OOTP Developments Forums - View Single Post - Baseball Comes to Middle America! (The Midwest Baseball Association)

jksander · 03-22-2024, 07:08 PM

October 8, 1909: The Lexington Roughriders had home-field advantage to start the MBA Championship Series, but they lost game one 3-2 in a 10-inning effort, coming from behind in game two to force a second extra-innings affair, winning that one with a walkoff run in the bottom of the 10th to win 6-5. With the series even, Lexington went to Chicago and took game three in a 9-3 blowout, then won 6-5 in a nailbiter in game four to take a 3-1 series lead. But the Internationals won their third consecutive MBA Title by sweeping the remaining games 6-5 (12 innings), 7-3 and 7-4, making one wonder can ANYONE take out this juggernaut team? For the ninth time in the last 16 seasons there’s been a title won in Chicago.

October 9, 1909: Owner Phil Gibson has given me a two year extension to my contract, giving me a raise to $3,100 per year as I get to continue to work to bring the Rivermen the title this city deserves! We’ve got some work to do with Chris Hughes, who voided his last year of his contract and will become a free agent if we don’t get him extended before the arbitration period ends in three weeks. We’re also in talks with Ralph Ladd, who failed to meet the vesting requirements of his contract, so he too could wind up in free agency if we can’t reach an agreement.

In other news, 39-year-old first baseman Michael Levine has decided to retire from baseball. He played in the majors for 16 full seasons, spending the last four of them here in Louisville, though the last two years he was more of a leader from the bench, teaching our young players and helping keep the clubhouse atmosphere welcoming as we fought for pennants. He’ll finish his career with a .284 batting average, with 2,167 hits, 286 doubles, 83 triples, 20 homers and 1,148 runs scored, driving in 662. His 55.1 career WAR should eventually make him a Hall of Fame candidate, though how the MBA Press Association will vote is always something of a mystery. At the least he DESERVES to be a rare entry into the HOF as an offensive player.

We got the hot-stove season going in a big way this afternoon with a move toward building our farm system, something our owner Gibson has made a top priority. We’ve sent right fielder Chris Whalen, 31, and right-handed reliever Matt Chabak, 32, to the Green Bay Green Stockings along with $17,500 in cash, for BNN top ten prospect Morgan Harrison, 21, who plays second base and who has a ton of upside both offensively and defensively for us. It’s time to make some moves to build for our long term future via trades, while looking to the upcoming free agency season to make the impact signings we need to get over the championship hump.

October 13, 1909: Nate Gilchrest and Ralph Ladd each agreed to one year deals at their current pay rate to continue to have a spot on our major league roster, though their places on the team will have to be sorted out. Gilchrest in particular is an interesting example of a player valuable for his off-the-field skills, even as he may be a long-term injury risk ... he’s a team leader and though eventually we may have to part ways with him, paying $500 for his services in 1910 seems like a fair concession.

October 14, 1909: Third baseman Chris Hughes has signed a five-year extension worth $7,500 in total to remain a Riverman, likely to finish his career here. He’ll earn $1,500 per season through the rest of his contract, a well-earned extension after going .315 this season with 15 doubles, 12 triples and 61 stolen bases! The 34-year-old third baseman has 1,491 career hits, 598 stolen bases and a career average of .287, with 539 runs batted in, along with the 1904 Gold Glove at first base from his final year in Evansville. Fan excitement regarding the extension has been high, and I suspect season tickets are going to start selling faster in Deecember now that they know it’s a done deal.

October 17, 1909: The Gold Gloves for the league were announced this year, and this time we were dominant, winning five of the nine awards for defensive prowess: Mike Morris won his third in a row as a pitcher, while Mike Stricklin won his first ever as a catcher. Jeremy Smith and Jan MacLellan won at first and second respectively, and Trent Hall took home the award at center field again. David Cole (Lexington) won the shortstop fielding award with Burgess missing a large chunk of the year, and Lexington also picked up the third base award via Savatore Correa, and the right field award via Jaime Pena. Owensboro’s Matt Wheeler was the only player on another team to get any recognition, as our team and the Roughriders secured our status as the two teams to beat defensively.

October 19, 1909: We had three Silver Slugger winners this season! Jeremy Smith won the first base award, his fifth overall and second at the position, having put up a .290 average, 28 doubles, 11 triples and 55 RBIs while stealing 106 bases, placing second in the league in that latter metric. Meanwhile, Jan MacLellan won his second in a row at second base in his first season as a Riverman, hitting .299 with 20 doubles, 24 triples, two homers and 52 RBIs -- this was his fifth Silver Slugger of his career as well. Finally, even in his shortened season, Brad Burgess won the award at shortstop, hitting .350 with 18 doubles, 26 homers and 77 RBIs, putting together 7.7 WAR as he took his third Silver Slugger in a row at the position.

October 21, 1909: Sean Impagliazzo is only 26 years old, but he now owns two Ohio River League Pitcher of the Year awards! This year he went 30-8 with a 1.51 ERA, striking out 110 batters with a 0.88 WHIP through 369.2 innings of work, giving him 6.9 WAR! He’s only been in the Midwest Baseball League for four seasons, but he already has a career record of 106-52 with an ERA of 1.79 and 302 strikeouts, with 143 complete games and 35 shutouts, with two career one-hitters.

November 9, 1909: The league is buzzing over the news that the Rockford Black Hawks over in the GLL have signed Nick Bertrand (3B) and Austin Cappelli (SS), two of the best free agents in the current class. Finally it looks like someone in that league is interested in battling Chicago for the big weapons! Rumor has it they’re in on a few pitchers to improve their rotation, so I’m going to be intrigued to see how the race goes in that division this year.

The issue for us is that we don’t see anyone in the current free agent market that is a significant enough upgrade to make the leap. I’m scouring the league for potential trade options, but at this point the biggest news is that we may have catcher prospect Chris Heikes ready to come up to the major league level! We’ll say more closer to spring if his development program goes well. But right now we still feel we’re right on the edge of where we want to be. I’m not going to throw money at people who aren’t going to be able to make us a better ballclub just to say we did something.

November 28, 1909: Okay, so we did make ourselves a free agency deal, signing 32-year-old Thomas Dixon as a backup to Brad Burgess at shortstop. He’s a capable backup at short and second, giving us middle infield depth and a solid contact hitter to boot. He’ll get $1,000 per year over a six year span to do just that. He has no expectations of being a full-time starter, but he’ll play regularly and be a valuable contributor.

January 1, 1910: Another year, another pitcher gets into the Hall of Fame ... this time it was Michael Berglund, who played the bulk of his career with Owensboro and Rockford. With a career record of 272-280 with a 2.90 ERA and 523 strikeouts, Bergland had 59.4 total WAR while playing from 1882-1895. This was his final year of eligibility and he got in with 94.1 percent of the vote in his final opportunity. No offensive player got more than 24.9 percent of the vote this year.

March 3, 1910: Spring Training begins today, and top prospect Chris Heikes has gotten an invite to come show if he’s ready to make the big league roster or if he’ll be back in the minors this season. At 22, he’s got the defensive ability to do the job, but whether he’s got the skill yet to survive as a hitter in the league remains to be seen. But he showed improvement last year at AA, hitting .184 overall with 11 doubles and 20 homers, batting in 59 runs. So it’s going to be an end-of-March decision whether we keep him up as a backup option.

April 4, 1910: We handled ourselves well in the spring training season, putting up a record of 23-7 to lead the ORL. Chicago led the GLL with a 22-8 record, but Bloomington, Green Bay and Rockford all look solid this year. Could this be the year we get a Great Lakes pennant race? Our league looks like the Louisville / Lexington show yet again, with the bulk of the rest of our league looking like .500 would be good results. Chris Heikes hit .225 with a double, a homer and six RBIs, and I plan to keep him up as a backup fielding option as a catcher for sure. We also had right-handed starter Andy Lopez, 24, up for spring training, and he went 2-0 with an 0.60 ERA, five strikeouts and a .192 BAPIP through 30 innings of spring work. But he’ll start his season at AAA this year, though we may need to make room for him at the major league level next year, or he’ll come up if we have any injury trouble.

We open the season with a home series against Owensboro on the 7th. Here’s our opening day roster for the season:

Starting Lineup (con / gap / pwr / eye / avd / def)*
C - Mike Stricklin, 29 (70/45/50/45/80/75)
1B - Jeremy Smith, 37 (60/65/45/45/65/50)
2B - Thomas Dixon, 32 (65/60/60/65/75/75)
3B - Octavio Delgado, 28 (70/55/50/55/75/60)
SS - Brad Burgess, 24 (65/70/80/65/70/80)
LF - Ben Morris, 27 (65/75/45/55/75/75)
CF - Trent Hall, 26 (50/45/80/40/45/80)
RF - Trey Bledsoe, 24 (75/55/45/50/80/60)

Bench
C - Chris Heikes, 22 (45/40/45/45/45/75)
C - David Campbell, 34 (60/45/40/45/65/35)
C - Brett Ohms, 31 (55/45/50/45/65/60
1B - Jon Felker, 32 (55/70/70/75/45/65)
2B - Bobby Johnson, 34 (70/45/45/50/80/65)
3B - Nate Gilchrist, 32 (55.45/45/45/70/60)
3B - Chris Hughes, 35 (60/65/50/50/70/40)
LF - James Davis, 26 (60/45/50/45/75/65)
CF - Ethan Martin, 31 (55/45/45/45/65/45)
RF - Dave Borden, 34 (60/55/50/45/70/40)
RF - Ben Johnson, 27 (65/50/50/45/80/60)
RF - Brooks McCarthy, 32 (65/55/45/45/70)

Rotation (Stuff / Mov / Ctrl / Sta / Hld / Def)*
SP1 - Sean Impagliazzo, 26 (65/75/40/60/65/55)
SP2 - Cameron McClain, 60/70/65/50/55/45)
SP3 - George Driscoll, 31 (45/75/50/55/80/50

Bullpen
Stopper - Mike Stoneburg, 30 (50/70/50/50/65/35)
Middle - Mike Morris, 30 (50/70/50/50/45/60)
Middle - J.R. Potter, 35 (75/70/45/25/55/45)
Middle - Ralph Ladd, 31 (45/70/65/35/50/20)

* Defense rating only at key position

03-22-2024, 07:08 PM	#26
jksander All Star Starter Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Indianapolis IN Posts: 1,610	October 8, 1909: The Lexington Roughriders had home-field advantage to start the MBA Championship Series, but they lost game one 3-2 in a 10-inning effort, coming from behind in game two to force a second extra-innings affair, winning that one with a walkoff run in the bottom of the 10th to win 6-5. With the series even, Lexington went to Chicago and took game three in a 9-3 blowout, then won 6-5 in a nailbiter in game four to take a 3-1 series lead. But the Internationals won their third consecutive MBA Title by sweeping the remaining games 6-5 (12 innings), 7-3 and 7-4, making one wonder can ANYONE take out this juggernaut team? For the ninth time in the last 16 seasons there’s been a title won in Chicago. October 9, 1909: Owner Phil Gibson has given me a two year extension to my contract, giving me a raise to $3,100 per year as I get to continue to work to bring the Rivermen the title this city deserves! We’ve got some work to do with Chris Hughes, who voided his last year of his contract and will become a free agent if we don’t get him extended before the arbitration period ends in three weeks. We’re also in talks with Ralph Ladd, who failed to meet the vesting requirements of his contract, so he too could wind up in free agency if we can’t reach an agreement. In other news, 39-year-old first baseman Michael Levine has decided to retire from baseball. He played in the majors for 16 full seasons, spending the last four of them here in Louisville, though the last two years he was more of a leader from the bench, teaching our young players and helping keep the clubhouse atmosphere welcoming as we fought for pennants. He’ll finish his career with a .284 batting average, with 2,167 hits, 286 doubles, 83 triples, 20 homers and 1,148 runs scored, driving in 662. His 55.1 career WAR should eventually make him a Hall of Fame candidate, though how the MBA Press Association will vote is always something of a mystery. At the least he DESERVES to be a rare entry into the HOF as an offensive player. We got the hot-stove season going in a big way this afternoon with a move toward building our farm system, something our owner Gibson has made a top priority. We’ve sent right fielder Chris Whalen, 31, and right-handed reliever Matt Chabak, 32, to the Green Bay Green Stockings along with $17,500 in cash, for BNN top ten prospect Morgan Harrison, 21, who plays second base and who has a ton of upside both offensively and defensively for us. It’s time to make some moves to build for our long term future via trades, while looking to the upcoming free agency season to make the impact signings we need to get over the championship hump. October 13, 1909: Nate Gilchrest and Ralph Ladd each agreed to one year deals at their current pay rate to continue to have a spot on our major league roster, though their places on the team will have to be sorted out. Gilchrest in particular is an interesting example of a player valuable for his off-the-field skills, even as he may be a long-term injury risk ... he’s a team leader and though eventually we may have to part ways with him, paying $500 for his services in 1910 seems like a fair concession. October 14, 1909: Third baseman Chris Hughes has signed a five-year extension worth $7,500 in total to remain a Riverman, likely to finish his career here. He’ll earn $1,500 per season through the rest of his contract, a well-earned extension after going .315 this season with 15 doubles, 12 triples and 61 stolen bases! The 34-year-old third baseman has 1,491 career hits, 598 stolen bases and a career average of .287, with 539 runs batted in, along with the 1904 Gold Glove at first base from his final year in Evansville. Fan excitement regarding the extension has been high, and I suspect season tickets are going to start selling faster in Deecember now that they know it’s a done deal. October 17, 1909: The Gold Gloves for the league were announced this year, and this time we were dominant, winning five of the nine awards for defensive prowess: Mike Morris won his third in a row as a pitcher, while Mike Stricklin won his first ever as a catcher. Jeremy Smith and Jan MacLellan won at first and second respectively, and Trent Hall took home the award at center field again. David Cole (Lexington) won the shortstop fielding award with Burgess missing a large chunk of the year, and Lexington also picked up the third base award via Savatore Correa, and the right field award via Jaime Pena. Owensboro’s Matt Wheeler was the only player on another team to get any recognition, as our team and the Roughriders secured our status as the two teams to beat defensively. October 19, 1909: We had three Silver Slugger winners this season! Jeremy Smith won the first base award, his fifth overall and second at the position, having put up a .290 average, 28 doubles, 11 triples and 55 RBIs while stealing 106 bases, placing second in the league in that latter metric. Meanwhile, Jan MacLellan won his second in a row at second base in his first season as a Riverman, hitting .299 with 20 doubles, 24 triples, two homers and 52 RBIs -- this was his fifth Silver Slugger of his career as well. Finally, even in his shortened season, Brad Burgess won the award at shortstop, hitting .350 with 18 doubles, 26 homers and 77 RBIs, putting together 7.7 WAR as he took his third Silver Slugger in a row at the position. October 21, 1909: Sean Impagliazzo is only 26 years old, but he now owns two Ohio River League Pitcher of the Year awards! This year he went 30-8 with a 1.51 ERA, striking out 110 batters with a 0.88 WHIP through 369.2 innings of work, giving him 6.9 WAR! He’s only been in the Midwest Baseball League for four seasons, but he already has a career record of 106-52 with an ERA of 1.79 and 302 strikeouts, with 143 complete games and 35 shutouts, with two career one-hitters. November 9, 1909: The league is buzzing over the news that the Rockford Black Hawks over in the GLL have signed Nick Bertrand (3B) and Austin Cappelli (SS), two of the best free agents in the current class. Finally it looks like someone in that league is interested in battling Chicago for the big weapons! Rumor has it they’re in on a few pitchers to improve their rotation, so I’m going to be intrigued to see how the race goes in that division this year. The issue for us is that we don’t see anyone in the current free agent market that is a significant enough upgrade to make the leap. I’m scouring the league for potential trade options, but at this point the biggest news is that we may have catcher prospect Chris Heikes ready to come up to the major league level! We’ll say more closer to spring if his development program goes well. But right now we still feel we’re right on the edge of where we want to be. I’m not going to throw money at people who aren’t going to be able to make us a better ballclub just to say we did something. November 28, 1909: Okay, so we did make ourselves a free agency deal, signing 32-year-old Thomas Dixon as a backup to Brad Burgess at shortstop. He’s a capable backup at short and second, giving us middle infield depth and a solid contact hitter to boot. He’ll get $1,000 per year over a six year span to do just that. He has no expectations of being a full-time starter, but he’ll play regularly and be a valuable contributor. January 1, 1910: Another year, another pitcher gets into the Hall of Fame ... this time it was Michael Berglund, who played the bulk of his career with Owensboro and Rockford. With a career record of 272-280 with a 2.90 ERA and 523 strikeouts, Bergland had 59.4 total WAR while playing from 1882-1895. This was his final year of eligibility and he got in with 94.1 percent of the vote in his final opportunity. No offensive player got more than 24.9 percent of the vote this year. March 3, 1910: Spring Training begins today, and top prospect Chris Heikes has gotten an invite to come show if he’s ready to make the big league roster or if he’ll be back in the minors this season. At 22, he’s got the defensive ability to do the job, but whether he’s got the skill yet to survive as a hitter in the league remains to be seen. But he showed improvement last year at AA, hitting .184 overall with 11 doubles and 20 homers, batting in 59 runs. So it’s going to be an end-of-March decision whether we keep him up as a backup option. April 4, 1910: We handled ourselves well in the spring training season, putting up a record of 23-7 to lead the ORL. Chicago led the GLL with a 22-8 record, but Bloomington, Green Bay and Rockford all look solid this year. Could this be the year we get a Great Lakes pennant race? Our league looks like the Louisville / Lexington show yet again, with the bulk of the rest of our league looking like .500 would be good results. Chris Heikes hit .225 with a double, a homer and six RBIs, and I plan to keep him up as a backup fielding option as a catcher for sure. We also had right-handed starter Andy Lopez, 24, up for spring training, and he went 2-0 with an 0.60 ERA, five strikeouts and a .192 BAPIP through 30 innings of spring work. But he’ll start his season at AAA this year, though we may need to make room for him at the major league level next year, or he’ll come up if we have any injury trouble. We open the season with a home series against Owensboro on the 7th. Here’s our opening day roster for the season: Starting Lineup (con / gap / pwr / eye / avd / def)* C - Mike Stricklin, 29 (70/45/50/45/80/75) 1B - Jeremy Smith, 37 (60/65/45/45/65/50) 2B - Thomas Dixon, 32 (65/60/60/65/75/75) 3B - Octavio Delgado, 28 (70/55/50/55/75/60) SS - Brad Burgess, 24 (65/70/80/65/70/80) LF - Ben Morris, 27 (65/75/45/55/75/75) CF - Trent Hall, 26 (50/45/80/40/45/80) RF - Trey Bledsoe, 24 (75/55/45/50/80/60) *Bench* C - Chris Heikes, 22 (45/40/45/45/45/75) C - David Campbell, 34 (60/45/40/45/65/35) C - Brett Ohms, 31 (55/45/50/45/65/60 1B - Jon Felker, 32 (55/70/70/75/45/65) 2B - Bobby Johnson, 34 (70/45/45/50/80/65) 3B - Nate Gilchrist, 32 (55.45/45/45/70/60) 3B - Chris Hughes, 35 (60/65/50/50/70/40) LF - James Davis, 26 (60/45/50/45/75/65) CF - Ethan Martin, 31 (55/45/45/45/65/45) RF - Dave Borden, 34 (60/55/50/45/70/40) RF - Ben Johnson, 27 (65/50/50/45/80/60) RF - Brooks McCarthy, 32 (65/55/45/45/70) Rotation (Stuff / Mov / Ctrl / Sta / Hld / Def)* SP1 - Sean Impagliazzo, 26 (65/75/40/60/65/55) SP2 - Cameron McClain, 60/70/65/50/55/45) SP3 - George Driscoll, 31 (45/75/50/55/80/50 *Bullpen* Stopper - Mike Stoneburg, 30 (50/70/50/50/65/35) Middle - Mike Morris, 30 (50/70/50/50/45/60) Middle - J.R. Potter, 35 (75/70/45/25/55/45) Middle - Ralph Ladd, 31 (45/70/65/35/50/20) * Defense rating only at key position __________________ A Fledgling “Free Agency” Movement in the Post-War World -- An OOTP 26 Dynasty Online Leagues Modern Baseball (Chicago White Sox) Daily Double Baseball (Tampa Bay Devil Rays) Championship Baseball League (Winnipeg Goldeye) WPORBL 55 (Chicago Cubs) WPORBL 74 (Oakland A's) WPORBL 94 (Montreal Expos) WPOBL (Cincinnati Reds)