A good Birthday Team today, apart from third base and fifth starter.

With regard to third base, there seems to be some disagreement about Mike Mowrey's birthdate. Even his SABR bio page lists two different dates: March 24, 1883 and April 20, 1884. If he's eligible for today's team, he's a massive upgrade at 3B. I've generally used BBRef as the tiebreaker when there's a dispute on birthdates, though, so Buttermilk Tommy Dowd mans the hot corner on my version of the team.

C: Ted Easterly (12.57 WAR)
1B/Manager: Don Mattingly (42.17 WAR)
2B: Germany Smith (21.38 WAR)
3B: Tommy Dowd (-1.71 WAR)
SS: Dave Bancroft (48.5 WAR)
LF: Brandon Belt (17.5 WAR)
CF: Charlie Hemphill (16.06 WAR)
RF: Todd Hollandsworth (6.52 WAR)

SP: Milt Wilcox (13.61 WAR)
SP: Charlie Smith (9.59 WAR)
SP: Masato Yoshii (6.72 WAR)
SP: Johnny Wertz (2.42 WAR)
SP: Earl Harrist (-0.21 WAR)
RP: Sean Green (0.31 WAR)

Fun names: Steamer Flanagan, Ham Allen
Golden Greek: Harry Agganis
Spanish for "Girl Tony Perez"?: Tony Perezchica

I have not updated my fake OOTP team in a while. Bill Gullickson had won 115 games for my team by the age of 25 and was on the path towards immortality. Then it all fell apart. At age 26 his career may well be over. His ratings dropped like a stone, all of a sudden, for no known reason.

My best players are Moose Skowron (2 MVP awards, .330, 215 hits and 115 RBIs per year like clockwork) and Starlin Castro (steady 105 OPS+ with strong defense at shortstop). Al Bumbry is still a top hitter in the league but his defense has quickly gone late Bernie Williams on us, and with no DH slot I'm not sure what to do with him exactly.

Rennie Stennett may be the best player in baseball - he hits .350 and his defense at 2B is off the charts - but he has yet to play a season without missing several months to injury.

I won the WS 3 years in a row, which has cemented the White Sox's claim as the best team in baseball history. We're in 1927 I think. Still no sight of Ruth, Williams, Mays, Bonds, Mantle. Pedro Martinez does win the CYA almost every year. Bo Jackson was in the last draft but received mediocre ratings across the board, which is a shame.

Seems like Bo Jackson would be tough to replicate accurately in a sim like OOTP. He didn't make a ton of contact, so he shouldn't have a huge "contact" rating. He never cracked the AL top ten in stolen bases or triples, so he's not going to get a great "speed" rating. He'd have good power ratings, I assume, but that plus mediocre contact plus unspectacular speed ratings makes him indistinguishable from guys like Kingman and Armas.

He could run like the wind (before the hip injury), hit the ball 500 feet, and he had a great arm, but it would be difficult to get a data-based algorithm to see that stuff in his stats.

Which sucks, because Bo was the coolest.

Masato Yoshii had one of the all-time great quotes, late in the 1999 season, when he was pitching for the playoff-bound Mets. When a reporter asked him what he would do if he were left off the postseason roster, he said, "I'll be in the stands, eating a hot dog, drinking a beer, and yelling 'Put in Yoshii!!'"

Spanish for "Girl Tony Perez"?: Tony Perezchica

Time to start The Chica Tracker.

The 5 NL West teams scored 7 runs yesterday

That includes zero runs for the Giants behind Madison Bumgarner, who is now 0-3 despite allowing 3, 2, 3 and 1 run in his four starts. The Giants have scored seven runs in his starts, five if you subtract out the two homers by Bumgarner himself.

The Giants, by my count, have 27 three and outs in their last 55 innings going back through the Rockies series.

The Giants, by my count, have 27 three and outs in their last 55 innings going back through the Rockies series.

C'mon now, we have a perfectly god baseball term for that. It's a "1-2-3 inning".

Question of the day: who are the best active pitchers who have not yet won a Cy Young Award?

My picks are Chris Sale in the AL (pitching this afternoon for the Red Sox against Toronto) and Madison Bumgarner in the NL

C'mon now, we have a perfectly god baseball term for that. It's a "1-2-3 inning".

Their offense is so bad, they usually punt.

Question of the day: who are the best active pitchers who have not yet won a Cy Young Award?

I think I agree with you, but I'll throw out some other names.. Lester and Cueto from the NL. Darvish and Hamels from the AL.

Darvish has won a Sawamura Award (and two MVPs).