2005 MLB/AAA Baseball World Cup- An MVP Baseball 2005 Project

[collegesportsfanms]

Hey guys,

Recently I came across one of my favorite PS2 baseball games, that being MVP Baseball 2005. I've tried projects with it in the past, trying to get MLB, AAA, AA, and A all involved. I've decided to first go with an MLB/AAA World Cup. So here's how it'll work.

60 teams (30 MLB, 30 AAA). 15 groups, 4 teams a group. 2 MLB teams and 2 AAA teams in each group. Groups are randomly drawn, with the rule that no 2 teams from the same division can be in the same group. For instance, a group can't have 2 NL East teams in it, or 2 International League North teams in it, so on. Each team will play each team once, for a total of 3 games. (I wanted to do my best to make it even so that each team would play the same amount of road and home games, but there was no way to do that unless I wanted to go to 5 team groups, and then we'd have 2 MLB teams and 3 AAA teams in each group, or vice versa. So, the MLB teams will have 2 home games, the AAA teams 1 home game.

Top 2 teams from each group advance, plus the best 2 third place teams. Teams will be seeded 1-32 based on record and run differential. I haven't figured out tiebreakers yet, I'll worry about that later. Then it'll just be a straight single elimination tournament to determine a champion. I would go out on a limb here and say with 32 team bracket, we'll most likely have all 30 MLB teams and 2 AAA teams. But, I could be wrong. I will not play any of the games, it'll be CPU vs. CPU for every game. I thought about playing 4 games in each group, controlling each team once, but I don't want to influence the tournament in any way. Strict pitching rotations will be enforced, each team will have a 3 man rotation for group play, and then I'll figure it out from there. I'm still putting together all the details. I've even thought about making it a double round robin and each team playing 6 games, 3 home and 3 away. I would definitely take opinions on this. Would make for a longer tournament, but each team would be able to go through their 5 man starting rotation, and the aces for each team would get to start twice, then keep the rotation going into bracket play.

I am working on setting up the groups now, and I'll try to announce them either later today, or tomorrow morning, as I plan on playing the first 2 games in Group 1 tomorrow.

If anybody has any comments or questions, or suggestions, feel free to let me know. I'm actually kind of excited about doing this. Can any of the AAA teams pull an upset over an MLB team? Will we end up with more than 2 AAA teams in the 32 team bracket? To me, that is exciting to see what might happen. More to come..

[collegesportsfanms]

I have decided to go ahead and go double round robin, so we'll have 12 games for each of the 15 groups. 180 games in group play, then the 32 team single elimination tournament will be 31 games, so 211 games total in this tournament. Each team will have a strict 5 man rotation, and the top starter will start the first game and the last game of group play for each team. Now, here are the groups.

Group 1- Chicago Cubs, Tucson Sidewinders, Cleveland Indians, Norfolk Tides.
Group 2- Milwaukee Brewers, Richmond Braves, Florida Marlins, Toledo Mudhens.
Group 3- Houston Astros, Oklahoma Redhawks, Detroit Tigers, Fresno Grizzlies.
Group 4- St. Louis Cardinals, Charlotte Knights, San Diego Padres, Albuquerque Isotopes.
Group 5- Tampa Bay Devil Rays, Las Vegas 51s, Oakland Athletics, Pawtucket Red Sox.
Group 6- Washington Nationals, Memphis Redbirds, Toronto Blue Jays, Sacramento Rivercats.
Group 7- Pittsburgh Pirates, Buffalo Bisons, Seattle Mariners, Round Rock Express.
Group 8- Cincinnati Reds, Omaha Royals, Philadelphia Phillies, Portland Beavers.
Group 9- Kansas City Royals, Salt Lake Stingers, San Francisco Giants, Rochester Red Wings.
Group 10- Chicago White Sox, Nashville Sounds, Atlanta Braves, Durham Bulls.
Group 11- Colorado Rockies, New Orleans Zephyrs, Los Angeles Angels, Colorado Springs Sky Sox.
Group 12- New York Mets, Indianapolis Indians, Arizona Diamondbacks, Scranton/WB Red Barons.
Group 13- Minnesota Twins, Syracuse Skychiefs, Boston Red Sox, Louisville Bats.
Group 14- Los Angeles Dodgers, Columbus Clippers, Baltimore Orioles, Ottawa Lynx.
Group 15- New York Yankees, Iowa Cubs, Texas Rangers, Tacoma Rainiers.

Group 1 gets underway now with 2 group 1 games: Chicago Cubs @ Tucson Sidewinders and Cleveland Indians @ Norfolk Tides.

[collegesportsfanms]

The first 2 games of the tournament are complete.

Group 1

Chicago Cubs- 6, Tucson Sidewinders- 0

Mark Prior went 8 innings for the Cubs and also added 2 doubles at the plate. This was a close one into the 7th win a bad call at first saw the Tucson manager ejected (another thing I love about this game, arguments and ejections) which opened the floodgates for the Cubs to score 4 in the inning. Chicago had 15 hits in the game.

Cleveland Indians- 4, Norfolk Tides- 3 (10 innings)

The Tides gave the Indians all they wanted and more in this one. Cleveland jumped to a 3-0 lead early and looked to be in complete control with C.C. Sabathia on the hill, but the Tides started to get to him a little in the 7th and 8th, hitting the ball much harder. Going into the bottom of the 9th Cleveland led 3-1, but Norfolk tied it up on an RBI single by Craig Brazell, who was thrown out at 2nd by Casey Blake in what was no doubt the play of the game, as Norfolk got a couple more hits after that. In the 10th a sac fly brought in the winning run, and the Indians survive and stave off embarassment, this time.

[collegesportsfanms]

Just wondering if I'm the only one interested in how this pans out or if there are some others that are interested in following a particular team or group or whatever. I'm still going to report on it either way because it helps me stay involved in it.

If anybody wants me to put a special interest on a particular team or group, I'd be happy to do so.

[DavidCorperial]

I'm interested and as an Angels fan would love to see more on them.

[collegesportsfanms]

Originally Posted by DavidCorperial

I'm interested and as an Angels fan would love to see more on them.

I can definitely do that. They don't play until group 11, but what would you like to see? I can provide the 25 man roster MVP Baseball 2005 has for them, the 5 man starting rotation, I can also do stats for each game the Angels play. Whatever you want, I can try to provide.

[collegesportsfanms]

Group 2, Game Day 1

There will be 6 game days, or rounds, or whatever you wanna call it, for each group, so I'll just say Game Day for now, unless someone has a better idea.

Milwaukee Brewers- 5- Richmond Braves- 1

The Brewers continued the MLB hit parade, getting 15, while Ben Sheets went 7 2/3 IP. Richmond managed just 3 hits, 2 of them were from Mike Hessman who homered and doubled.

Florida Marlins- 14, Toledo Mudhens- 2

Our first real blowout of the tournament, as Toledo had some hot bats, with some big names on it (Curtis Granderson, Marcus Thames, Fernando Vina) among others. They had 11 hits but couldn't string any together. Meanwhile, their pitching was just awful, as Florida pounded out 20 hits and 4 homers.

[DavidCorperial]

I'm fine with whatever doesn't cause you too much extra work.

[bbgunn]

Just caught up with this. I'm currently looking for a baseball team to cheer on, so I don't have a dog in this fight, but it looks good!

[collegesportsfanms]

Originally Posted by bbgunn

Just caught up with this. I'm currently looking for a baseball team to cheer on, so I don't have a dog in this fight, but it looks good!

This is from an old baseball game so if you pick a dog for this fight, it'll be from 2005. Always appreciate your support

[collegesportsfanms]

Originally Posted by DavidCorperial

I'm fine with whatever doesn't cause you too much extra work.

No need to worry about the extra work, I wouldn't do it if it was too much work. Whatever you wanna see I'll do my best to provide

[collegesportsfanms]

Just an update, this project is on hold for a while, as my PS2 crapped out during my last set of games, so I've had it sent to a repair buddy of mine to see if it can be fixed or has to be replaced. I'll jump back into this just as soon as I can, but it could be a few weeks. In the meantime, feel free to check out my many other projects that I'm working on

[collegesportsfanms]

I am bumping this project as I hope to get my PS2 back within the next 2 weeks, so if all goes well I can get going again middle of next month. My hope is to get through 2 sets of games a week (which would be 2 games in 1 group and 2 games in another group).

It will still be a slow moving dynasty, and I will be reporting more in-depth on the Los Angels Angeles per DavidCorperial's request.

When I pick up this project, will I have any interest or will I just be doing it for myself? lol

[collegesportsfanms]

Group 3, Game Day 1

Houston- 7, Oklahoma- 1 -- All but 1 player that got an AB had a hit for the Astros, as they had 14 hits on the game. Adam Everett and Jeff Bagwell each had 2 RBIs for Houston.

Detroit- 5, Fresno- 2 -- A gallant effort by Fresno in this one, but with their manager being ejected in the bottom of the 3rd, the Tigers took advantage with 2 in the 5th and 1 in the 6th to break open a 1-0 game. Ivan Rodriguez was 3-5 with a homer, and Rondell White had 2 doubles. Carlos Guillen also had 3 hits. Fresno got their bats going in the late innings, but Ugueth Urbina pitched a 1 hit 8th and Troy Percival pitched a perfect 9th to shut down any idea of a Fresno comeback as Detroit gets a nice little scare.

[collegesportsfanms]

Group 4, Game Day 1

St. Louis- 5, Charlotte- 2 -- A game that really wasn't as close as the score indicated, the Cardinals had 16 hits in the ball game but couldn't get it done with runners in scoring position. David Eckstein and Yadier Molina led the way with 3 hits a piece, but 2 of the 5 St. Louis runs scored when Charlotte pitchers tried to pick guys off at third base and threw the ball away. The Knights had a golden opportunity in the bottom of the 6th with the bases loaded and 1 out, but Julian Tavarez came in for the Cardinals in relief and struck out the next 2 batters. Charlotte never threatened again.

San Diego- 14, Albuquerque- 0 -- The Padres started the game well and ended the game well, making sure there would be no close call in this one. San Diego put up a 4 spot in the 1st inning, and just for good measure added 5 more in the 9th. They had 20 hits total, and every position player had at least 1 hit. Dave Roberts led the way with 5 hits, including hitting for the cycle. The Padres took advantage of the short minor league park and belted 5 homers in what has easily been the best performance by a major league team so far.