Quote:
Originally Posted by David Watts
Will play the final weekend of 1987 this evening. Fernando Valenzuela put on a show in 87. 27 wins with only a handful of losses. He's now won 49 games over the last 2 seasons. He has his Dallas Eagles in the post season. Looks like he will face either the Cincinnati Atoms or the Buffalo Bonecrushers. The Atoms have led for most of the season and have a magic number of 2 with 3 games remaining. Buffalo challenging for the title is amazing as they are an expansion team.
It's going to be interesting to see who the OOTP Gods pick for rookie of the year. Willie McCovey has 32 bombs and an average just over .300. He's had a couple DL stints during the season. Steve Balboni has 42 bombs and is leading the RDL in RBI's with 130+.
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NandoMania. I remember that. My money's on that McCovey kid. Balboni's a little one dimensional, and has difficulty getting on base IIRC.
By the way, the 1933 Tigers ran out of miracles and lost to the Giants in seven games in the World Series. They were down 3 games to 1 to the Boston Red Sox in the ALCS before rallying to come back and win 4-3. Then they lost the first two games of the World Series to the Giants, but managed to sweep in New York, and went home up 3 games to 2, needing only one win to take the series. Alas, it was to be the World Series of bad home cooking, as no home team won, and there wasn't even a one-run game in sight.
The Tiger fans are starting to wonder if this Mantle kid can take them to the promised land. Personally, I think they're getting a little spoiled. I mean they've finished first in the league five times in his first six full seasons, and prior to that they had never finished first in their history (27 seasons), and had only gone to the playoffs three times in that period, once via a one game playoff. Yeah, he didn't hit any HR in the post-season after hitting 63 this year, and blah, blah, blah, and what have you done for me lately? But a look at his career post-season numbers shows he's hit .344/.439/.644/1.083 with a 201 OPS+, a 192 wRC+ in 46 career post-season games, with 37 runs, 11 HR, and 40 RBI and 3.0 WAR. His regular season numbers show a .329/.425/.610/1.035 slash line with a 188 OPS+, a 180 wRC+ in 995 G, 979 GS, with 770 runs, 262 HR, 800 RBI and 61.3 WAR. So he has been a slightly better hitter in the postseason, but these fans are gettin' antsy.
Through the six Mantle full seasons so far: 1928: Swept the Indians in the ALCS, got swept in the World Series by the Pirates...1929: Beat the Red Sox 4-3 in the ALCS, beat the Braves 4-2 in the World Series (poor Boston...not)...1930: Finished 5th in the league at 81-81...1931: Swept by the Indians in the ALCS after a 101 win season with a +206 run differential...1932: Yankees upset the Tigers 4-3 in the ALCS...1933: Tigers beat Red Sox 4-3 in the ALCS, but lose to the Giants 4-3 in the World Series after a 102 win season and a +249 run differential. Wrap it up, it shows that the Tigers have finished first in the league five times in his six full seasons so far, but only have one World Series to show for it. He is fortunately signed for five more seasons, six if he picks up his player option in 1939. Will the Tigers waste his prime? Time will tell, but the natives sure are gettin' restless.
