Full 162-Game Season: Summary and Analysis

What's up everybody? It's time to disclose the results of the greatest MLB Showdown undertaking of all time... by me. My buddy Jeff and I decided to play out an entire 162 game season by hand - we rolled every pitch and every swing by hand and manually tracked all the stats that were accumulated over this 4-month ordeal. What a time to be alive!!!

Let's start out with the rules we play by, because we don't follow the official Showdown rules.

1. We used the 2002 set, but only the cards that I owned (which is a lot, but not all of them).
2. Super-Season cards were excluded (so no Pedro, Ricky Henderson, Griffey, etc.)
3. Rosters were 9 hitters, 5 starting pitchers, 4 bullpen, and 6 bench. At around the 120 game mark, we increased rosters to 8 bench just kicks (or because we found some cards lying around and wanted to add them in).
4. No point limit for rosters - we wanted to get as many good players in as we could.
5. Each team would be the "home" team for 5 games, and then it switched. The last 2 games we split at home, so each of us "hosted" 81 games.
6. Relievers could not pitch more than 1 game in a row - so we had to strategically manage our relievers (which basically consisted of us leaving in our starters to eat innings in a blowout loss).
7. No strategy cards were involved.




Here were the starting lineups for each squad:

Joe

Carlos Beltran (11 on base, 7 BB, 19+ HR, 23 Speed; +3 CF)
Roberto Alomar (12 on base, 6 BB, 20 HR, 21 Speed; +2 2B)
Barry Bonds (14 on base, 6 BB, 17+ HR; DH)
Luis Gonzalez (12 on base, 6 BB, 17+ HR; +1 LF/RF)
Chipper Jones (12 on base, 6 BB, 18+ HR; 3B)
JD Drew (12 on base, 6 BB, 18+ HR, 20 speed; +1 LF/RF)
Carlos Delgado (12 on base, 7 BB, 19+ HR; 1B)
Jorge Posada (12 on base, 7 BB, 19+ HR; +6 C)
Omar Vizquel (11 on base, 8 BB; 18+ 3B; +4 SS)

Jeff

Mark McLemore (12 on base, 7 BB, 20 3B, 23 Speed; 3B)
Cliff Floyd (13 on base, 8 BB, 18+ HR, 18 Speed; +1 LF/RF)
Jason Giambi (14 on base, 7 BB, 19+ HR, 1B)
Larry Walker (13 on base, 6 BB, 18+ HR; DH)
Sammy Sosa (12 on base, 6 BB, 17+ HR: +1 LF/RF)
Bernie Williams (12 on base, 7 BB, 19+ HR; +1 CF)
Rich Aurilia (11 on base, 7 BB, 18+ HR; +4 SS)
Einar Diaz (10 on base, 8 BB, 18+ 2B; +8 C)
Craig Counsell (11 on base, 8 BB, 20+ 2B; +5 2B)

And the starting rotations:

Joe

Roy Halladay (7 IP, +5 control, 1-17 out)
Curt Schilling (7 IP, +4 control, 1-17 out)
Randy Johnson (7 IP, +3 control, 1-18 out)
Andy Petitte (6 IP, +5 control, 1-16 out)
Kerry Wood (6 IP, +5 control, 1-15 out)

Jeff

Derek Lowe (7 IP, +4 control, 1-19 out)
Freddy Garcia (7 IP, +4 control, 1-18 out)
Brad Radke (7 IP, +5 control, 1-16 out)
Jon Lieber (7 IP, +5 control, 1-16 out)
Barry Zito (6 IP, +4 control, 1-17 out)

And now the results of the season, starting with the bats (my team is first).

And the pitching (again, my team first)

Before I go deeper with the statistical analysis, there are a few things to know. Any player with an asterisk next to their name was dropped at one point in the season. Jeff Nelson was dropped by both of us. He is a cursed card and was banished to the bottom of the bin after somehow giving up a combined 35 runs in 22 1/3 innings, despite being a decent card. In reality, he is a huge tease and is truly garbage. Andy Petitte was replaced in my rotation by Kaz Ishii after testing positive for PEDs, although he had an ERA over 8 and a whip over 2 so obviously it didn't help.

Here we go!

Bonds won MVP after setting a new ML record with 74 homers. You would think I would be excited about this (since I owned him and he led me to a 104-58 romp) but you would be dead wrong. He was actually pretty disappointing - probably the least clutch hitter in my lineup. I know I'm being an annoying, greedy manager, but a 284/464/751 was lower than I thought he would produce. I even had to punish him after a slew of getting out on his own advantage - he had to spend the remainder of a game in my dog's crate, which I assure you is no pleasant place to be.

Carlos Beltran was my favorite player and the MVP of the first half. He had an unbelievably well-rounded campaign and provided great defense in center. He was also clutch as can be - if guys were on base with 2 outs and he got the advantage, they were scoring every time (hence the huge RBI total out of the lead-off spot.

Delgado and Pujols essentially split time at 1B, although Pujols really outhit Delgado. There was a series in which Pujols went 16-24 in the 5 games.

Omar Vizquel leading the league in triples was a fun plot line to follow throughout.

For Jeff's team, Mark McLemore set a new ML record with 157 steals, as noodle-armed Jorge Posada couldn't throw him out very often. I can't tell you how many games he led off with a walk and a steal, and then all of a sudden there was a runner in scoring position with the big bats coming up.

Jason Giambi somehow hit 55 homers despite only being a 19+ homer (STEROIDS). I can't believe he pulled that off - just a great hitter (also, steroids).

Cliff Floyd probably got out on his advantage 100 times, yet rebounded in the second half to finish with 41 homers and a 300 average.

Craig Counsell was truly an abomination as a hitter. But his gold glove defense (+5, turned a billion double plays with Jeff's heavy ground-ball staff) and excellent clubhouse presence kept him in an everyday role. What can I say, everybody loved the guy. And after every game, his mom always provided delicious, and nutritious, snacks for the entire team (I suspect she was the one supplying Giambi with the steroids through his snacks).

As far as pitching goes, Curt Schilling won Cy Young behind his league-leading 4.91 ERA, 18 wins, and 309 strikeouts. He closed on a hot note, beating out Randy Johnson (the front runner after the first half of the year) and Kerry Wood (who was the front runner through most of the second half but really struggled his last few starts).

Troy Percival took home the Rolaids Relief award. 133 Strikeouts in 97 innings and multi-inning appearances helped him overcome a slow start to really dominate the last 120 games.

I dropped Rob Nen after game 157 - that's how sick I was of him being awful. I also dunked him in a glass of water at one point.

Jon Lieber somehow only had 3 quality starts out of 32. At least he ate up a lot of innings for Jeff's team.

Freddy Garcia was hit hard time and time again, was probably the biggest disappointment in the season. His card was the one of the best in the set, but his season did not portray that in the slightest.

Final Notes

The last 2 games we juiced up the hitting by pitching the worst 4 starters I had (Appier and Cone for me, Kennedy and Cornejo for Jeff). All were +1 control. Cornejo was truly something - +1, 5 IP, on at 15, gave up a homer at 20). That happened once - Chipper Jones homered off the Corndog when it wasn't even his advantage. Bonds somehow went 0-3 with 3 walks against him despite HAVING THE ADVANTAGE EVERY TIME. I'm still bitter about it.

In addition to Nen being dunked in water and Bonds spending time in a dog crate, other punishments were dished out. I benched my entire starting lineup one game. I also placed David Eckstein in the freezer. He was having a particularly cold spell at the plate and thought that spending time in his natural habitat would get him going. It didn't help.

But all of that pales in comparison to the fate of Einar Diaz, who was literally ripped in half. Doctors performed emergency surgery (we stapled him back together) and he carried on without missing a single game. What a dedicated player!

Nobody hit for the cycle (a few came close) and there weren't any no-hitters. Bonds hit a homer in 7 straight games at one point. Towards the end of the season, I gave up a walk-off homer in 3 straight games (one of which was the last pitch Nen ever threw). I nearly blew an 18-4 lead in the 9th inning of one game - I left in Ishii for the complete game to save my bullpen and he gave up 12 in the 9th before I finally turned to Percival to shut the door. Ishii still hasn't forgiven me for ruining his season stats.

I finished 104-58 and had a blast doing it. Up next, we will be playing a 162 season with the 01 set to pass the time as we wait for the rest of the 2018 set. I don't have all the cards available, but enough to make it exciting. I will post the draft results, predictions, and some minor rule tweaks we are making in a separate article for everyone (Thank God, right? He's been rambling on for hours already!)

Until next time!

Joe