MLB: 7 takeaways from the first weekend of Baseball Reference’s simulated 2020 season

Baseball Reference is simulating through the entire postponed 2020 MLB season one day at a time. We take a look some of the most interesting outcomes from the first five days of the fake 2020 season.

No baseball? Video games beg to differ!

Every baseball fan’s best friends over at Baseball Reference are simulating the 2020 season day-by-day, saving all of us, kind of, from the lack of baseball in our lives.

“To help our users get their fix of new baseball, we are simulating the 2020 season using Out of the Park Baseball 21 and posting the results on Baseball-Reference.com,” an article by Alex Bonilla said.

The project started on March 26, what would have been Opening Day, and you can check out scores, stats and box scores as you normally would if the season was going on as scheduled.

Let’s take a look at some of the most wild events of the virtual 2020 season thus far, small sample sizes be damned.

The Miami Marlins lead the National League East.

I swear! What’s amazing is that they only have one home run so far in their first five games, hit by Jorge Alfaro. They have three players with an OPS of over 1.000: Corey Dickerson (1.197), Isan Diaz (1.029), and Alfaro (1.015). Just give them the trophy already.

Mike Trout stinks.

Okay, not really. He’s hitting a mere .231, going just 3-13. But his five walks have earned him a .444 on-base percentage.

The Yankees’ and Orioles’ seasons are going just as expected.

The Yankees swept the O’s in Camden Yards.

Gleyber Torres is a total god, hitting three home runs and leading all of baseball with a 1.862 OPS. Miguel Andujar is on pace for 405 RBI and has a higher batting average (.389), than on-base percentage (.368). The Yankees also have 12 homers in their first four games and are on pace for 486 home runs. Don’t you love playing the on-pace game? Their only downside is DJ LeMahieu is hitting .167, and Giancarlo Santon is hitting .214 (with a .421 on-base percentage).

Meanwhile, the O’s have five pitchers with an ERA over 12.00, and eight pitchers with an ERA of over 6.00. Poor O’s. They’re 0-4, and no one knows when their next win is coming.

Nolan Arenado is on pace for 162 home runs.

Wouldn’t surprise me.

Alex Wood is on pace for 40 home runs.

Pitchers who rake? More like rakers who pitch.

Pete Alonso is a one-year wonder.

Pete Alonso is 1-16 (.063) this year with 11 strikeouts. After rewriting history books last year, he might as well retire now before his legacy is tarnished forever.

Jacob deGrom is Jacob deGrom.

Seven innings, six hits, one earned, one walk, 12 strikeouts against the defending champion Washington Nationals. Guess who the losing pitcher in that game was… that’s right: Jacob deGrom! In typical Mets’ fashion, they couldn’t give the best pitcher on the planet any run support, and deGrom was charged with the loss.