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Kansas City Royals

OOTP 16 Picks Kansas City to Win a Likely Six- or Seven-Game World Series

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No matter who wins the World Series this year, one team’s new generation of fans will finally know the thrill of a championship. The New York Mets last took a trip to the fall classic in 2000, when they lost a subway series to their cross-town rivals, the New York Yankees, but they haven’t won it all since that classic 1986 World Series against the Boston Red Sox. (To refresh your memory: Game 6. A rolling ball. Bill Buckner’s legs.)

Meanwhile, the Kansas City Royals have repeated as the American League pennant winner but are still seeking their first World Series win since 1985, thanks to a loss in seven games against the San Francisco Giants last year. Like the New York Mets, Kansas City’s previous World Series victory was a seven-game thriller that also featured a memorable Game 6 moment and wins in the final two games to seal the championship.

After simming the World Series 20 times with Out of the Park Baseball 16’s Simulation Module, we’re picking the Kansas City Royals to win it, since they prevailed 16 times, but they’ll likely need six or seven games to do so: Nine times the series went the full seven, with three six-game series, seven five-game series, and just one sweep. We used the Simulation Module’s new Game Importance dropdown that allows you to select “playoff,” so the AI behaves accordingly. (It will be a new feature in OOTP 17 next year.)

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OOTP 16 Gives a Very Slight Edge to Toronto in ALCS

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The Toronto Blue Jays are in the American League Championship Series for the first time since 1993, thanks to a Game 5 ALDS victory over the Texas Rangers that featured one of the wildest innings in baseball playoff history. Meanwhile, the Kansas City Royals are in the ALCS for the second straight year and are seeking a repeat trip to the World Series.

(How’d we do with our ALDS picks? We were right on the money: We said Toronto and Kansas City would advance, and the majority of the series sims went five games. (Don’t ask us about our NLDS predictions.))

As with the previous playoff series this year, we’ve run multiple sims to create a composite of the results, but this time we’ve done so ten times, and we’re glad we did, because we saw some interesting results, as you’ll see. A caveat: Due to circumstances beyond my control, I needed to be out of the office on Friday, so I’m simming, writing, and publishing on Thursday evening. I’ve set up both teams’ rosters based on the information available to me right now, with some educated guesses made for things I don’t know. (It’s close to 7 PM Pacific time on Thursday night as I type this.)

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OOTP 16 Picks Toronto, KC to Emerge Victorious in ALDS Playoff Round

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The Houston Astros’ 3-0 victory over the New York Yankees on Tuesday night punched their ticket to an American League Division Series against reigning AL champs the Kansas City Royals. Meanwhile, the Texas Rangers and Toronto Blue Jays have known since the end of the regular season that they would meet in the other ALDS match-up.

Who will prevail in both series? As with our NL and AL Wild Card play-in game write-ups, we simmed each series five times and created a composite of the results to arrive at our prediction. We were helped by a handy option that was added to a special internal build of Out of the Park Baseball 16: a Game Importance dropdown that tells the AI if it should treat the sims as if they’re regular games or do-or-die affairs.

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Tales From the OOTP Multi-Verse: Bo Jackson and What Could Have Been

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OOTP 16Out of the Park Baseball provides a wonderful “What if?” laboratory for all kinds of experiments, from “What if free agency existed in Babe Ruth’s day?” to “What if baseball started expanding sooner than it really did?” It’s also great for seeing how underachieving players’ careers could have turned out, and the inspiration for this blog post hit me while watching ESPN’s “30 For 30” special about Bo Jackson.

Jackson’s baseball career was impacted by the awful injury he suffered while playing football, and he was never the same when he attempted his mid-90s comeback. So what if we rewound the clock to 1986, his rookie year with the Kansas City Royals, and took a look at what could have been? (Want to suggest a player or scenario we should use for a future “Tales From the OOTP Multi-Verse” installment? Drop us a line at info@ootpdevelopments.com.)

To set this up, I took a cue from Questdog, a user on our forum. He suggested basing potential ratings on career peak seasons in step one of the historical season setup wizard, as well as turning off recalc and using talent ratings and the OOTP development engine in step three. Recalc is normally on by default in OOTP’s historical seasons – It recalculates player ratings based on their actual stats that upcoming season, when the in-game calendar turns to January 1, so their performance is more in line with reality.

In this case, we want to base Jackson’s career performance on the potential OOTP gives him in 1986, when the possibilities are vast. However, the Kansas City Royals didn’t seem to feel that Bo knew enough to have a career with their organization, since they traded him in April or May of 1986 in every sim. After the first sim, I eschewed the minor leagues and went with the reserve roster, per Markus’s suggestion, so I suppose with guys like Willie Wilson and Lonnie Smith patrolling their outfield, Kansas City didn’t see room for Jackson on their club. He also started every sim as a highly touted prospect (usually #11 or #12 in all of MLB), so I guess his team figured he was worth more as trade bait.

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Here’s how Bo Jackson begins his career. (Click to enlarge.)

I simmed Jackson’s career five times. Here are his stats from each sim, along with a composite of the five. Below you’ll find more in-depth information about each sim.

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