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Angels Auction – 1979,1986,2002,2014

What would happen if you took the players from four great Angels teams of the past and made them all free agents, then conducted an auction to create four brand new teams? Who would create the best team? Let’s find out!

Although the full team name has always varied, they’ve always been the ANGELS:

Los Angeles Angels (2016–present)

  • Los Angeles Angels (2016–present)
  • Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (2005–2015)
  • Anaheim Angels (1997–2004)
  • California Angels (1965–1996)
  • Los Angeles Angels (1961–1965)

GM Andy Palomino kicked off the auction by purchasing one of the better pitchers available, Kirk McKaskill (1986) for $34, perhaps an overpay, but GM Palomino wanted to secure at least one of the top pitchers. A SimAuction record was set with the 3rd player purchased in the auction when GM Tom Colby secures the services of Mike Trout for $50 – the highest price payed for a hitter in SimAuction history!

GM Derek Bain makes 2B Bobby Grich (1979) his 1st purchase, then GM Steve Andrusko joins the auction frenzy with consecutive purchases of Wally Joyner (1986) and Troy Glaus (2002) for $28 and $27 respectively.

GM Bain fortified his hitting by purchasing Don Baylor (1979) for $35, he now had 2 of the top 5 rated hitters under contract. GM Bain eventually had to purchase some pitching, which he did with the aquicitions of Nolan Ryan (1979) $38 and Jered Weaver (2014) $30. The Ryan purchase might have been a slight overpay, but one of the challenges of the auction is balancing your team – there comes a point during the auction when the available choices have diminished and you need a particular hitter or pitcher to stabilize the hitting/pitching equation, the only option is to overpay or be left with unspent money!

GM Andrusko had a very balanced auction in addition to the Joyner and Glaus purchases, he aquired Brad Fullmer (2002) for $20 and Garrett Richards (2014) for $27, he did not spend $30 or more for any player.

After the Trout record setting purchase, GM Colby became conservative, he purchased Darin Erstad (2002) for $25 and Jarrod Washburn (2002) for $31, but not more than $20 for any other player, ultimately leaving $33 unspent!

GM Palomino continued to fortify his pitching by purchasing Mike Witt (1986) for $42, and secured the foundation of his hitting by adding Brian Downing (1986) and Tim Salmon (2002) for $26 each.

In the end, the hitting was fairly even between the four teams, with GM Palomino having a slight edge in OBP, but it was GM Palomino’s pitching that made the difference.

A brad new conpect was tried for the first time to determine the best team – a World Series would be played in which the simulation for an entire season would count as ONE GAME, played in the traditional best of 7 format. Below are the results – GM Palomino wins the series 4-1-1.

TeamSeason #1Season #2Season #3Season #4Season #5Season #6Average Wins
Palomino82919693979592
Andrusko75759495727581
Bain78786066727672
Colby89807470837879

More to come…