OOTP Baseball 16: Astros Season Predictions

OOTP Baseball 16 became available to the world on March 23rd. For those of you who haven’t heard of a the game, it is a baseball simulator that you can play on your computer. You can be a manager of a team and run the day-to-day operations, you can be a general manager and make roster moves for your respective team, or you can be a commissioner and control the entire league.

For the purposes of this article we’re going to pretend that the Astros fired Jeff Luhnow, hired me, the first 17-year old GM in history, and see how things fare in 2015.

Jim Crane set the bar high for the 2015 season by informing me that I shouldn’t suck completely. Apparently he also expects the Astros to continue the playoff drought for another six years but that’s besides the point, all we care about is 2015 right now.

Here’s the lineup manager A.J. Hinch has decided to use. I disagree with pretty much all of it but I’m not the manager.

The season got off to a blazing start, as we are 1-5 and Chad Qualls suffered a season-ending injury.

We’re now 25 games into the season and we have a 10-15 game record. Jose Altuve has been tearing it up so Hinch proceeded to move him DOWN in the order. You can see how everyone else is doing as well.

The draft rolled around in June so naturally I took Brady Aiken. Small UCL ligaments aside, he should be a key cog six years down the road when Jim Crane wants us to make the playoffs.

Why couldn’t it have been this easy last year?

I’ve now made it to June 15th. We’re 31-33 and only 4 1/2 games behind Oakland for the division lead. Hinch is still hell-bent on batting Luis Valbuena lead-off even though he’s hitting .216 so we’re going to trade him and call up Colin Moran, who’s hitting .417 in AAA. Valbuena and Jason Castro are now members of the Arizona Diamondbacks. We acquired a lefty reliever because we have the worst bullpen in baseball right now, and Gerald Laird, who replaced Castro as the backup catcher.

Jed Lowrie has hovered around the Mendoza line all year and Jonathan Villar has taken over the starting role from him. Since Jim Crane wants us to cut payroll, Lowrie is going to have to go. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a single team that wanted him. I couldn’t even get a dollar for him so on the bench he sat.

We’ve since made it to the All-Star break. We’re 42-49 and Jose Altuve is our only All-Star. The roster moves get crazy starting now. Scott Feldman has a 2-10 record with an ERA in the 6.00 range but nobody wants his contract…. not even Ruben Amaro Jr.

GM Dayton Moore is on a mission to ruin the Royals future as he made this deal with me.

Here’s the new-look Astros. To answer your question, yes, that is Carlos Correa.

Here comes the trade deadline. We’re 50-53 and only 3 1/2 games out of the second wildcard spot. If you recall, Jim Crane wants me to upgrade center field. With both Gattis and Carter performing well, there really is no space for Jon Singleton so I’m going to attempt to package him with someone else for a stud center fielder.

I swung a big deal acquiring Corey Dickerson from the Rockies. He made the 2015 All-Star game and is having a spectacular year. I was also able to get top pitching prospect Eddie Butler.

For those of you who are curious, here’s the roster for the stretch-run.

Of course by my luck, Corey Dickerson tears a thumb ligament two weeks into his Astros tenure so Domingo Santana is on his way to make his 2015 debut. He’s hitting .260 with 24 HR’s in AAA so hopefully this major league appearance beats 2014’s debacle.

August came to an end and September call-ups rolled around. The team has fallen off considerably since Corey Dickerson’s injury. We’re 63-70 and 10 GB of the second wild card spot.

We were eliminated from the playoffs on September 23rd and we finished the season with a record of 76-86. Even better, Texas finished last in the division.

Look, Jim Crane is delighted.