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2006 in EPB
With the expansion of the Oceania Baseball Association, Eurasian Professional Baseball now was the smallest big league at only 16 teams. They still needed a few more years before their next expansion could match it. EPB officials were worried about its prestige sinking further and wanted to do something to pump up popularity. They ended up making some rules adjustments designed to increase the scoring.
EPB had been considered low to very low offensively on the grand historical scale. With these changes, the European League’s batting average went from .221 in 2005 to .239 in 2006, while the ERA went from 2.63 to 3.00. In the Asian League, the average went from .230 to .244, while the ERA jumped from 2.94 to 3.29. EPB would still be considered below average to low scoring offensively, but kept them from inching closer to the “dead ball” territory of APB or CLB.

St. Petersburg and Moscow tied for the European League title at 99-63. No tiebreaker game was used with the formula favoring the Polar Bears for first place officially. They repeated as the #1 team and the Mules repeated as the #2. Minsk (93-69) and Kazan (90-72) were both in the hunt. For the first time in EPB’s 52 year history, the Miners missed the playoffs in back-to-back seasons.
Winning European League MVP for the third consecutive season was St. Petersburg RF Jov Sakharov. The 28-year old Russian made history with 14.18 WAR, the single-season EPB record by a non-two way player. That mark still holds as of 2037. Sakharov also scored 126 runs, breaking the previous record of 122 held by three players. That would remain the runs record until finally passed in 2036.
Sakharov also led in hits (207), doubles (35), triples (18), home runs (47), total bases (419), average (.329), slugging (.665), OPS (1.019), and wRC+ (219). His 110 RBI fell eight short of a Triple Crown. St. Petersburg locked up their superstar in May with an eight-year, $32,760,000 extension, one of the richest in EPB history.
Markiyan Konoplya also made history as the second in EPB history to win Pitcher of the Year six times. After a decade of dominance in Minsk, Konoplya had signed a five-year, $27,000,000 deal for 2006 with St. Petersburg. The 32-year old Ukrainian righty led in wins (25-9), innings (290.2), strikeouts (332), WHIP (0.83), complete games (22), and shutouts (7). Konoplya had 9.2 WAR and a 2.07 ERA, falling eight points from a Triple Crown.

Yekaterinburg dominated the Asian League standings at 101-61, earning a third straight playoff berth and sixth in seven years. The Yaks were blazing it on the basepaths, setting a new AL record with 420 steals. They also had allowed the fewest runs in EPB with 445. Yekaterinburg was 16 games ahead of second place, finishing first for the fifth time in the 2000s.
It was a four-time battle for the second playoff spot. Irkutsk (85-77) edged defending EPB champ Krasnoyarsk (83-79), Omsk (83-79), and Novosibirsk (82-80). That ended an eight-year playoff drought for the Ice Cats dating back to their 1990s dynasty run. The Cossacks saw their five-year postseason streak snapped.
Krasnoyarsk 3B Boxuan Long won his third Asian League MVP in four years. He posted the ninth Triple Crown in EPB history by a batter with 43 home runs, 114 RBI, and a .337 average. The 31-year old Chinese righty was also the leader in runs (100), total bases (350), OBP (.406), slugging (.677), OPS (1.083), wRC+ (214), and WAR (11.7). With this effort, Long became an eight-time Silver Slugger winner.
Yekaterinburg’s Matvey Ivanov also made history with a historic eighth Pitcher of the Year win. The 31-year old Russian lefty posted his third Triple Crown in four years with a 21-7 record, 1.37 ERA, and 365 strikeouts. He’s the only EPB player to earn three Triple Crowns. Ivanov also led in K/BB (11.8), quality starts (28), complete games (23), shutouts (7), FIP- (38), and WAR (13.5). It was his seventh straight season with 10+ WAR and his sixth as the ERA leader. Ivanov also took second in MVP voting. With his continued dominance, the Yaks gave him another five years and $19,600,000 the following spring.
The European League Championship Series rematch had the same result as the prior year, #2 seed Moscow upsetting #1 seed St. Petersburg. The Mules won it 4-2 for their fifth pennant overall. Yekaterinburg didn’t want to suffer an upset like they had seen the prior year, as the Yaks topped Irkutsk 4-2 in the Asian League’s final. Yekaterinburg earned its third pennant in four years and its fourth in six years. The Yaks became seven-time AL champs.

In the 52nd EPB Championship, Moscow won a classic in seven games over Yekaterinburg. This was the third title for the Russian capital, which had also won it all in 1974 and 1975. 3B Ivan Mushailov was finals MVP in his tenth season with the Mules. In 13 playoff starts, he had 13 hits, 8 runs, 2 doubles, 4 homers, and 10 RBI.

Other notes: Ulaanbaatar’s Wolfgang Lind had a 33-game hitting streak, passing Maksim Shantanov’s 31 from 1980 for the EPB record. This remains EPB’s longest streak as of 2037. Pitcher of the Year winners Matvey Ivanov and Markiyan Konoplya both crossed 200 career wins in 2006, making 52 pitchers to reach the mark. Konoplya also became the 53rd to 3500 strikeouts, a mark Ivanov would meet in 2007.
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