A 1962 Expansion Mets do over, version 2.0 Topic

As some here know, I also like to play OOTP Baseball as a solitaire game at home. You can reshape the contours of historical baseball to your liking. My most recent attempt to do so follows:

So, other times I had the idea, which I posted elsewhere on this site but never got finished, of giving the expansion 1962 Mets a do-over, and to take on the challenge of whether I could turn them into a respectable team, or even a competitor, on some other basis, or schedule, than actually happened with the Miracle 1969 team (though I do still have great affection for that team, the first one I ever followed, at age 9).

But the problem with doing it as it occurred historically is, predictably, that it gets boring real quick: losing almost every game gets old fast. If you go with the expansion draft as it happened historically, you occasionally find a mediocre player or two that weren’t in the original draft, but otherwise the draft choices are nearly pre-selected – you either draft someone Houston got who is marginally better, or the people the Mets drafted.
The Mets did have a few decent seasons from players here and there, but the problem is that those players last a single year and slide back, or retire – so Richie Ashburn and Gene Woodling are great OBP men, but 1962 was the end for them. Gil Hodges hit well in a very part time role, but also ended his career right afterward, and Felix Mantilla , or Frank Thomas in 1962 again had single useful years but not even regular contributions to make. The league did not give them much to work with.
But messing with the draft parameters by allowing fewer protected players on the expansion protection lists, or by allowing auto-protect only for players with a single year of pro experience or none at all, led, when I experimented, to ridiculously rich draft pools – Bobby Richardson and Willie Stargell were suddenly available. To have that kind of expansion draft pool seemed to violate the spirit of the game here.
So, I came up with a cheat that split the difference in an acceptable way: I started the game in 1962, with the four expansion teams – Angels, Senators, Mets and Colt 45s already in existence with rosters. Then I eliminated all four, making their players into free agents. THEN I re-created all four by expanding the league (I had unclicked the option to expand the league automatically, so I could control the expansion schedule). I allowed the usual 15 players to be protected in the subsequent expansion draft, now one for four teams and not just two, but allowed auto-protect only for players with 2 years or fewer.
This move enabled me to have a draft of mediocre players with the occasional prospect, and to then have all 20 teams, including the four expansion ones, participate in a free agent draft for the players previously with the original four expansion teams I had eliminated.
In the expansion draft we got the usual people near, but fewer that were at the end of their careers, and were able to pick up Tommie Agee, Denis Menke, Cookie Rojas, Max Alvis, Jim Perry, and Sam McDowell, all of whom can play well in future seasons. The rest of the roster was retreads.
In the free agent draft that followed, Dean Chance was available when it came our turn and we drafted him, but then traded him and three other players for Jim Kaat. This gives us an eventual front three of Kaat, McDowell and Jim Perry. We obtained Roy Face in another trade to have some semblance of a bullpen, but except for long relief and spot starts from Dallas Green that is about all we got.

Our starting lineup on Opening Day, 1962, then, is:
Against LH pitchers:
Chuck Hiller 2B
Ruben Amaro SS
Vic Power 1B
Lou B. Johnson RF
Max Alvis 3B
Gino Cimoli CF
Mike Hershberger LF
Doc Edwards C

Against RH pitchers
Chuck Hiller 2B
Ruben Amaro SS
Frank Torre 1B
Charlie Maxwell RF
Max Alvis 3B
Marty Keough LF
Mike Hershberger CF
Russ Nixon C

The starting rotation is
Jim Kaat
Al Jackson
Hank Aguirre
Jim Perry
Sam McDowell

The pre-season prediction of the AI is that we will win 68 games in 1962, finishing last.
I will keep you posted about how we do.


4/6/2017 5:18 AM
Awesome stuff. Curious how it turns out.
4/6/2017 11:12 AM
We won our first two against the Cards, and I had on the one hand visions of glory, and on the other the worry that maybe I had overdone it in making the draft a little more amenable to the expansion teams, especially mine.

But...then we got KILLED by the Pirates in three straight and lost 6 in a row all told. We won a couple to go to 4-6 and are currently 8-9 on the season. Houston, which the AI algorithm drafted for in the same expansion draft, is 10-8.

More soon. Sometimes I get impatient and "Sim" (let the computer run a series of games at a time to get through a certain part of the season) when I play OOTP, but so far I have been enjoying playing and managing the actual games. Don't know if that will last. So the reports might be of a week of games at a time here, or I may let a month Sim at once at some point and see where my players are so I can adjust staff and lineup etc....
4/8/2017 9:40 AM
Rookie Alvis, expected to eventually be a decent 3B and power hitting threat, so far can't hit the broadside of a barn (please, Greg Bird and Gary Sanchez, start hitting again, like you done before...that was beautiful !) (reference to Burgess Meredith in Rocky II...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ecs8Nj54CII)

So he has been dropped to 8th in the batting order. It may be that we need to bench him for now and put some veteran at third, maybe even let Rojas play 2nd and move Hiller to third. Have to see what we have among our limited resources...
4/8/2017 9:44 AM
Well when you get up to the year Reggie jackson was drafted i'm sure you won't pass him up like the Mets did
4/9/2017 11:59 AM
So...we completed 1962, which was fun for the first half, as we flirted with .500. But injuries to mostly everyone on our young staff, and to some of our old fuddyduddies (Charlie Maxwell went down 3 or 4 times for one reason or another).

The 1962 NY Mets as amended by my changed expansion draft set-up went 68-94, finishing 8th, ahead of the Milwaukee Braves, who played most of the season without Henry Aaron, and the Chicago Cubs.

With injuries at one time or another to Jim Perry - who is out until early 1963, Jim Kaat for a few weeks, Al Jackson and Dallas Green, who along with Vinegar Bend Mizell was intended to be a spot starter and insurance policy against injuries to starters, as well as some other minor injuries to staff and position players, we faded badly in the second half and needed to hold things together with scotch tape. I played about one-third of the games through on the season, playing every inning, and "simmed" through one week at a time so I could make adjustments frequently through the other two-thirds.

Not too many highlights to talk about - Kaat went 11-8 with a 3.50 ERA before going down for the rest of the season with a shoulder injury. Reliever Roy Face actually led the staff in wins going 12-6, 2.92 ERA with 16 saves. Al Jackson went 10-12 before injuries ended his season as well. Dallas Green before he was injured for the rest of the season as well, and Vinegar Bend Mizell combined for 26 starts, though neither began the season in the rotation. Without them we could not have even fielded a team one day in five, and went a combined 7-17. Hank Aguirre went 8-11 and just before the trade deadline we had to, ironically, trade Gary Kolb, a catcher for our AAA club for Jay Hook, so bad was our need for a starter with all the rotation regulars going down one after the other and the rest suffering from fatigue. Hook was a starter for the original 1962 Mets. So the AI of OOTP had its revenge on me.

Among position players, Rookie Third Baseman Max Alvis, who started the season very poorly, turned his season around in May and ended up at .296 with 18 home runs, and decisively became our third baseman for the coming years. (having a third baseman already puts us ahead of the original Mets, who did not really have one until...um, David Wright? No, Robin Ventura I think, though Ray Knight gets honorable mention, before that? Not so much at third).

Shortstop Ruben Amaro had a .359 OBP and 2B Chuck Hiller hit .280, so we have people on base sometimes at the top of the order. Left fielder Marty Keogh hit .290 and with 11 home runs was the only other member of the team after Alvis to have double-digit homers. We need power-hitting outfielders and a first baseman very badly. Catcher Russ Nixon hit .299, but had to platoon with rookie Chris Cannizzaro who, having been obtained in the Rule 5 draft had to be on the roster all season, but did not produce much.

Gino Cimoli and Charlie Maxwell and Mike Hershberger, which is to say 3 of our four starting OFs along with Keogh, were all injured for months at a time. So our OF production was very substandard. All three are aging anyway and we need to make OF and 1B priorities for our draft picks, since our starting staff is young, and if they can stay healthy should be a good staff in coming years, and Alvis, along with Cookie Rojas and Denis Menke, both of whom got some playing time due to minor injuries or fatigue by veteran starters at their positions give us a good infield with two good catchers for the next few years.

Tommie Agee, our top OF prospect is considered to be 3-4 years away from the big leagues. We need help now.
We could only envy established winning teams like AL and NL champs the White Sox and Giants for 1962, who face each other in the upcoming World Series and wait for the future. Harmon Killebrew of the Twins hit 60 home runs, just one short of Roger Maris' record from last season. Maris and Mantle hit 46 and 45 respectively for the third-place Yankees. Dick Stuart led the NL with 50 for Pittsburgh. Tommy Davis, .362 and Frank Malzone, .341 led the two leagues in Batting. Sandy Koufax won 20 games for the Dodgers and led the NL with a 2.21 ERA and Ken Johnson's 2.20 ERA for Baltimore was the best in the majors. Bill Monboquette won 24 games for Boston and Juan Marichal won 23 for the pennant winning Giants.

Unfortunately, none of those guys played for us. Now to the 1962 rookie draft.




4/13/2017 7:50 PM
A 1962 Expansion Mets do over, version 2.0 Topic

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