Statis-Pro Playoffs; Improved Verlander, Altuve & Alvarez Lead Astros vs. Injured Twins

The Twins actually finished a game ahead of the Astros in our Statis-Pro season, a far cry from the actual MLB season in which the Twins failed to make the playoffs while the Astros had the top record in the AL. However, we produced new cards for the 28 most improved players above their 2022 projections.

The new cards below for Game 1 starter Justin Verlander, and No. 2 and No. 3 hitter Jose Altuve and Jordan Alvarez seem to give them a huge edge against the Twins roster further down that look like a hospital unit with Bruxton, Sano and Maeda among many player cards that can not be used due to injuries.

Click here for the preview of the other Statis-Pro Wildcard series as the Yankees host the White Sox. The winner of that series advances to face the Cleveland Guardians, while the winner of the Astros-Twins series moves onto play the Toronto Blue Jays, as outlines in the season review.

Houston Astros

 

Pos	Astros Batters	Statis-Pro
RF	Kyle Tucker	1 - RF
2B	Jose Altuve	2 - 2b improved
LF	Yordan Alvarez	3 - DH improved
3B	Alex Bregman	4 - 3b
LF	Trey Mancini	5 - LF
1B	Yuli Gurriel	6 - 1b
CF	Chas McCormick	7 - CF
C	Christian Vazquez	8 - C
CF	Mauricio Dubon	9 - SS vs LHP
SS	Jeremy Pena DD	9 - SS vs RHP
SS	Aledmys Diaz	find
LF	Michael Brantly	ineligible
C	Jason Castro IL60	ineligible
SS	David Hensley
C	Martin Maldonado
CF	Jake Meyers
Pos	Astros Pitchers	Statis-Pro
P	Justin Verlander	a
P	Lance McCullers Jr.	b
P	Cristian Javier	c
P	Luis Garcia	d
CL	Ryan Pressly	1
RP	Hector Neris	2
RP	Will Smith	3
P	Framber Valdez	4
CL	Rafael Montero	5
RP	Ryne Stanek	6
RP	Bryan Abreu	7
RP	Phil Maton	find
RP	Josh James	ineligible

Minnesota Twins

 

Pos	Twins Batters	Statis-Pro
2B	Nick Gordon	1 - 2B
SS	Carlos Correa	2 - SS
2B	Jorge Polanco IL10	3 - 1B
DH	Luis Arraez	4 - 2B
3B	Gio Urshela	5 - 3B
C	Ryan Jeffers	6 - C
C	Gary Sanchez	7 - DH
CF	Gilberto Celestino	8 - CF
LF	Jake Cave	9 - LF ops .644 B/D
1B	Jose Miranda DD	ops .751 D/E
RF	Matt Wallner	rf - 8 ops .709 E/D
CF	Mark Contreras
C	Caleb Hamilton
CF	Billy Hamilton
SS	Jermaine Palacios
CF	Byron Buxton	ineligible
	Alex Kirilloff	ineligible
LF	Trevor Larnach	ineligible
C	Sandy Leon IL60	ineligible
3B	Royce Lewis IL60	ineligible
1B	Miguel Sano IL60	ineligible
LF	Kyle Garlick	ineligible
Pos	Twins Pitchers	Statis-Pro
P	Sonny Gray IL15	a - improved
P	Joe Ryan	b
P	Dylan Bundy	c
P	Bailey Ober	d
RP	Caleb Thielbar	1
RP	Emilio Pagan	2
CL	Jhoan Duran	3
RP	Michael Fulmer	4
P	Chris Archer IL15	5
RP	Griffin Jax	6
RP	Jorge Lopez	7 - era 5.45
RP	Kenta Maeda	ineligible

Cleveland Claims Last Bye in Statis-Pro 2022 Regular Season Finale

While some play Statis-Pro baseball historical seasons, since the 1980s we have played the current season on and off. We enjoy seeing the current line-ups. Our alternate reality 2022 AL MLB season already produced the Dodgers as NL champs using the Statis-Pro baseball game using these 2022 Protected Batters, and 2022 Projected Pitchers for Arizona to Miami and then Milwaukee to Washington.  

2022 Season Finale (click here for tracking of all games):

The Cleveland Guardians, the youngest team in MLB baseball, advanced to the AL Division Series in MLB this weekend, and on the off day for real baseball Monday defeated the Orioles in the final 2022 regular season Statis-Pro baseball series to advanced to the same level.

McKenzie threw 6 innings of 1-hit ball to give the Guardians a 6-0 lead after 8 innings, enough for the 5+ lead after 8 innings that give credit for a 3-game sweep in our game rules, as long as they held onto the win. However, that got tight when Rutschman hit a 3-run homer in the bottom of the ninth and Clase needed to come into save the 6-3 win. 

That meant Cleveland just had to not get swept in the second game to catch the Yankees and Twins for the 2nd playoff bye. That seemed easy when the Guardians took a 6-1 lead in the first two innings of the season finale when Reyes, Gonzalez and Ramirez homered. However, Mullins again exploded with a double, singled and two homers to help the Orioles take an 11-8 lead, but the Guardians kept them from getting to the 5-run lead to salvage a 1-2 record for that game as a loss but not a sweep - finishing 33-33.

The Guardians claim 2nd by breaking the 3-way tie by going 8-4 against the Yankees and Twins in these final standings. Here are the final standings, with the last column showing how much better or worse the team was then against the other 10 teams chosen for a Statis-Pro league this year (the four bottom teams were left out).

2022 Statis-Pro Final	W	L	GB	Statis-P	vs. MLB
Toronto	37	17	10	0.685	0.159
Cleveland	33	27	3	0.550	0.045
NY Yankees	33	27	3	0.550	-0.014
Minnesota	33	27	3	0.550	0.092
Houston	32	28	2	0.533	-0.083
Chicago White Sox	30	30	0	0.500	0.022
Boston	29	31	-1	0.483	0.036
LA Angels	23	31	-4	0.426	0.030
Baltimore	20	28	-4	0.417	-0.068
Seattle	25	35	-5	0.417	-0.099
Tampa Bay	23	37	-7	0.383	-0.136

That sets the playoffs

Teams had to make the playoffs based on the projected 2022 cards, however any of their players that were among these 18 most improved pitchers or 10 most improved batters can sub their card based on this season's stats.

Best of 3 White Sox at Yankees - winner Best-of-7 vs. Guardians

Best of 3 Astros at Twins, winner Best-of-7 vs Blue Jays

AL Champion from Above Meets Dodgers in Statis-Pro 2022 World Series

The following are the Cleveland cards that delivered the 33-27 season and bye.