ruth" award again for hitting homers on 26-31 in addition to being a 2-8 pitcher. However, neither he or any Reds pitcher could stop Jose Ramirez.

• Pittsburgh 3, Minnesota 2. Two 2-8s, rookie Burdo and Kela, wrapped up the pitchers duel.
• Pittsburgh 10, Minnesota 1 (sweep). Joe Musgrove led a shocker with a complete game and a base-clearing double (the HR 23 on his card indicates when batting he hits a Homer on a 23 and has hits up to there).

• ChiSox 5, Chi Cubs 2.
• ChiSox4, Chi Cubs 2.