Detroit Last of 30 Teams to play Statis-Pro 2023 Game

We get our first look at the Detroit Tigers 2023 Projected Cards as they are the last of our 30 teams to see action. The Tigers debut with a bang - a 10-2 stunner against the Brewers, before losing the nightcap 2-5. Scoresheets are at the bottom.

 While 10 AL Teams were chosen for play in our Montana League and 9 NL teams for our NL season, each of the 9 NL teams played each other and then played four of these 11 relegated teams.

Overall the relegated teams have gone 79-107 for a 0.425 winning percentage, while in the real MLB season the same teams have gone 626-849 for a 0.424 winning percentage.

The following are the records of each of the relegated teams in the real season, from the one team that actually has a winning record in Minnesota down to the Oakland A's and Kansas City Royals battling for the last spot.
 

Relegated	Wins	Losses	Win%
Min	69	65	0.515
LAA	64	70	0.478
WSH	62	73	0.459
SD	62	72	0.463
NYM	61	73	0.455
PIT	61	73	0.455
DET	60	74	0.448
STL	58	76	0.433
COL	49	84	0.368
KC	41	94	0.304
Oak	39	95	0.291
MLB Total	626	849	0.424
Statis-Pro	79	107	0.425

The only relegated double headers remaining are Oakland vs. Atlanta, Minnesota vs. LA Dodgers, Kansas City vs. Cincinnati and finally Detroit vs. Milwaukee.

And here are the Tigers ready to take the field against the Milwaukee Brewers (to be added).

Cubs Upgraded Steele are Royals 1st Opponent

 Justin Steele is pitching at a pb2-9 (best) level, but we only allow one grade updates to our preseason projected cards so in the game we could only upgrade him from a PB 4-7 (average) one spot to pitch as a pb2-7 Here is his card against the debut Royals team as the Cubs must do well to get close to the playoffs.

In a virtual do or die, the Cubs failed to score for 9 innings, but Justin Steele saved them with 8 scoreless innings, and Candelario hit a 3-run homer in the 11th for a 4-1 lead.

The Cubs fell behind 3-0 and 5-3 in the second gamez but Canderlio was again the hero. His double in the 7th tied the game 4-4, then Matt Mervis had a walk off single in the 10th for a second straight extra inning winz 6-5. The Cubs improve to 28-32 to within two games of the Giants for the last playoff spot.

Adding Final 2 Teams - Royals and Tigers - as Reds, Cubs and Phillies Try to Rally

With 10 Statis-Pro teams playing in our Montana AL League and 9 in the Wisconsin NL league, there were a total of nine relegated teams between the two leagues. We already played seven of them in a couple of games against NL teams, but decided to go ahead and add the last two teams that have yet to play any Statis-Pro games - the Kansas City Royals and Detroit Lions.

As you can see from the NL standings with just three double headers left for each team except for the Reds, who only have two doubleheaders left - Kansas City will play the Reds and Cubs and Detroit will play Milwaukee.

Team - Ball Park HR	Wins	Losses	W%	GB	Remaining	Best case	Actual - .025
Los Angeles Dodgers (11-34)	36	18	0.667	0	Cin, Phi, Min	54	0.594
Atlanta Braves (11-43)	32	22	0.593	4	AZ, SF, Oak	50	0.626
Milwaukee Brewers (11-35)	31	23	0.574	5	Mia, Phil, Det	49	0.526
Miami Marlins (11-28)	30	24	0.556	6	ChC, Mil, Phil	48	0.483
Arizona Diamondbacks (11-43)	28	26	0.519	8	Atl, SF, LAA	46	0.498
San Francisco (11-33)	27	27	0.500	9	AZ, Atl, ChC	45	0.498
Cincinnati Reds (11-63)	27	33	0.450	12	LAD, KC	39	0.494
Chicago Cubs (11-27)	24	30	0.444	12	Mia, SF, KC	42	0.503
Philadelphia Phillies  (11-35)	24	30	0.444	12	LAD, Mia, Mil	42	0.518
Relegated (StL, Was, Mia, Pit, SD, NYM, LAA, Oak, Min, KC, Det)	77	103	0.428	22			0.431

 

The key to one of the last three teams being able to crack the top six and make the playoffs could come down to the Diamondbacks vs. Giants series. If they split their series evening at 3-3 then they would both still have a 3 or 4 game lead over the three last place teams, but if one of them won the series 5 to 1 or 6 to 0 then it would open the door for the Reds, Cubs or Phillies to snatch the last playoff spot.

The Reds and Cubs both need to win their series against the relegated Kansas City squad big to have a chance. It seems much tougher for our biggest underperformer, the Philadelphia Phillies, who finish the season playing three of the top four teams in the league.

The one good piece of news for the Phillies is that Michael Lorenzen came from Detroit at the deadline, and is actually upgraded from a PB 2-7 to a PB 2-8, giving the Phillies three PB 2-8 starting pitchers. In addition to the Tigers being hurt by losing him, the Royals are hurt by losing Aroldis Chapman. Unfortunately for both teams the only card changes were losing those two and some players being downgraded, except that Detroit added a strong PB 2-7 lefty in Tyler Holton. The links you need to play the game yourself are at the bottom of the blog.

The following are all the links you need to play the game yourself.

Click for the free Statis-Pro Master Baseball Game. Click here for 60 of the all-time great MLB teams, or on teams of many of the all-time great players on teams by nation or state with one sheet for each team. Or click on the 2023 pitchers and 2023 batters in card form. You simply print two teams cards and then either print theaster link above and fast action cards in master link or buy the dice to start playing. 

If you are playing the current 2023 season, you can use these optional adjustments for 149 players who were playing much better or worse than than their projected 2023 pitchers or 2023 batters in card form. 

Ohtani Statis-Pro Cards Debut vs Milwaukee ace Burnes

A major motivation for including some of the relegated AL teams to complete NL Statis-Pro schedules was to get to use Shohei Ohtani's batting and pitching card. For each relegated AL team, we are having them play two NL opponents in two games each to go through their 4-man pitching rotation.

Here are the Los Angeles Angels four games:

Milwaukee Brewers at LA Angels - Angel Stadium is a great home run park at 11-54 (55-88 deep fly out) and both teams will start their aces. The Brewers Corbin Burns faces Shohei Ohtani in a match-up of two of the only PB 2-9 starting pitchers in the game.

LA Angels at Milwaukee - American Family Field is exactly average 11-35 home run. The No. 4 pitcher in each rotation will pitch with former White Sox Lucas Giolito for the Angels against Eric Lauer.

LA Angels at Arizona Diamondbacks - Chase Field 11-43 good hitters park. The Angels No. 2 pitcher Tyler Anderson vs. DBacks No. 2 pitcher Andrew Chafin - a lefty and thus Brandon Drury will start at third base for the Angels.

Arizona at LA Angels - No. 3 pitcher Patrick Sandoval at Tommy Henry.

Playing the Angels also means getting to use Mike Trout's batting card to add a line-up that suffered injuries but added three Colorado Rockies sluggers.

LU	Pos	Oakland Starters	Card OPS	old team	Game Notes
1	LF	Mike Trout	0.970
2	DH-P	Shohei Ohtani	0.881
3	1B	C.J. Cron	0.809	fr Col
4	RF	Hunter Renfroe	0.803
5	CF	Randal Grichuk	0.761	fr Col
6	1B	Mike Moustakas	0.745	fr Col
7	Ca	Logan O'Hoppe	0.725
8	2b	Michael Stefanic	0.694
9	ss	Andrew Velazquez	0.613
v LHP	2B	Brandon Drury	0.720

In addition to adding Giolito the Angels also attained their new closer in our game, Reynaldo Lopez. Still only a PB 2-7 for a weak bull pen. However, because the Angels pitchers need to pitch in such a pitchers park, each of them turn the highest home run number on the opposing batters card into an out. 

Rot	Angels Rotation + top 3 Relievers	Tm	Card ERA
vMKE1	Shohei Ohtani		3.19
vMKE4	Lucas Giolito	fr CHW	4.15
vARZ2	Tyler Anderson*		4.47
vARZ3	Patrick Sandoval*		3.77
Closer	Reynaldo López	fr CHW	3.71
Set-up	Aaron Loup*		4.07
No.3	Carlos Estévez		4.15

Game Results will follow.

Game 2 - the Brewers jumped all over the Angels with 6 runs in the 1st, but needed Devin Williams in the 9th for a 6-5 win and split. They stay in 3rd place behind the Dodgers and Braves in our Statis-Pro league.

Twins Statis-Pro cards for Line-up and Pitching

Scroll the the bottom for results on both Twins-Giants games. 

The Twins are the next relegated AL team to face the Giants and then next the Dodgers. They will face Logan Webb and then Sean Manaea vs. the Giants then go onto face the Dodgers for their other other two interleague games. Below is a picture of the starters by position, with two cards on a position if they platoon in our game - though we have Gallo playing either 1st base or left field depending on the platoon. Below that are the pitching rotation and top three relievers.

Overall a really strong line-up. Pitching is weaker, but the top three relievers cards are very good, so if they can make it to the 7th with a lead they have a good shot.

Here is the line-up, including the three noted on the board start against left-handed

LU	Pos	Minnesota Starters	Card OPS
1	CF	Byron Buxton	0.867
2	SS	Carlos Correa	0.827
3	2B	Jorge Polanco (Bat: S)	0.790
4	3B	Royce Lewis	0.825
5	DH	Jose Miranda	0.788
6	RF	Max Kepler (Bat: L)	0.730
7	1B/LF	Joey Gallo (Bat: L)	0.756
8	Ca	Ryan Jeffers	0.707
9	LF	Trevor Larnach (Bat: L)	0.689
vs L	1B	Alex Kirilloff (Bat: L)	0.712
vs L	2b	Donovan Solano	0.746
vs L	RF	Matt Wallner (Bat: L)	0.694

And here is the pitching rotation - with the Ace and No. 4 starter set up to go against the Giants, and then the No. 2 and 3 starters against the Dodgers pitchers.

 

Rot	Twins Top Pitching Cards	Card ERA	Game
S1	Pablo López	3.80
s4	Dallas Keuchel	4.40
s2	Kenta Maeda	4.12
s3	Sonny Gray	4.00
Closer	Jhoan Duran	2.62
Set-up	Jovani Moran	3.33
No. 3	Caleb Thielbar	3.45

San Francisco claims just 2 wins and 4 losses against the Twins, who received sweep credit for a 10-4 nightcap win after a 7-2 win that was not a sweep (must be up 5 runs at the end of 8 innings for a sweep).

Here is the score sheet of the second game with the combined stats from the two games combined.

Minnesota at San Fran.

Ballpark Factors and Rematch of 1972 and 1990 World Series as Statis-Pro A's take on Reds

 As the rematch of the 1972 and 1990 World Series lines up in our home-and-home Oakland vs. Cincinnati game, here is a reminder on the home run chart. On a deep drive in Oakland Coliseum in the first game the ball will only leave the park on 11-15, and be a sac fly on 16-88. for the second game in Cincinnati, the ball will fly out on anything from 11-63.

LU	Pos	Oakland Starters	Card OPS	Game
1	CF	Esteury Ruiz	0.676
2	2b	Zack Gelof	0.875
3	RF	Seth Brown	0.753
4	RF	Tony Kemp	0.692
5	LF	Brent Rooker	0.701
6	DH	Shea Langeliers	0.687
7	C	Carlos Perez	0.601
8	SS	Nick Allen	0.604
9	3b	Kevin Smith	0.615
A	P1	Kyle Muller	3.84 era
D	P4	Paul Blackburn	4.27
B	P2	Ken Waldichuk	3.87
C	P3	Adrian Martinez	4.03
	Cl	Hogan Harris	3.8

This is one reason the Oakland A's pitchers ERAs are pretty good, but their hitting is very weak with most of their line-up sporting an OPS below .0.700. However, this is factored into the cards so they should hit better than that in Cincinnati's hitter friendly ballpark.

The results of the two games to follow.

Reds drop the opener 3-2 at Oakland, leaving the tying run in third base in the 9th.

2nd game. India's 3-run homer in the 6th helped Cincy pull off a 7-2 win which counts as a sweep, meaning they take the series 4 games to 2 despite losing the first game. India's homer occurred in his lowest out number because Oakland's pitchers allow that to offset their advantage of pitching in a pitchers park.

The Reds are now 4 games out of our last playoff spot with only two series left, against the bearable Rockies but then the Dodgers.

3 Relegated AL Team Statis-Pro Cards Play NL Teams

 The finalized Statis-Pro schedule is finalized with the final "relegated" opponents being pulled from three interesting relegated American League teams from the league in Montana. The Los Angeles Angels feature Ohtani and added players at the trade deadline. The Minnesota Twins are exceeding expectations atop the AL Central. And finally the Oakland A's, who have only one more season in Oakland before heading to Las Vegas. Each team has three or four 2-game series remaining, and we marked the AL opponents in red.

Here are the cards for some of the exciting hitters we will get to use by playing these three teams. Zack Gelof gets the highest possible temporary card (above OPS 0.851) as he has flirted with 1.000 for the Oakland A's (bottom row) - and they brought back catcher Carlos Perez who had not been in the majors in five years. The Angels brought in several players to try to surround Shohei Ohtani with talent as he decides whether to stay with them after this season. Minnesota has a nice new player in Royce Lewis and picked up Donavan Solano, who was a free agent at the beginning of our season.

LA Angels face Arizona and Milwaukee

Minnesota will play LA Dodgers and San Francisco

Oakland plays - Cincinnati, Atlanta and  Chicago Cubs

The only relegated NL team with any games left are the Rockies, who will play the Reds.

Here are the remaining games for each NL Statis-Pro team, with AL opponents in Red

Arizona Diamondbacks  vs. Atl, SF, LAA

Atlanta Braves  vs. AZ, SF, Oak

Chicago Cubs vs. Mia, Phi, SF, Oak

Cincinnati Reds vs. col, LAD, Oak

Los Angeles Dodgers  vs. Cin, Phi, Min

Miami Marlins vs. ChC, Mil, Phil

Milwaukee Brewers  vs. Mia, Phil, SD, LAA

Philadelphia Phillies   vs. LAD, Mia, Mil

San Diego vs. Atl,  Chc, Cin, Mil

San Francisco vs. AZ, Atl, ChC, Min

Clicking on the Statis-Pro batter cards, you will see we have used the optional season upgraded and downgraded cards, marked in red.

The same is true of the Statis-Pro pitcher cards.

Kershaw vs. Alcantara - reminder on links to Print your Own cards and Marlins play Dodgers

Our periodic reminder on how to print your own cards and play your own game. Since our next series is the Los Angeles Dodgers and Miami Marlins, their cards actually appear in order on both the pitchers and hitters good doc, so just printing one range gets all three pages of pitchers and hitters for both teams.

Pictured the "37" was Clayton Kershaw's 8th strike out to end the 5th inning with his SR stamina still at "4." However he is losing 1-0 to tell Cy Young winner Sandy Alcantara, who has 6 strikeouts through 5 shutout innings and still has plenty of gas with an SR 10 left.

However the next inning the young slugger but poor fielding card if Jay Outman came into play as he failed to get to a clutch defensive catch to allow a bases loaded triple for a 4-2 Marlins Win. In the second game the Marlins scored one of our only series wins against the Dodgers, adding 4 runs in the 9th for a 7-2 win.

The second paragraph reminds of you optional in season adjustments for players who are playing much better or worse than their projected cards so far in the actual MLB season.

Click for the free Statis-Pro Master Baseball Game. Click here for 60 of the all-time great MLB teams, or on teams of many of the all-time great players on teams by nation or state with one sheet for each team. Or click on the 2023 pitchers and 2023 batters in card form. You simply print two teams cards and then either print theaster link above and fast action cards in master link or buy the dice to start playing. 

If you are playing the current 2023 season, you can use these optional adjustments for 149 players who were playing much better or worse than than their projected 2023 pitchers or 2023 batters in card form. 

Braves & Dodgers Atop Statis-Pro and MLB Standings After ATL Batters Mets

Atlanta drubbed the Mets 8-3 and 9-3 to moved past Milwaukee into second place in our Statis-Pro League. The following shows the Statis-Pro standings followed by the actual MLB Standings. The teams in blue would get a bye if the Statis-Pro season ended today, and the red teams would be in the best-of-three wild card. Here is the grid of all of our games.

As you can see, the Dodgers and Braves would get the bye either in the Statis-Pro season or MLB after their wins (see scoresheet further down in blog). The one big difference is Philadelphia is only 8th in our Statis-Pro season but would be in the 4th MLB playoff spot. On the flip side, the Marlins are just a couple of games out of the MLB playoffs in 9th, but they are 4th in Statis-Pro. However, they play the Dodgers next.

In the NL, we do let the five relegated teams (Col,NYM,Pit,Stl,Was) as well as some AL relegated teams starting with the Minnesota Twins play some games against the other nine teams. Those five teams are playing .443 baseball in actual play, and .420 in the games they have played against the ten NL Statis-Pro teams. Each of the 10 teams play four relegated teams.

NL	Statis	MLB	Statis W	Statis L	Statis %	MLB W	MLB L	MLB %	NL
LAD	1	2	36	18	0.667	78	48	0.619	LAD
Atl	2	1	32	22	0.593	82	44	0.651	Atl
Mil	3	3	28	20	0.583	70	57	0.551	Mil
Mia	4	9	30	24	0.556	65	63	0.508	Mia
SF	5	7	25	23	0.521	66	61	0.52	SF
AZ	6	6	28	26	0.519	67	61	0.523	AZ
ChC	7	5	24	30	0.444	67	60	0.528	ChC
Phi	8	4	24	30	0.444	69	58	0.543	Phi
Cin	9	8	23	31	0.426	67	62	0.519	Cin
SD	10	10	19	29	0.396	61	68	0.473	SD
Rel/AL	10	10	68	94	0.42	340	427	0.443	Rel/AL

Likewise in the NL there are two big surprises, the Cleveland Guardians who are 11th in actual MLB play but in the 4th Statis-Pro spot. On the flip side, the Rangers are two spots out of the playoffs in Statis-Pro but in 2nd overall and would actually get a bye in MLB.

The five AL relegated teams (Det,KC,LAA,Min,Oak) do not play in Statis-Pro, though sometimes we play a few of them against NL teams to finish out there season. Depending on how quickly we get through the season we might let each NL team above play one two-game series against one of the NL teams above. The five relegated AL teams are playing .411 baseball overall.

 

AL	Statis	MLB	Statis W	Statis L	Statis %	MLB W	MLB L	MLB %	AL
Bal	1	1	25	17	0.595	79	48	0.622	Bal
Hou	2	6	24	18	0.571	72	57	0.558	Hou
TB	3	4	25	17	0.595	78	51	0.605	TB
Cle	4	11	23	19	0.548	60	68	0.469	Cle
Tor	5	7	22	20	0.524	70	58	0.547	Tor
Sea	6	5	22	20	0.524	71	56	0.559	Sea
NYY	7	9	21	21	0.500	61	66	0.480	NYY
Tex	8	2	21	21	0.500	72	55	0.567	Tex
Bos	9	8	18	24	0.429	68	60	0.531	Bos
ChW	10	13	11	31	0.262	50	78	0.391	ChW
Rel	11		0	0	NA	263	377	0.411	Rel

Here is the Braves scoresheet of the 2nd of two games against the Mets, and the composite states for both teams.

The same two teams have the byes in the actual MLB season.

Click for the free Statis-Pro Master Baseball Game. Click here for 60 of the all-time great MLB teams, or on teams of many of the all-time great players on teams by nation or state with one sheet for each team. Or click on the 2023 pitchers and 2023 batters in card form. You simply print two teams cards and then either print theaster link above and fast action cards in master link or buy the dice to start playing. 

If you are playing the current 2023 season, you can use these optional adjustments for 149 players who were playing much better or worse than than their projected 2023 pitchers or 2023 batters in card form. 

Realmuto 3 HRs beat Cubs 2x in Statis-Pro

 We finally had a break from work for the first doubleheader in a while. The next matchup was between the two teams that are in the real MLB playoffs but not in the Statis-Pro playoffs.

Amazing - of the 9 teams in our league, in the real MLB season all are either in the playoffs or within 1 1-2 games of the playoffs if the season ended today. The two differences are the Cubs and Phillies would be in the real playoffs while in our game they would be replaced by the Giants and Marlins. 

JT Realmuto homered 3 times in the two games to help beat the Cubs 9-1 and then in a thrilling 5-4 come from. Behind win On the 2-run homer by Darick Hall pictured below on the 25 random number in his 22-26 home run range.

The Phillies are still digging out of an early season Statis-Pro hole, but they catch the Fire be at 24-30 (keep in mind records are better because the teams do not play as many games against the six relegated teams while they must play each of the other eight teams in our game in a series).

Lad 34-14

Mil 28-20

ATL 27-21

Mia 26-22

Sf 25-23

Az 28-26

Phil 24-30

Chc 24-30

Cin 23-31

Relegated teams 67-89

Statis-Pro NL Leaders and Standings - Tracking Actual Season Except Cleveland playing like 2022

While most of my updates are from our NL games in Milwaukee, we have an update from the Statis-Pro AL from out west in Montana. Here are the Statis-Pro standings, and we added a column for their actual MLB winning percentage right now and then the average last year since we use current rosters, but based more on last year's stats.

 

Statis-Pro AL "East"	W	L	Statis-Pro	Current Actual	2022 Actual
Baltimore	25	17	0.595	0.612	0.512
Tampa Bay	25	17	0.595	0.593	0.568
Toronto	22	20	0.524	0.549	0.568
New York	21	21	0.500	0.496	0.611
Boston	18	24	0.429	0.521	0.481
Statis-Pro AL "West"	W	L	Statis-Pro	Current Actual	2022 Actual
Houston	24	18	0.571	0.574	0.654
Cleveland	23	19	0.548	0.475	0.568
Seattle	22	20	0.524	0.545	0.556
Texas	21	21	0.500	0.595	0.421
Chicago	11	31	0.262	0.397	0.499

The NL Statis-Pro teams are really tracking the actual current standings very closely with just a couple of exceptions. The Cleveland Guardians are playing much more like last year's very good team than this year's sub-.500 actual team. Also the Texas Rangers are in between this year's great team and last year's not-so-good team.

Here is the summary:

Headed down the stretch and there are still some tight races for playoff spots.

The trade deadline and some devastating season-ending injuries have changed the look of the pennant race.

Both divisional races remain close (with a first round bye at stake).

The Orioles are the hottest team winning 9-straight to move into a tie with the Rays.

Tampa Bay has had their rotation decimated with injuries and are trying to hold on.

The Astros getting Verlander back, have pushed into first place.

The Guardians keep finding ways to win and are in the playoff chase after 3-11 start.

Only the Sox (both White and Red) have slipped out of contention.

 

Statis-Pro AL Playoff format

Division winners receive a first round bye.

The next four best records will compete in the wild card round (Best-of-5)

The divisional round will be best-of-7.

The league championship series will also be best-of-7.

 

 

Statis-Pro AL East

Baltimore         25-17

Tampa Bay       25-17

Toronto             22-20

New York          21-21

Boston               18-24

 

Statis-Pro AL “West”

Houston            24-18

Cleveland         23-19

Seattle               22-20

Texas                  21-21

Chicago             11-31

 

 

Batting

Kwan, Cle          .322      (58-180)

Varsho, Tor      .313      (52-166)

Santander, Bal .304      (49-161)

 

Hits

Kwan, Cle          58

Mullins, Bal      55

Verdugo, Bos   52

 

Home Runs

Santander, Bal 14

Raleigh, Sea     13

Judge, NY          12

Runs Batted In

Santander, Bal 37

Judge, NY          29

B Lowe, TB       29

 

Runs Scored

Santander, Bal 30

Seager, Tex       30

Alvarez, Hou    28

 

Extra Base Hits

B Lowe, TB       23

Arozarena, TB 22

Semien, Tex     20

 

Earned Run Average

Heaney, Tex     5-2        2.25

Cortes, NY        6-2        2.32

McClanahan,TB6-2      2.44

 

Relievers

B Abreu, Hou   1-0        17-18

Clase, Cle          0-0        16-16

Adam, TB          0-0        15-17