Many people who remember the 1999 baseball season recall the spectacular offensive power output, due to it being at the peak of the steroid era. But 1999 was also at the peak of the Pedro Martinez era, and both of these phenomena are on display in the roster of the Scorpio Scorpions (see below). Pedro won the AL Cy Young Award in '99 with a rare 3,000+ point season, and he was backed by three outfielders who approached that total themselves: two who were never seriously linked to the various PED scandals (Ken Griffey Jr. and Shawn Green) and one who most definitely was (Sammy Sosa). Actually, while the above three played either center field or right field during the season in question, I would ask Green to move to first base (where he didn't play more than one game until 2004) to make room for Dante Bichette and Gary Sheffield to fill the outfield/DH mix. Virgo, the other representative from the Negative league is in a similar situation, with NL Cy Young Award winner Randy Johnson leading the way (3,407 points), although the supporting cast backing him hovered closer to the 2,600 - 2,700 point range rather than the 2,900s: Albert Belle (2,722), Bernie Williams (2,596), and Luis gonzalez (2,592), with honorable mention going to Mike Piazza (2,376), who was inducted into the Hall of Fame in the same class as Griffey.
On the Positive side (the league, not the outlook), Sagittarius got typically excellent production from NL Batting Champ Larry Walker (2,607 points, but 20.5 points per game), AL MVP Ivan Rodriguez (2,617), and Craig Biggio (2,356). The Archers offense was also helped by surprisingly above-average production from Diamondbacks Jay Bell (2,605) and Matt Williams (2,493), who were aided by a pre-humidor stadium in Arizona. The pitching staff was led by longtime Yankees teammates Mariano Rivera (2,171) and Mike Mussina (1,916), although 1999 was two years before the latter would head to New York. Back to the steroid era, Libra's offensive attack was fueled by a 3,000+ point attack by slugger Mark McGwire (3,022 to be exact), with two Texas Rangers Rafael Palmeiro (2,840) and Juan Gonzalez (2,584) following behind him. The Scales also have Mariano Rivera's NL award namesake counterpart Trevor Hoffman (1,969 points, but 30.8 PPG) saving games for ace Jose Lima (2,256) among others.
If we expand things to the same playoff structure that Major League Baseball used in 1999, we get the above bracket. Remember, there was only one Wild Card team per league back then - also we have to shift from the four Elemental divisions we use in a fantasy league (Air, Earth, Fire, Water) to the three Qualitative divisions we use when assigning Astrology signs to real world teams (Cardinal, Fixed, Mutable). Also note that in the positive league, SAG has to face LEO in the first round, since Wild Card winner Gemini plays in the same division as the top scorer - that was a thing back in the single Wild Card days. Speaking of Leo, they are unique in that the non-first base portion of their infield is comprised entirely out of shortstops: AL Batting Champ Nomar Garciaparra (2,537) in the actual shortstop position, another PED casualty Alex Rodriguez (2,450) moving to third base, like he would with the Yankees in 2004, and Edgar Renteria (1,928) taking second base, because their best option among those who actually qualified at the position are Terry Shumpert (1,261) and Damian Jackson (1,208).
Injuries kept us from seeing the typical Gemini first base logjam that occurred through the late 90's, with Jeff Bagwell, Frank Thomas, and Andres Galarraga. While the former put up a whopping 3,179 points, the latter didn't play at all in '99, and Thomas racked up only 1,772 points, finishing well behind Kevin Young (2,431) and John Jaha (2,153) for 1B/DH competition. On the Negative side, it's nice to see my home sign Cancer represented, even if I had to cook the eligibility numbers a little to get them there: I have Jose Canseco in a corner outfield spot, even though he played only six games in left field in '99, and would amass only seven more in the rest of his career. If I were a stickler for the rules, his spot would be filled by sophomore Geoff Jenkins (1,776), although that swap would still leave the Crabs ahead of the Goats. Capricorn is one of the rare signs led by a true shutdown ace, with Kevin Millwood (2,655) outscoring A's slugging first baseman (and McGwire's heir) Jason Giambi (2,600). CAP also sports the game's most professional hitter Edgar Martinez (2,169) and the namesake of the A's current field, Rickey Henderson (1,839).
When I was putting together the above chart to make these calculations, I plugged in the numbers in the order that the astrological signs appear in the karmic wheel - i.e. starting with Aries (March/April) and proceeding forward by the calendar. When I did so, I noticed something interesting: the point totals for each sign form a perfect bell curve. I mean, the SHAPE is not perfect, but each sign has more points than the one before it until we reach the peak (Scorpio, Octopber/November), after which each sign has fewer points than the one before it. That got me thinking about whether astrology point totals are cyclical, and whether, as we move through the years, we would see a similar curve if we organized the graph by the sign's calendar positions. When I've done charts like this in the past, I usually immediately sort from highest to lowest point totals, so I wouldn't necessarily have noticed this trend. So I went back to the chart I used for the 2019 retrojected playoff bracket and sorted it by date. The results, below, might shock and surprise you...
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Yeah, no, I didn't think so. The graph is actually not quite as chaotic as it might first appear, since shifting the whole curve to the right or left would create a sort of "twin peaks" situation with Aries/Pisces as one and Cancer/Leo as another. But there's no accounting for the Virgo dip, even given that the Maidens won the fantasy league championship last year. also keep in mind that the scale of these two graphs is vastly different: the range between the highest and lowest scoring signs in 1999 is from right around 27,000 to 35,000, while the top scoring sign in 2019 didn't even make it to 32,000, while the low point remained around the same. I guess I'll have to widen the scope of this project if I want to start identifying any trends. I'll likely start with the midpoint of these two data points and look at 2009, even though MLB The Show 10 wasn't particularly groundbreaking as far as the series goes. Although I do still have a copy of it, if I want to break quarantine and pick up my old PS2 from my parents' place...
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