Twins Advance in Alternate Statis-pro as Mets Try to Survive in Real MLB

 In Milwaukee, the New York Mets are trying to advance from the Wild Card series in a decisive Game 3 against the Brewers.

Also in Milwaukee, the Mets Statis-pro team was eliminated 7-2 and 7-5 after a dominant short Statis-pro season. 

The winner was the Minnesota Twins, meaning the two AL teams that just missed the playoffs - the Twins and Seattle Mariners, madd it in Statis-Pro to the divisional series.

J-Rod Walk Off HR Advances Mariners in "What if No Injuries" Statis-Pro Playoffs

In the 3-game series, the Mariners never led except for when they hit walk off homers in Games 1 and 3.

Our short 2024 Statis-Pro Baseball Season came down to the bottom of the 11th inning with the Yankees Clarke Schmidt needing to retire the Mariners Julio Rodríguez to hold on for a 5-3 Yankees win and 2 games to 1 Wild Card Series win.

If the Mariners had made the actual playoffs and this were the match-up, we would have expected a Yankees win because Schmidt had a dominant season that would result in a PB 2-9 card which would have in fact retired Rodriguez in this game. Meanwhile Rodriguez played through injuries to compile and OPS more than .100 points lower than was projected and thus resulted in one of the best hitting cards in the game.

However, if the two had faced off in mid-June, when the Mariners were winning their division by 10 games and Clark was on DL with a career ERA of above 4.00, we would have assumed a Rodriguez game-winner, which is what we go with a game winning series ending walk off homer. 

This "What-if" season during which we let all player cards be used despite real seasons now lets the Mariners advanced to play the full-strength Houston Astros - with Yordan Alvarez, Kyle Tucker and Justin Verlander at full-strength unlike the actual season - in our playoff.

In the Statis-Pro season this year, the Yankees bullpen is scary bad and that was the difference in this one, as Cal Raleigh hit a game-winning walk off 9th inning homer in Game 1 for a 3-2 win to spoil an 8-inning gem by Gerrit Cole.  Earlier in the game Aaron Judge homered, and then he hit a deep drive that was caught at the wall (a 56 random number, while T-Mobile Park allows homers on 11-53.).

In Game 2, Judge homered again in an 8-3 blowout win to even the series.

 

Innings Game 1	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9
NY Yankees (2)	0	1	0	0	0	1	0	0	0
Seattle Marines (3)	0	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	2
Innings Game 2	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9
NY Yankees (8)	2	2	0	0	1	0	2	1	0
Seattle Mariners (3)	0	1	0	2	0	0	0	0	0
Innings Game 3	1	2	3	4	5	8	9	10	11
NY Yankees (5)	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	2	2
Seattle Mariners (6)	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	2	3
2024 NY Yankees	OPS	Pos	HR	OBR/SP	AB	R	H	RBI	Notes
Jazz Chisholm Jr. (fr MIA)	0.764	RF	25-32	A/AA	14	2	6	2	3 SB, 2B
Juan Soto	0.960	DH	23-31	D/B	9	3	3	1	4 BBs
Aaron Judge	0.954	RF	21-31	E/C	14	2	2	3	2 HRs
Gleyber Torres	0.797	2b	27-33	C/B	14	1	0	0
Giancarlo Stanton	0.776	LF	18-26	E/E	14	0	1	0
Ben Rice (Temp #4)	0.746	1b	27-31	D/E	2	1	1	1	HR
Jon Berti	0.695	PR	31-32	A/A	0	1	0	0	2 SB
DJ LeMahieu	0.719	1b	27-31	D/C	1	0	0	0
Anthony Rizzo	0.759	1b	22-27	E/D	9	1	2	2	HR
Jose Trevino	0.648	C	27-31	D/D	2	0	0	0	BB
Austin Wells	0.709	C	23-26	C/C	11	0	2	0
Anthony Volpe	0.710	SS	22-26	A/AA	10	2	2	2	SB, HR
Trent Grisham	0.727	cf	21-24	B/A	12	2	3	3	2 HRs
Batting Average					112	15	22	14	0.196
2024 Seattle Mariners	OPS	Pos	HR	OBR/SP	AB	R	H	RBI	Notes
Julio Rodríguez	0.841	CF	28-35	A/AAA	12	3	4	4	GW-HR, SB
Randy Arozarena (fr TBR)	0.800	LF	27-32	B/B	13	2	2	1	3B
Justin Turner (fr TOR)	0.746	3b	28-32	E/D	13	0	1	1
Cal Raleigh	0.761	C	22-28	E/D	13	2	3	2	2B, HR
Mitch Garver	0.757	DH	22-27	E/D	12	2	2	2	2 HR
Jorge Polanco	0.742	2b	25-31	D/C	9	1	2	2	HR
J.P. Crawford	0.736	SS	28-31	E/C	11	0	1	0
Luke Raley	0.729	1B	23-27	B/B	9	0	0	0
Victor Robles (fr wsn)	0.691	RF	27-31	A/A	10	2	1	0
Batting Average					102	12	16	12	0.157
NY Yankees Pitchers	ERA	PB	K	Max IP	IP	H^W^K	R	ER	Notes
Gerrit Cole	3.62	2'-8	24'-46	7	8	4^1^6	1	1
Marcus Stroman	4.03	2'-7	21'-32	7	4.3	3^0^3	2	2	L G1, Sv G2
Carlos Rodón	3.82	2'-9	22'-41	6	5	5^0^5	3	3	W G2
Nestor Cortes	4.02	2'-8	24'-42	5	5	3^4^2	1	1
Clay Holmes	3.54	2'-7	31'-51	2	2	1^0^2	0	0
Jonathan Loáisiga	3.73	4'-7	25'-38	2	1	0^0^1	0	0
Clarke Schmidt	4.39	2'-7	24'-37	6	2.7	6^0^0	5	5	L G3
Pitching Totals					28		12	12	3.86
Seattle Pitching	ERA	PB	K	Max IP	IP	H^W^K	R	ER	Notes
Luis Castillo	3.46	2'-8	23'-43	7	7	4^2^6	2	2
Bryce Miller	4.10	2'-7	23'-35	6	2.7	0^0^1	0	0	W G1
Andrés Muñoz	2.90	2'-9	17'-44	2	4.3	1^1^3	2	2	Sv G1
George Kirby	3.56	2'-8	26'-42	7	4.3	7^1^6	5	5	L G2
Yimi García (fr TOR)	3.91	4'-7	24'-43	2	1	2^0^2	2	2
Gabe Speier	3.57	4'-7	24'-43	2	1.7	1^0^1	1	1
Logan Gilbert	3.69	2'-8	25'-42	7	7	2^1^2	1	1
Matt Brash	3.29	2'-7	33'-62	2	1	2^2^1	2	2	W G3
Pitching Totals					29	0	15	15	4.66

Click here for links to all the current players as well as the 60 all-time great Statis-Pro baseball teams, and here are the instructions to play your own games.

Alternate Universe - Statis-Pro Yankees vs. Mariners Playoffs

Here are the player sheets for our Yankees vs. Mariners best of 3 what-if series. The Mariners put together a neat line-up for a run, but did not in the end make it - but if ARod had not had the long injury they could have maintained their early season lead. We will report on their chances in this Statis-Pro best of -3.

Tm	W	L	W-L%	GB	RS	RA	pythW-L%
SEA	44	31	.587	--	296	274	.535
HOU	33	40	.452	10.0	319	317	.503
TEX	33	40	.452	10.0	308	326	.474
LAA	29	44	.397	14.0	302	377	.400
OAK	27	48	.360	17.0	273	363	.373

Alternate Universe - Statis-Pro Playoffs Begin

 Because we are swamped in political season, and on the road getting out hundreds of thousands of candidate comparisons and giving surrogate speakers - we have not played a Statis-Pro baseball game in 19 days!

Click here for links to all the current players as well as the 60 all-time great Statis-Pro baseball teams, and here are the instructions to play your own games.

Therefore we had to declare our September 13 standings final, and start our playoffs from there.

Its possible before our first game is finished both teams with a bye - Houston and Baltimore - will be eliminated. We are shuffling cards with the Astros gone and the Orioles needing to rally from down 201 in the 8th inning to avoid a similar 2 games to 0 sweep in the wild card round of real baseball.

Our league is a "what-if" league because we let all players play in the Statis-Pro game regardless of if they were injured in the regular season. Because we used the projected stats for the cards, the other variable is surprise breakouts or down seasons, but also cards at full strength even if the player was fighting through injuries. An example, Justin Verlander, Kyle Tucker and Yordan Alvarez have two of the best cards in our games, even though they were nowhere near full strength playing through injuries - perhaps part of the reason the Astros at full strength were our No. 2 seed with a bye while the real Astros came in a weak No. 3 and then lost two straight to the surprising Detroit Tigers.

Here are our Statis-Pro playoff match-ups for games played in Milwaukee - which included mostly AL teams but also the Mets and Cardinals. The Montana League included the rest of the NL teams.

6-seed NY Yankees (in real baseball .580 winning percentage and No. 1 team in second half) at

3-seed Seattle (in real baseball 0.505 and 8th best in second half)

Winner gets 2-seed Astros (0.547 and 6th in second half in real MLB)

5-seed Minnesota Twins (0.506 and 10th in second half0 at

4-seed NY Mets (0.549 and 4th in second half)

Winner gets 1-seed Orioles (0.562  and 3rd in 2nd half in real season)

Cardinals Grab 8th and Final Spot for Statis-Pro 5th Round

For the first time ever, we had a Statis-Pro game end due to a ruling. The Cardinals were clinging to a 3-2 lead needing a win for the 8th and final spot in our next round, but The A's had the tying run on 3rd and winning run on 1st with Jo Adell at the plate. If the Angels won then it would be Tampa rather than St. Louis as the 8th team.

And then a Z-play led to the umpire ruling that Adell's bat was illegal and calling him out - leaving the Cardinals in the next round with a 3-2 win.

My best friend and I have been playing Statis-Pro Baseball seasons on and off since the 1970s - and I am still using a 1978 Board and Fast Action Cards in my games though I've posted the dice version for some time.

We rotate leagues with me playing in Milwaukee and him in Montana, and this season my friend has the NL - meaning he takes the top 10 teams and has played a lot of games this year with the Dodgers dominating our "what if" (no injuries) this season. 

My Milwaukee league is a bit more experimental. I play each game as a 3-game series, with a winning team that leads by 5+ runs after 8 innings getting credit for a 3-game sweep, and all other games counting as 2 games to 1. 

This season I also relegated 5 AL teams, BUT I claimed two of the relegated NL Teams, the Mets and Cardinals. I put the 12 teams in four 3-team pods. Each team played four 2-game series - most against each other but we also let the relegated teams all play one or two series.

At the end of four series, the bottom four teams were dropped and the top 8 teams were set to advance and breakup into an East and West Division to play the 5th and 6th series after which two more teams will be dropped leaving a 6-team playoff.

The Orioles start and 1st in the East and the Astros in the West, but the final 8th spot went down to the last game. The Cardinals needed a 5 game to 1 win over the relegated LA Angeles. They won the first game 6-0 to claim it 3 games to one and then had to just win the final game as described earlier.

Here are the Statis-Pro line-ups and the four starters who will start their 5th and 6th series, as well as the closer.
 

Line-up	2024 Baltimore Orioles	2024 Cleveland Guardians	2024 Houston Astros	2024 Minnesota Twins
Park	Bal (Oriole P/Camden 11-25)	CLE (Progressive HR 11-36)	Minute Maid Park (11-36 HR)	MIN (Target Field 11-36 HR)
1	Cedric Mullins	José Ramírez	Kyle Tucker	Willi Castro
2	Gunnar Henderson	Andrés Giménez	Jose Altuve	Byron Buxton
3	Eloy Jiménez (fr CWS)	Josh Naylor	Yordan Alvarez	Carlos Correa
4	Adley Rutschman	Kyle Manzardo	Alex Bregman	Max Kepler
5	Anthony Santander	Lane Thomas (fr wsn)	Yainer Diaz	Edouard Julien
6	Ryan Mountcastle	Bo Naylor	Chas McCormick	Ryan Jeffers
7	Ramón Urías	Steven Kwan	Jeremy Peña	Carlos Santana
8	Jordan Westburg	Brayan Rocchio	Jake Meyers	Trevor Larnach
9	Heston Kjerstad	Tyler Freeman	Trey Cabbage	Kyle Farmer
Pitchers	Baltimore Rotations/Closer	Cleveland Rotations/Closer	Houston Rotations/Closer	Minnesota Rotations/Closer
S1	Corbin Burnes	Shane Bieber	Framber Valdez	Pablo López
S2	Zach Eflin (fr TBR)	Triston McKenzie	Justin Verlander	Joe Ryan
S3	Grayson Rodriguez	Alex Cobb (fr Bal)	Hunter Brown	Chris Paddack
S4	Kyle Bradish	Tanner Bibee	Yusei Kikuchi (fr Tor)	Bailey Ober
Closer	Craig Kimbrel	Emmanuel Clase	Josh Hader	Jhoan Duran
Line-up	2024 NY Mets	2024 NY Yankees	2024 Seattle Marines	2024 St. Louis Cardinals
Park	NYM (Citi Field 11-38 HR)	Yankee Stadium (11-57 HR)	Sea (T-Mobile Park 11-53)	Busch Stadium (11-25 HR)
1	Starling Marte	Jazz Chisholm Jr. (fr MIA)	Julio Rodríguez	Lars Nootbaar
2	Francisco Lindor	Juan Soto	Randy Arozarena (fr TBR)	Jordan Walker
3	Pete Alonso	Aaron Judge	Justin Turner (fr TOR)	Paul Goldschmidt
4	José Azocar	Gleyber Torres	Cal Raleigh	Nolan Gorman
5	Brandon Nimmo	Giancarlo Stanton	Mitch Garver	Nolan Arenado
6	J.D. Martinez	Ben Rice (Temp #4)	Jorge Polanco	Willson Contreras
7	Jeff McNeil	Austin Wells	J.P. Crawford	Alec Burleson
8	Francisco Alvarez	Anthony Volpe	Luke Raley	Masyn Winn
9	Brett Baty	Trent Grisham	Victor Robles (fr wsn)	Michael Siani
Pitchers	NY Mets Rotations/Closer	NY Yankees Rotations/Closer	Seattle Rotations/Closer	St. Louis Rotations/Closer
S1	Kodai Senga	Gerrit Cole	Luis Castillo	Sonny Gray
S2	José Quintana	Carlos Rodón	George Kirby	Miles Mikolas
S3	Luis Severino	Nestor Cortes	Logan Gilbert	Kyle Gibson
S4	Sean Manaea	Marcus Stroman	Bryce Miller	Lance Lynn
Closer	Edwin Díaz	Clay Holmes	Andrés Muñoz	Ryan Helsley

 

Here is a grid of the teams records and their wins (across) and losses (down) against each of the remaining teams and then against every other team. The two remaining series for each team are marked with "play" typed to show the match-up.

 

East	Balt	NYY	Cleve	NYM		Min	Sea	Hou	StL	Other	Win	Loss	GB
Balt	x	5	3	3		play	play	x	x	7	18	8	0
NYY	1	x	play	play		x	4	2	x	7	14	13	4.5
Cleve	3	play	x	play		3	0	x	x	6	12	13	5.5
NYM	3	play	play	x		x	x	x	4	8	15	8	1.5
West
Min	play	x	3	x		x	2	5	play	5	15	10	1.5
Sea	play	2	6	x		4	x	play	x	3	15	8	0.5
Hou	x	4	x	x		1	play	x	play	12	17	9	0
StL	x	x	x	2		play	x	play	x	10	12	12	4
Other	1	2	1	3		2	2	2	8
Total Loss	8	13	13	8		10	8	9	12

Tampa Wins, Awaits Cardinals Game to Determine Which Advances

Tampa fought of  feisty challenge from the relegated Oakland A's to pull off 3-2 and 6-5 wins and have a chance to advance past the 4th round series. Their 11-12 mark in our Statis-Pro Baseball game means that If St. Louis loses to Mike Trout and the LA Angels then Tampa will stay in 8th place in our Statis-Pro season to make it the actual top 8 teams over the bast two seasons are also the top 8 teams in our season and play a 5th round.

However, if the Cardinals with the game, then they improve to 12-12 to move into the 8th and final spot to play more rounds. That would mean there was one surprise team - the Cardinals - who have not really been in the top eight teams the last two years (12th of these 12 teams) but will advance.

From there, the top 6 eventual team will make the playoffs.

 

Statis-Pro	2023-24	Statis-Pro	W	L	Win%	Playoff	Pod	2023	2024
1	1	Baltimore	18	8	0.692	bye	East	0.623	0.568
2	3	Houston	17	9	0.654	bye	South	0.556	0.535
3	6	Seattle	15	8	0.652	WC1	West	0.543	0.503
4	8	NY Mets	15	8	0.652	WC2	Surprises	0.463	0.545
5	5	Minnesota	15	10	0.600	WC3	West	0.537	0.531
6	2	NY Yankees	14	13	0.519	WC4	East	0.506	0.572
7	4	Cleveland	12	13	0.480	1 GB	West	0.469	0.572
8	7	Tampa	11	12	0.478	1.5 GB	South	0.611	0.49
		Cutoff after 4 series
9	12	St. Louis	10	11	0.476	1 GB	Surprises	0.438	0.5
10	10	Texas	11	13	0.458	1.5 GB	South	0.556	0.483
11	11	Boston	10	13	0.435	2 GB	East	0.481	0.503
12	9	Kansas City	7	17	0.292	5.5 GB	Surprises	0.346	0.548
		cws,det,laa,oak,tor	9	24	0.267	8 GB		0.433	0.411

The teams are in the order of their current Statis-Pro standings, while the second column shows their ranks over this season and last. The Orioles are No. 1 over this season and last, as well as in the Statis-Pro season.

Click here for links to all the current players as well as the 60 all-time great Statis-Pro baseball teams, and here are the instructions to play your own games.

Checklist of Waiver Pickups since the Trade Deadline - Lead by Pham

We had set all the teams as final but have had a little waiver activity since the trade deadline, so just moved these cards from team to team in the Statis-Pro Baseball Game 2024 team sheets.  We will try to updated the drop box version too, but until these you can double check players from this sheet and just make the adjustment.
 

Rnk	From	To	Batter off Waivers	OPS	Pos	HR	OBR/SP	Fielding
1	StL	KCR	Tommy Pham	0.727	RF	23-26	B/A	LF, CD-1, E5, T2
2	Balt	Mia	Cristian Pache	0.659	LF	25-27	B/C	CF, LF, CD-4, E2, T4
3	SDP	NYM	José Azocar	0.631	CF	28-31	A/A	CF, RF, CD-3, E3, T3
4	LAD	Cin	Amed Rosario	0.708	ss	31-32	A/B	SS, CD-1, E7
5	Tex	KCR	Robbie Grossman	0.702	OF	21-23	C/C	LF, CD-1, E5, T2
6	NYM	Hou	Ben Gamel	0.688	LF	15-14	D/E	LF, CD-3, E3, T3
7	Tex	Ari	Andrew Knizner	0.673	C	24-26	E/C	C, CD-1, E3, TC
8	Mia	Balt	Forrest Wall	0.653	LF	28-28	A/A	LF, CD-4, E2, T4
9	SFG	Mia	Derek Hill	0.619	cf	27-27	B/C	cf
Rnk	From	To	Pitcher off Waivers	ERA	PB	SR	RR	Max IP
1	KCR	Mia	Anthony Veneziano	4.85	2'-6	0	5	3
2	NYY	CWS	Enyel De Los Santos	3.92	2'-6	0	2	2
3	TB	ChC	Shawn Armstrong	3.72	4'-7	0	2	2
4	StL	LAA	Nick Robertson	3.81	2'-5	0	2	2
5	Tex	LAA	Brock Burke	3.84	2'-6	0	3	2
6	NYY	Min	Michael Tonkin	4.22	2'-4	0	3	2
7	Tor	Phil	Jose Cuas	4.25	2'-4	0	3	2
8	LAA	Mia	Mike Baumann	4.28	2'-4	0	3	2
9	Tex	Sea	Jonathan Hernández	4.36	2'-5	0	3	2
10	KCR	Mia	John McMillon	4.45	2'-5	0	2	2
11	Balt	Tor	Dillon Tate	4.48	2'-4	0	3	2
12	Det	Phil	Joey Wentz	4.51	2'-5	0	3	2
13	Cleve	Mia	Xzavion Curry	4.65	2'-4	0	4	2
14	Bost	ChC	Trey Wingenter	4.66	2'-4	0	3	2
15	Mil	Oak	Janson Junk	4.68	2'-5	0	3	2
16	Phil	Was	Michael Rucker	4.84	2'-4	0	3	2
17	Ari	ChC	Gavin Hollowell	5.18	2'-4	0	3	2

The only batter I'd view as a big pickup on waivers is Tommy Pham, going across state from St. Louis (where we had him leading off) to the big improved team of the year Kansas City where I plan to hit him 9th to give speed at the bottom as well as top of the line-up.

Cristian Pache is ranked a distant 2nd behind Pham, going from our first place Orioles to the Marlins, which claimed many players. 

Jose Azocar is No. 3 for me, as I had him hitting No. 9 for San Diego and while he will be on the bench for me in Mets games, having A/A speed from a decent centerfielder is always nie for pinch running now that steals are back.

Likewise Enyel De Los Santos can eat up some innings now that he is off the Yankees, though their relief cards are weak in our game.

The actual best card picked up though was Shawn Armstrong as the only PB 4-7 (average) to move on waivers, and going to the Cubs who are trying to make a run.

The only other PB 2-6 (almost average) is Brock Burke moving from Texas to the relegated LA Angels.

None of the other relviers, all PB 2-5 or PB 2-4, are likely to be used by me in may games so just fillers in case their teams are in a 15-4 game or something.

Enyel De Los Santos

Others with speed on the list are Amed Rosario (Dodgers to Reds) and Forrest Wall (Miami to Baltimore for their run at the World Series).

Pitchers

The reason I rank Anthony Veneziano No. 1 of the waiver pickups is he can give multiple innings for Miami and I have him as their 3rd best reliever after just having him as the 6th best reliever for the Royals.