Tales from the Goatpen

For those of you on Twitter, you've seen hints at an offseason project we've been working on. We're now ready to reveal what we hope will be a fun way to spend the next few months waiting for baseball to return. The staff of Astros County, along with three of our readers, will be pitting 8 teams filled with nothing but former Astros players against each other in a simulated 162 game season, to be played out in the Out of the Park Baseball (OOTP) universe. You may remember the review The Constable did of OOTP here at Astros County, or mine that was posted at How Many Altuves. At the end of this simulated season, the two top teams will face off in a best-of-seven playoff to see which team is crowned County Series Champion.

Our teams were selected fantasy-draft style and include a fun mix of all-time greats, fan favorites, and one season wonders spanning the entirety of Houston MLB history, along with a few specialists even I've never heard of. We selected full 25 man rosters consisting of what we thought were the best seasons over the last 52 years, with each player only represented once. For example, if someone picked 1994 Jeff Bagwell, no one else could pick any Bagwell seasons. We had to dig deep for a few positions, as you can imagine. A couple rules we instituted that might explain why some players are missing (e.g. Randy Johnson) were that players must have spent at least half the season with Houston and players had to be used at a position they actually played that season, so no putting Hidalgo at 1B, for instance. I also turned off injuries so we wouldn't have to set up reserve rosters. I'll post updates periodically as I sim through the season so we can all see how everyone's doing.

Our team managers are myself, The Constable, Cockroach, Masked Marvel, (Not Hank) Aaron, and our three guest managers are Drew Shirley, KHOU sports producer, Ernie Breakfast, contributor at The Crawfish Boxes, and Keith, Aaron's weird brother.

Here's a link to the rosters. We're really excited about this, and hope you enjoy following along. We should get started shortly after the World Series.