A little bit of history: 2007

And so the game begins.

2007 saw the Milwaukee Brewers leap from the middle of the pack in 2006 to become World Sries Champions for the very first time.  Aided by top notch performances from the lies of Prince Fielder, Ryan Braun, J.J. Hardy and Zach Johnson, they walked the NL Central division with the best overall record in a 105 win regular season before 1 game victories over the Phillies and Mets in the playoffs and finally a 4-2 win over the Angels.

The other 4 qualifiers were Minnesota, LA Dodgers, NY Yankees and for the first time Tampa Bay, who ended up with the top AL record.

American League Eastern Division W L Pct GB PO Tampa Bay Devil Rays 102 60 .630 - * New York Yankees 96 66 .593 6.0 * Baltimore Orioles 86 76 .531 16.0 Boston Red Sox 83 79 .512 19.0 Toronto Blue Jays 74 88 .457 28.0 Central Division W L Pct GB PO Minnesota Twins 100 62 .617 - * Cleveland Indians 89 73 .549 11.0 Kansas City Royals 80 82 .494 20.0 Chicago White Sox 74 88 .457 26.0 Detroit Tigers 68 94 .420 32.0 Western Division W L Pct GB PO Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim 85 77 .525 - * Seattle Mariners 70 92 .432 15.0 Oakland Athletics 68 94 .420 17.0 Texas Rangers 62 100 .383 23.0

National League Eastern Division W L Pct GB PO New York Mets 100 62 .617 - * Philadelphia Phillies 98 64 .605 2.0 * Atlanta Braves 81 81 .500 19.0 Florida Marlins 70 92 .432 30.0 Washington Nationals 59 103 .364 41.0 Central Division W L Pct GB PO Milwaukee Brewers 105 57 .648 - * Pittsburgh Pirates 81 81 .500 24.0 Cincinnati Reds 73 89 .451 32.0 Houston Astros 73 89 .451 32.0 St. Louis Cardinals 73 89 .451 32.0 Chicago Cubs 66 96 .407 39.0 Western Division W L Pct GB PO Los Angeles Dodgers 94 68 .580 - * San Diego Padres 91 71 .562 3.0 Colorado Rockies 83 79 .512 11.0 Arizona Diamondbacks 82 80 .506 12.0 San Francisco Giants 64 98 .395 30.0

Post Season American League Division Series National League Division Series Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim 3 0 Tampa Bay Devil Rays Milwaukee Brewers 3 2 Philadelphia Phillies Minnesota Twins 3 2 New York Yankees New York Mets 3 1 Los Angeles Dodgers American League Championship Series National League Championship Series Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim 3 4 Minnesota Twins Milwaukee Brewers 4 3 New York Mets World Series Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim 2 4 Milwaukee Brewers

League Leaders - Batters Pos Player Team AVG 1 J. Mauer MIN 0.365 2 R. Howard PHI .358 2 J. Morneau MIN .358 4 F. Sanchez PIT .348 5 C. Pena - .345 Pos Player Team HR 1 R. Howard PHI 61 2 A. Pujols SLN 47 2 J. Thome CHA 47 4 A. Rodriguez NYA 44 5 T. Hafner CLE 43 Pos Player Team RBI 1 R. Howard PHI 154 2 J. Morneau MIN 151 3 D. Wright NYN 140 4 A. Rodriguez NYA 133 5 T. Hafner CLE 126

League Leaders - Pitchers Pos Player Team W 1 B. Sheets MIL 21 2 J. Santana MIN 20 3 C. Sabathia CLE 19 3 J. Smoltz ATL 19 5 7 tied w with 17 Pos Player Team ERA 1 2 tie with 2.46 1 F. Castro PHI 2.46 1 B. Sheets MIL 2.46 3 S. Kazmir TBA 2.57 4 M. Pelfrey NYN 2.69 Pos Player Team K 1 M. Garza MIN 251 2 J. Santana MIN 229 3 J. Peavy SDN 224 4 S. Kazmir TBA 221 5 J. Beckett BOS 214

A little bit of history: 2006

2006 was the season previous to the start of this game so it's worth taking a look back at the real world back then as a starting point.

The 2006 season ended with a World Series victory for the St. Louis Cardinals, defeating the Detroit Tigers by 4 games to 1.  The American League won the All-Star game for the 4th straight season (and the 9th time in 10 seasons).  The divisional winners were the New York Yankees, Minnesota Twins, Oakland Athletics, New York Mets, St. Louis Cardinals and San Diego Padres.

Why the Giants?

No prizes for guessing which team I chose to take control of, but I guess I should explain why.

The short answer is that the Giants are awful.

The long answer is that the Giants are awful, just awful in every way and there is almost no way I could do a worse job than those who came before me.

In real life the 2007 season was a complete bust with the big deal around Barry Bonds breaking records overshadowing pretty much everything else that the Giants wanted to achieve.  A last place finish in the NL West and a .428 season would be low points not seen by the franchise since the early 80's and not seen since.

Bear that in mind when I tell you that this version of the Giants finished with a .395 record that season, bettering only the Washington Nationals in the league table and the Texas Rangers in the American League (so they didn't even pick top 2 in the draft).  Barry Bonds failed to beat Hank Aaron's home run total, falling 19 short with a paltry 2 in the season so there wasn't even that off-coloured lining.

And then it got worse...

2008 saw a dead last finish with a franchise history low .352 record, with total attendances dropping by 55% from 2,000,000 to 900,000 as a result.  2009 saw a barely noticeable improvement to .395 before three consecutive 100+ loss seasons in 2010 (.370), 2011 (.358) and 2012 (.383).  Finally 2013, this past season saw a .395 record, which equals the best of the past 7 years, and an attendance which has steadily declined to under 400,000.

Overall in seven seasons the best record was a paltry .395 record with an average of .378 leaving them rock bottom of the 30 teams by quite some margin in that time period.

The Giants cant even really claim to have drafted highly or even well either.  Seven seasons of failure have only yielded one overall #1 pick (2009) and two #3 picks (2011, 2012) and several of those first round picks have been less than successful.

I will be writing several articles covering the history of the league and the Giants that will cover this in more detail but for now it is enough to state that the Giants have been the worst overall team during the last seven seasons and have drafted poorly enough that following 6 straight top 5 picks their minor system is still only ranked 14th and behind several teams who have won world series championships in that time.

What's all this then?

This blog is a commentary to my fantasy baseball manager career using Out of the Park Baseball 8.  It is purely for fun on my part and hopefully writing about the game will prevent it form becoming a by-the-number spreadsheet operation for me.

For my game world, I wanted something a little different to normal and more of a challenge so I decided to take the original game rosters (2007 season) and play through with them in automatic mode until 2014 (actually the end of the regular season 2013 so I could look at player retention).  This meant that all those real world prospects that I knew about are now fully grown superstars and all the superstars are now coming into retirement.  That gives me just the right combination of nostalgia and mystery to begin my journey.

In terms of league setup, I have the full major league/class structure (ML, 2*AAA, 3*AA, 3*A+, 2*A,1*R+, 3*R) with real world affiliations as of the 2007 season plus the addition of five feeder leagues (3*college, 2*high school) to provide players for the draft with some genuine statistics as opposed to complete unknowns.

In terms of game settings, trades are set to hard, less frequent and to favour prospects, all ratings are set to 1 to 20 except overall/potential which is 1 to 5 stars and finally talent change randomness is reduced to 25.

Starting in 2014 I made several other changes to the various settings:

• The draft is now limited to 30 rounds, the talent pool pool is available 75 days beforehand and draft picks can now be traded
• Ghost players are now allowed
• Batter ageing set to 0.700, batter development set to 1.100, pitcher ageing  et to 0.850, pitcher development set to 1.100 - all of these are to counter the accelerated drop off in skill level for players hitting their 30's.