Aries - Fantasy Astrology 2020 Preview

A few days ago, the Karmic Wheel began a new rotation as the sun entered Aries. This is of course the sign under which are born the members of the Aries Rams Fantasy Astrology team. I previewed  the last two signs with projected rosters of my upcoming Fantasy Astrology League (courtesy of ESPN), which are now all done; but two major things happened since then. First, the delay of the 2020 MLB season due to COVID-19, rendering said fantasy league irrelevant in the near future. Second, the release of the newest entrant in the MLB The Show franchise, allowing me to create fantasy astrology simulations with in-game lineups. What follows is an Aries-centered comparison of the player RANKING system developed by MLB.com (i.e. 1st is best, etc), and the player RATING system used by the video game's algorithm (on a 1 to 100 scale).

Aries is represented by the Phillies, mostly because of the uniforms' red color scheme.

First, the unquestioned top end. There are only four players who receive a 99 overall rating in MLB The Show 2020: Mike Trout, Max Scherzer, Jacob deGrom, and Nolan Arenado, the latter of which is the Aries third baseman. (Two of those are Leos, but that's a post for August, when we'll HOPEFULLy have some actual baseball going on.) Arenado is ranked in MLB's top 10, along with the player who is #2 on the Rams depth chart, Alex Bregman. Thankfully, Bregman and his 95 rating are also eligible at shortstop, due to Carlos Correa's frequent injuries. Matt Olson has proved himself a powerhouse on both sides of the ball, and the fact that he plays a great first base makes it even more palatable for switch-hitting Carlos Santana to occupy the DH slot. David Dahl is developing into a very solid player anywhere in the outfield, but Lorenzo Cain is the best choice to roam center field. He may even be more valuable in the game setting, where his fabulous defense counts for something.

Now to the discrepancies between the game and the fantasy rankings. Jeff McNeil carries an 89 rating into the game, making him the top option to handle second base. His ranking of 77 also affords him that honor, but given his ability to play all over the diamond, McNeil's better suited shoring up an outfield that is weak beyond the Dahl/Cain duo. This is especially true when you consider former top prospect Cavan Biggio is ranked 94 by MLB.com, so you would want that configuration to maximize a lineup with the best-ranked players (actually HIGHEST-ranked in terms of quality, but lowest sum of of ranked players). But either MLB.com is overrating young former prospects, or the game is underrating them, because Biggio has to settle for a 75 overall rating. We see a similar situation behind the plate: Buster Posey was undoubtedly one of the best catchers of the last decade, which is reflected in his 83 overall game rating. Such high marks certainly aren't reflected by Posely's 2019 production (a meager average of 7.7 points per game), which helped him fall all the way to 303 in the rankings. Much higher (at 102) is Dodgers catcher Will Smith (not to be confused with the Braves (Cancer) reliever of the same name), and he's not that far behind Posey, with a 79 rating... but he technically wouldn't win the backup catcher's job due to Tom Murphy's 82 and Mike Zunino's 81. (To be fair, if this were a real-life situation where a manager REALLY trusts Posey, you'd want Smith to get regular reps in Triple-A.

I actually did some in-depth calculations to link astrology signs to real life teams. You can read about it here:
https://thoughtsaboutbaseball.blogspot.com/2018/11/astrology-signs-to-mlb-teams.html

One thing that makes a simulation simpler than a real-world-reflecting fantasy league is the lack of injuries... at least to start the season. Red Sox ace lefty Chris Sale is rated 93 in the game, even though his ranking had been plummeting: down to 144 when play was suspended on March 10 (Pisces season). This was due due to an arm problem that led to Tommy John surgery, wiping out any of Sale's potential 2020 campaign. Another former top Aries pitcher had a lost 2019 season, as two-time Cy Young winner Corey Kluber - whose 87 ranking almost exactly mirrors his 88 rating - is newly recovered from a broken pitching arm. Even though that was injury was the result of a comebacker hit to the mound, that reminds me of the injury notification from All-Star Baseball 2001 for the Nintendo 64: "Corey Kluber is injured with a br. arm." Talk about ominous...

I give each simulated team the option of carrying up to seven (7) starting pitchers, including two in long relief roles. One of these might be an especially good option for Kenta Maeda - even though he out-rates (however slightly) the likes of Eduardo Rodriguez and Jake Odorizzi - since the Dodgers have utilized Maeda that way in the later parts of recent seasons. Another big discrepancy in rankings vs. ratings happens in the person of Frankie Montas: the suspension returnee is ranked a strong 130, but enjoys just a 76 rating in the game.

If you've looked at analysis of Aries in past fantasy astrology seasons, you may recognize the lack of an important bullpen piece: a study I did after the close of last season suggests that Indians closer Brad Hand may actually be a Pisces. However even a Hand-less Rams bullpen is still an unmistakable strength, with arguably the best reliever in the game, Josh Hader, joining with breakout closer Kirby Yates to create a lefty-righty one-two punch. And it doesn't stop there, with top setup reliever Dellin Betances, potential Pirates closer Keone Kela, the upside of Edwin Diaz, and the injured David Robertson waiting in the wings.

* Baseball Tarot *
Many years ago, when I was going through a Tarot phase, I was gifted a Baseball Tarot deck, which replaces the arcane and occult imagery of the traditional Tarot with baseball concepts and metaphors. One of the most basic two-card layouts is called "Pitch and Swing" where the first card represents the situation you're facing and the second card represents your best course of action or attitude in response. Since fantasy baseball rankings and Tarot both share aspects of Divination, I've decided to do a reading as part my analysis of each sign's upcoming season.

As with Pisces, we have one of the Major Arcana as the first card - and we finally get a reading that doesn't include the Three of Bases. The Aries "Pitch" is XII The Slump, although it is notable that this card came out inverted. Aries won the Fantasy Astrology championship back in 2017, and no team except Libra has multiple victories (since I started this project in 2012), so a two-year drought would not exactly qualify as a slump, at least not relative to the rest of the league. That might be where the inverted factor comes into play: this card corresponds to The Hanged Man in a traditional Tarot deck, and THAT card has a very different connotation when inverted (since the man is hanged upside down).

The book that comes with the Baseball Tarot deck explains that when the Slump card appears in a reading, "You are probably in a rut, experiencing self-doubts or a wave of depression, confronting difficulties that just won't go away." I wouldn't say that this outlook applies specifically to the Aries roster, excepting of course ace pitcher Chris Sale's season-ending injury. But it's an understatement to say that the sport of baseball (and the world in general) is experiencing "difficulties that just won't go away" due to the Coronavirus pandemic. Seen from this wider perspective, the Aries "Swing" card, The MVP of Mitts (Cups in traditional Tarot), can be viewed as a guide to action for everyone in this global crisis. The "Accomplishments of the Heart and Spirit" subtitle references internal awareness, trusting your emotions, and compassion, something that we could all stand to focus on during these times of quarantines and social distancing. The book describes the upside of this card's meaning as "Success in an endeavor requiring love, giving, sensitivity, or intuition," which I think is a good way to describe how we should be approaching life right now.

As I mentioned above, Aries represents the start of a new rotation of the Karmic Wheel, thus the Tarot reading associated with this sign can be expected to have wider-reaching implications than some other signs. I've given up trying to assess what this reading might say about the particular outlook of the Aries Rams team in the potential upcoming season, choosing instead to focus on the bigger picture. With that in mind, I'd like to close with one more quote from the Baseball Tarot book by Mark Lerner and Laura Phillips: "The outcome will be influenced most by your ability to recognize and experience your feelings, tap into your intuition, and act with compassion toward everyone in the situation, including yourself." Easier said than done, obviously, but good advice to keep in mind. Stay safe and stay at home, everyone!