What If 83-79 Cubs Edged 84-78 DBacks? Statis-Pro Playoffs Rosters

 The Chicago Cubs faced the misfortunate of closing the season at Atlanta and Milwaukee, losing the first four of those games by a total of five runs and ultimately losing the last playoff spot to the Arizona Diamondbacks by just one game with a 83-79 record.

The lack of any home field advantage in baseball playoffs was proven once again as both the ALCS and NLCS featured a road win in Game 7 - meaning the visiting team still has an all-time edge in baseball Game 7s while the home teams in other sports dominate.

How close were the Cubs to returning to the World Series?

With wildcards seeming to dominate in the new playoff format against the top teams with wins, the Cubs may have been very close. Once again the dominant teams - the 100-win Braves and Dodgers - were cast aside and the Diamondbacks that barely caught the Cubs are now representing the NL in the real World Series starting tonight.  Arizona has the worst record ever to make the World Series except for the 1973 New York Mets (lost World Series) and the 2006 St. Louis Cardinals (won World Series).

In Statis-Pro it was the reverse, The Cubs grabbed a Wild Card spot and it was the Diamondbacks who fell one game short.

The Astros have already won our Statis-Pro AL World Series. The Phillies have won our first NL Wild Card series over the Brewers to move on and face the Braves. Now the Cubs play their 3-game Wild Card against our other non-real season team to make the Statis-Pro playoffs, the San Francisco Giants.

We went through the Statis-Pro cards and only kept the cards of players who were on the current MLB depth chart and NOT on the 60-day DL. This eliminated Roberto Perez. But other players who were just on the 10- or 15-day DL are kept in our game and have the note "allow" by their name below.

These are our Statis-Pro rosters for this wild card series, and the winner will get the Dodgers.

A blow the the Cubs is that even though we do select upgrades for the most improved batters and pitchers, we only adjust by one PB - so Justin Steele can only be upgraded from his project PB 4-7 card to a PB 2-7 - but not nearly as good as the PB 2-8 or 2-9 he will get next year based on this year's dominate season. Also we started out the Mark Leiter starting in Statis-Pro this season since he had started some games last year, but he stayed in the pen all year so will be the closer instead of pitching several innings a game.

If we did not have a card for the player yet, then we list the OPS and ERA on which their card is based. However, if they had fewer than 100 plate appearances or 15 games pitched then they get a below average card at best.

The only new/temporary cards of value for these playoffs are two good relievers for the Giants in a PB 2-8 Luke Jackson and a 2-7 Ryan Walker. For the Cubs, Mike Tauchman in centerfield has a slightly above average .739 OPS and gives a lefty bat with B/C speed, and reliver Jose Cuas is a PB 2-7 reliever with a 3.99 ERA over 72 games. The temporary cards can be found at the end of the 2023 pitchers and batters projected cards in the links below.

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. 

 

Giants	STARTER	2ND
C	Patrick Bailey .644 SN	Blake Sabol
1B	LaMonte Wade Jr.	Roberto Perez (out 60)
2B	Thairo Estrada
3B	Wilmer Flores	Casey Schmitt
SS	Marco Luciano .641 limited	Brandon Crawford
LF	Michael Conforto
CF	Tyler Fitzgerald.733 42 PA	Luis Matos .661
RF	Mike Yastrzemski
DH	Joc Pederson	Mitch Haniger allow
Rot 1&2	Logan Webb	Alex Cobb allow
Rot 3&4	Sean Manaea	Keaton Winn
Clos/SU	Camilo Doval	Tyler Rogers
Rel 3&4	Kyle Harrison 4.15 6 IP 7 Gm	Taylor Rogers
Rel 5&6	Luke Jackson 2.97 2 IP 33 Gm
Rel 7&8	John Brebbia	Ryan Walker 3.23 2 IP 49 Gm
Cubs	STARTER	2ND
C	Yan Gomes	Miguel Amaya
1B	Cody Bellinger	Jared Young
2B	Nico Hoerner allow	Miles Mastrobuoni
3B	Jeimer Candelario	Nick Madrigal
SS	Dansby Swanson	Patrick Wisdom
LF	Ian Happ
CF	Mike Tauchman .739 401 PA LN	Pete Crow-Armstrong  .176 19 PA
RF	Seiya Suzuki	Alexander Canario
DH	Christopher Morel
Rot 1&2	Justin Steele	Marcus Stroman
Rot 3&4	Kyle Hendricks	Jameson Taillon
Clos/SU	Adbert Alzolay	Julian Merryweather
Rel 3&4	Mark Leiter Jr.	Drew Smyly
Rel 5&6	Brandon Hughes	Brad Boxberger allow
Rel 7&8	Jose Cuas 3.99 2 IP 72 Gm	Javier Assad

Next up the 3-game series.

Cobb Slugs Carlton, but Schmidt and 1980 Phillies Sweep 1909 Tigers

Mike Schmidt's 1980 Phillies swept the 1909 Detroit Tigers 12-8 and 4-2 in a Statis-Pro game after the current Phillies fell just 2 games short of the real World title Saturday. The other 2 all-time top 100 players considered by some the nastiest superstars, matched up three times with Ty Cobb getting the better with a double, single and 4 RBIs against Steve Carlton, but Carlton got the win in a slugfest.

Dick Ruthven settled things down with 8 innings, and he doubled with one of the best batting cards of any pitcher in our game in a 4-2 win. The box score and how I set up the sheets is shown below. I lay the top of each team's batters just below the pitcher in the game at the time, then a business card under the batter at the plate. This was the set up when Carlton was facing Cobb., Whose home run range is 46-47 in addition to a deep drive on 48-52.

Phillies fans will remember the incredible turnaround to win the NL title, despite falling short in Game 6 of the World Series Saturday night. Despite being a happy Astros fan myself, I decided to remember another great Phillies team in a Statis-Pro game after the Series ended.

In my Eastern Division play, the 2008 Phillies World Champs already split against Honus Wagner's 1909 Pirates world champions, losing 1-0 then winning 5-3 in 11 innings. Tonight we played the other Phillies champions, against the team that lost that 1909 World Series - the Detroit Tigers. By clicking on the google sheet of the 60 great all-time teams, we see the following on the team page.

The other two tabs are for pitchers and hitters. As noted above, the Detroit Tigers have the 4th best player of all-time in Ty Cobb, and the Phillies have the 18th best player of all time in Mike Schmidt. 

The chart also shows that the pitchers hit in either park, and in the first game a DEEP drive is a homer of 11-58 in Philadelphia in 1980, but only goes out on an 11-18 in the second game played in Detroit in 1909. We have a separate Division for all the New York and Boston teams, so they are not in our "East."

When we go to the pitchers sheet we see the Phillies will also start the 58th best player of all-time in pitcher Steve Carlton. Carlton has the best PB 2-9, but also his maximum innings he can face is 10. The Tigers ace is Ed Killian who is almost as good with a PB 2-8 and can go up to 9 innings if his SR endurance does not run out. The blue pitchers are starters, the red is a closer, and then the black font below are relievers - all in order from best to worst. The Tigers do not have an ace reliever as in 1909 when the best pitchers all started and the relievers were there if they couldn't finish the whole game.

A picture of the scoresheet will be added after the game.

Yanks Sweep Jays, Face Dodgers in WS, Also Dodgers 1955 vs. Yankees 1927 ends bizarre with Lasorda pitching to Gehrig

We have reached the Statis-Pro World Series using 2022 Projected cards  The Yankees swept the regular season champ Jays with ease - as their 3rd and 4th pitchers Montas and Severino won 5-0 and 5-1 games against the highest scoring offense if our season. Rizzo had 5 hits in games 3 and 4. (See bottom of blog for score sheet and key player cards).

The classic Dodgers - Yankees series lead us to open the All-Time play in our 12-team New York-Boston Division. We decided to try two of the greatest teams of all-time - the 1927 Yankees and the 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers. Their player cards in sheet form are below. Don Newcombe pitches game 1 and when he bats can hit a homer on a 23-31.

Division openers:

East Division - 1909 Pirates won 1-0, vs 2008 Phillies won 5-3 in 11 innings.

New York-Boston Division - 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers vs. 1927 Yankees - craziest double header I've ever played. Aces Newcomb (who also bats 3rd) and Hoyt started in dead ball 1927 game for  3-2 Dodgers win in 14 innings. Duke Snyder hit 2-run homer in top of 14th then in bottom Jackie Robinson's Clutch Defense 5 saved game with diving stop down 3rd base line. Both bullpens shot for finale in a little more lively ball 1955, which Brooklyn won 19-9. Dodgers ended up needing to put the affable but terrible pitch Tommy Lasorda on mound for last two outs. He gave up a sac fly to Meusal to cut it to 19-8, then a wild pitch to make it 19-9 with the greatest mismatch in Statis-Pro history of Lasorda pitching to Lou Gehrig - who against all odds grounded out to shortstop.  The ridiculous score sheet is at the very bottom of the blog.

Certainly feel the Dodgers got their money's worth for the ridiculously high salaries they paid their big three bats!

1955 Brooklyn Dodgers
Salaries

Roy Campanella	$42,000.00
Jackie Robinson	$35,000.00
Duke Snider	$35,000.00

Midwest Division - St. Louis Browns 1922 vs KC Royals 1985, royals win 5-3 and 3-2.

South Division - Atlanta Braves 1995 win 7-2 vs. Washington Senators 1934 win 1-0.

West Division - 1972 Oakland A's vs. 2001 Seattle Mariners - to be played

Pennsylvania World Series! 1909 Pirates vs. 2008 Phillies

Game Results to Follow

The 1908 Pirates won a dead ball era game 1-0, the went to 2008 and lost in 10 innings to Brad Lidge in 11 innings.

Background and line-ups

 Here are the players for the Pennsylvania game between the 1908 Pittsburgh Pirates and the 2008 Philadelphia Phillies on the day that the real Phillies made the World Series. This is our first game in our All-Time Eastern Division.

Our Midwestern Division kicked off with the 1985 Kansas City Royals coming back to beat the St. Louis Browns 1922 team. In Southern play, Greg Maddux 1995 Braves and Walter Johnson's 1924 Senators.