PSA Plays the Show: Wrapping up the 2020 season

We are back to real baseball, and boy does it feel good. I already have a list of article possibilities, we have statcast data and video to crawl through, and even though there are real concerns with the game going forward, for right now we can enjoy the first weekend of the season.

There’s just one little loose end to handle, and its our MLB The Show simulation. Ryan Chichester and I started this project back in March, and it’s finally time to finish it up. Unfortunately for Yankee fans, it was not a happy ending.

The Red Sox overtook the Yankees in July, and ran away with the division in a manner similar to 2018. Trade deadline deals landed the team Josh Bell and Ketel Marte, and they costed to the AL East crown with 104 wins. On the last day of the season, the Yankees and Rays found themselves tied at 90-71, playing a crucial Game 162 for a wild card spot.

The Yankees turned to Luis Severino, who had battled through a terrible first three months of the season to finish respectable in the second half of the year. He did just well enough in the most critical game of the year, pitching six innings of one-run ball to deliver a 6-4 Yankee win, sending the team to the postseason for the fourth straight year.

The team faced off against a familiar rival in the Wild Card Game: the Houston Astros, with Gerrit Cole facing his old team, and Zack Greinke toeing the slab for Houston. When it counted most, Greinke delivered and Cole didn’t, with the former posting an 8.0 IP, 2 ER, 7 K line compared to Cole’s 6.0 IP, 5 ER, 4 K performance. Houston headed to the ALDS with an 8-3 win, and New York’s season was over.

Houston then swept the Red Sox in the division series, before losing a seven game ALCS to the AL West champion Athletics. The Dodgers, meanwhile, sailed through the NL side of the bracket, winning their first World Series in 31 years by sweeping their California counterparts.

Gerrit Cole did garner Cy Young votes, with the award going to Chris Sale. The Red Sox also boasted the AL MVP, the 58-home-run-hitting JD Martinez. Like 2018, this was just one of those seasons where every break went some team’s way, fortunately, the end result of the campaign was not a Boston championship.

I don’t think we’d be overly thrilled with this season in practice. In a lot of ways it resembles the 2015 campaign, where a more talented roster and more powerful lineup overtook a stagnant Yankee squad. At least in real life, the Yankees look top to bottom the best team in the AL East.