International League/Random Debut League

[David Watts]

Corpus Christi are the champions of the 1977 season. The Hooks beat Peoria 4 games to 1 in the LCS.

In a year I truly expected to see someone hit 50 or even 60 home runs, the league leader ended up being Mark McGwire with 43. Rookie sensation Trevor Story finished in 2nd with 42.

David Ortiz will get his 3000th hit and his 500th home run. He signed a new deal with the Lansing Lugnuts and is back for 1978. Glad to see he's still starting. Always hate it when guys come back to serve only as a pinch hitter. Ortiz is now 44 years old.

Hilton Smith is back again for 78 as well. Smith is now 41 years old. Hilton picked up his 250th victory in the last game of the 1977 season. He should be ranked 2nd in career wins by the end of the season.

Gary Carter was the only player inducted into the Hall of Fame during the offseason. Guessing the game's voters take into account the position a player plays when casting their votes, as Carter's numbers are impressive amongst catchers, but rather pedestrian otherwise. There is his defense as well.

Barry Bonds went number 1 in the draft, as expected. The Arkansas Travelers were the lucky recipients. He is already hitting 3rd for the Travelers. Cool thing is he's hitting right in front another youngster Eric Davis. The Travelers will be a fun team to watch.

Couple weeks into the 78 season and Nap Lajoie is hitting .above .400 again.

Tris Speaker is off to a hot start as well. Speaker is going to be the fastest ever to 3000 hits if he continues at his current pace. He has suffered injuries over the last 2 seasons though.

Cecil Fielder is off to a torrid pace in regards to home runs to start the 78 season. He's already has 10 on the year putting him on pace for 95. He's had 2 multiple home runs games over the start of the season,

The preseason predictions have Greg Maddux winning 26 games in 78. Would love to see it, as it's been a long time since anyone's won 25+ games in this league.

[David Watts]

Cecil Fielder continues his hot start to the 1978 season with 2 more 2 home run games to close out the month of April with 15 home runs. Fielder nailed down player of the month honors as well. Fielder is also leading the league with 33 RBI.

Right before leaving for work this morning I just happened to pick a Great Lakes Loons game to watch. Glad I did, as Mark McGwire belted 3 home runs in the contest driving in 6 runs. The Loons have surprised everyone by finishing the first month the season in first place.

[David Watts]

As a Tiger fan I was excited to see Riley Greene enter my league several years ago. Wow! What a disappointment Greene turned out to be, in fact, he was pretty much awful. By 29 he ended up retiring when he became a free agent and not a single team showed any interest. Retired with a grand total of 47 home runs.

Cecil Fielder is up to 20 home runs on the season.

The batting race is a strange one so far in 78. The 3 leaders are Mariano Duncan, Pee Wee Reese and Marcel Ozuna. Something tells me by June we should see 3 new faces at the top of that list.

Bob Gibson is now 2 wins away from reaching 200 wins.

[David Watts]

Greg Maddux is 6-5 on the season so far with an ERA of 1.97. It just jumped to 1.97 from about 1.75 after his last start. His team the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers are in 2nd place in the Northern Division, but it sure seems like their bats go to sleep when Maddux takes the mound.

Catfish Hunter is a rookie in 1978. Will be interested to see how Hunter performs in this league. I've never had him do well in a random debut league, so I'm hoping this might be the one where he shines.

[David Watts]

Harry Davis with his 4th 30-30 season in a row.

[David Watts]

Hilton Smith is having another incredible season for the Memphis Redbirds at 41 years of age. Pretty Amazing. Wonder if he has enough left in the tank to reach 300 wins?

[David Watts]

Ugh, Hilton Smith is now up to 284 career wins. He was having a really nice season in 1979 for the first place Memphis Redbirds. Then during his last start to end the month of August he fractured his elbow. I assume this will be the end for Smith. Not sure one can come back from that type of injury at the age of 42.

Meanwhile, the leagues oldest player David Ortiz is once again having a really nice season and climbing his way up the career leaderboard in hits, RBI and home runs. Ortiz has 20+ home runs for the 79 season and is approaching 100 RBI. His team the Lansing Lugnuts are pretty darn awful though.

Bob Gibson, Jacob deGrom and Greg Maddux are in a heated race for the leagues best pitcher award. deGrom picked up his 20th victory in his last start in August. Meanwhile, Maddux and Gibson both have 19 wins,

The home run race is a 3 man race between Charlie Keller, Cecil Fielder and Mark McGwire.

Nap Lajoie is once again leading the league in hitting.

[David Watts]

Septembers continue to be unkind to Tris Speaker. This year it's a torn labrum that ends his season early. Hoping he's back to start the 1980 season, but only time will tell. Tris had another strong season at the plate for Peoria Chiefs, hitting .350+. Speaker's career average remains right around .350 as well. If he's able to come back for a full season next year, I expect him to join the 3000 hit club at some point during the season.

Around 12 games remain in the season and Cecil Fielder has a chance to reach 50 home runs. He currently sits at 47.

Memphis has already clinched the Southern Division title and should win 100+ games in 79, The Tulsa Drillers have an slim chance of nabbing the 2nd wild card, but they need the Great Lakes Loons to go into a tail spin to do so.

The Northern Division is still up for grabs. Cedar Rapids is in 1st place a game and a half ahead of the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers. The Loons are in 3rd place.

[David Watts]

Stunned to say the least to see the Great Lakes Loons rise from the ashes of expansion land so quickly. The Loons entered the league in 1975 and have had little to no success in their first 4 years in the league. They got off to a hot start in 1978, but by the end of the year, they were back towards the bottom of their division. Meanwhile, their expansion counterparts the New Orleans Baby Cakes have went from some early success to the bottoms.

The Loons have definitely been building towards success in the draft and through trades. Their first big acquisition was getting Mark McGwire in a trade. Their second was acquiring Roberto Clemente. The draft has been the Loons friend to the tune of Jackson Merrill, Carl Hubbell and Frank Home Run Baker. Merrill and Baker are having breakout seasons in 79, The Loons sport Clemente, Merrill, Baker and McGwire at the top of their lineup. Hard to beat that.

[David Watts]

The 1979 regular season comes down to two game 163's. One to determine the who wins the 2nd wild card and the other decides the winner of the Northern Division.

Cedar Rapids and Wisconsin finished the season 102-60. Wisconsin had the lead going into the final Sunday of the season, but saw Ed Lynch and the bullpen flounder away game 162. To make it worse, Lynch left the game with a day to day injury as well. Cedar Rapids meanwhile beat the Great Lakes Loons on Sunday and in doing so forced the need for both game 163's, as the Tulsa Drillers took advantage of the Loons loss to even the 2nd wild card race. Tulsa's manager won despite resting Nap Lajoie and Roger Freed in key games down the stretch. Oh how I hate that the game requires the use of high fatigue.

Cecil Fielder currently has 51 home runs on the season with game 163 left to play. Fielders 51 home runs is the 5th time in the leagues 34 years of existence that a player hit 50 or more home runs. Hank Aaron did it twice in his age shortened career and John Beckwith did it once. Aaron's 58 home runs in either 1950 or 1951 still stands as the most ever by an International League player.



The pitching matchup for the Wisconsin/Cedar Rapids game 163 is a great one. Jacob deGrom is on the mound for Cedar Rapids up against Paul Petit for Wisconsin. deGrom will be going for his 21st win, while Petit goes for either 17 or 18.

Greg Maddux finished the season with 24 wins. Guessing he wins the Cy Young, but it's by far not a sure thing. deGrom will get lots of votes and may even take home the award. Bob Gibson will get some consideration as well, but I don't see him winning it.

[David Watts]

Wow! David Ortiz is now 45 years old. Right before the start of the post season a news story pops up saying Ortiz will be staying put in Memphis. The story reports that he signed a 2 year deal. I don't think I've ever seen anyone play past the age of 45, other than maybe Hoyt Wilhelm. Thing is, Ortiz is still producing for the Lansing Lugnuts. He had 30+ home runs and 80+ RBI this season. He's now drove in 1900 runs during his career.

Wisconsin beat Cedar Rapids in game 163. Turns out it was simply for home field advantage, as the 2 teams end up facing each other in the wild card series. .

Tulsa beat the Great Lakes Loons in their game 163. The Drillers are now set to face the Memphis Redbirds in a best of seven. Can't wait to see if the Loons bounce back in 1980 after such a heart breaking ending to the 79 season.

[David Watts]

The Wisconsin Timber Rattlers defeat the Tulsa Drillers 4 games to 2 to win the 1979 championship. This is the Rattlers 2nd league championship in a row and their 4th title overall. Wisconsin is now tied with Toledo for second most titles. Birmingham leads with a total of 5 rings.

Well, even though the news story popped up earlier about David Ortiz reupping for 2 more years, he decided to call it quits following the 79 season. I will post a screenshot of his career sometime this weekend. What a career it turned out to be. He was definitely a late bloomer, saving his best seasons for later in his career.

Nap Lajoie won another batting title and took home MVP honors as well.

Harry Davis once again hit 30+ home runs, but in 79 he failed to reach 30 stolen bases ending his 30-30 streak at 3 seasons.

Greg Maddux took home the Cy Young honors, leading all pitcher with 24 wins. Maddux once again led the league in WAR as well. Maddux has now posted 20+ wins for 3 straight seasons. Jacob deGrom finished in 2nd for the Cy Young. deGrom won 20 games, but had tough luck in the month of September in regards to wins. Jacob actually got to 20 wins faster than Maddux. Andy Powell finished 3rd in the voting. Powell is very quietly stringing together a nice International League career.

Wild trade right after the season saw the Arkansas Travelers ship Eric Davis to Biloxi for Alan Trammell. Other players involved, but the meat of the trade was Trammell and Davis. Davis had a breakout season in 79. Kind of sad to see this deal take place, because I was enjoying the duo of Eric Davis and Barry Bonds being on the same team. Trammell has yet to play after being drafted early in the 79 season. He spent all of 79 on Biloxi's reserve roster.

Can't believe I heading into 1980. This is probably my favorite decade, so I'm looking forward to seeing how things play out. Unless, I change my mind sometime between now and the end of 1984, I intend to continue using the yearly historical modifiers until I reach 1992, Following the 92 season time will freeze and I will no longer follow the yearly modifiers.

Getting ready for stolen bases to explode in the 80's. Lou Brock is approaching his prime year, so it will be a blast to see how many bags he can pilfer over the next 10 years.

John Smoltz was part of this years draft, but didn't get selected number 1. That honor went to Ken Williams New Orleans took Williams, so I expect their power numbers to improve.

Hilton Smith did not retire as I expected him to following his fractured elbow injury that occurred late in the 1979 season. As of free agent filing day, Smith has 3 months left on his injury time table, meaning he should be ready for opening day. We'll see. I still have a feeling things might go south in terms of his recovery.

Tris Speaker's recovery hit a snag, but I do expect him to be ready for opening day.

Bob Gibson is once again a free agent.

Along with David Ortiz, Bibb Falk and Matt Holliday were the most notable retirements following the 79 season. Holliday had his moments, but was never quite the player he was in real life. Falk had a really nice career

[David Watts]

This years Hall of Fame inductee

[David Watts]

[David Watts]

Tris Speaker notched hit number 3000 early in the 1980 season. Now it will be interesting to see if he has enough left in the tank at age 35 to reach 4000. Speaker continues to hit, but lately he's been victim a September injury bug that robs him of a months worth of stats.

Cecil Fielder is once again leading the league in home runs with 19.

[David Watts]

Just reached the start of July 1980 and none of the usual suspects are vying for the batting title. Instead Tommy Davis is leading the league, closely followed by Reggie Jefferson, with Lou Boudreau in third place.

The Northern Division starts July with Toledo and Wisconsin tied for 1st place and the Lansing Lugnuts just a 1/2 game back. Lansing was in 1st place for most of April, May and June, but lost their spot in the last couple days of June.

Memphis is once again in first place in the Southern Division with Biloxi just a couple games back.

Joe Kelly has moved into 3rd place on the all time hits list passing Mel Ott. I don't think Kelly will catch David Ortiz for second place.

Hilton Smith needs 8 more wins to reach 300.

Kind of cool to see Micah Owings being used as a 2 way player and actually hitting a fair clip so far in his brief career.

Another two way player in my league is Ted Double Duty Radcliffe. Sad thing is, he's been in the league for several years now and I just noticed he is also being used as a hitter. Love his nickname.

Yet another 2 way player is Kid Nichols. Nichols has all of a sudden acquired himself some power in 1980 and has spent time in the top 3 of the seasons home run leaders.

[David Watts]

36 year old Rube Waddell is just 50 strikeouts shy of 4000.

Cecil Fielder once again leads the league in home runs with 24. Fielder just took back the lead from Eric Davis who has 23.

The Tulsa Drillers have moved Nap Lajoie into the leadoff spot in 1980. Lajoie had a great month of July, creeping back into 3rd in the batting title race behind Lou Boudreau and the leader Tommy Davis. Lajoie has driven in 100+ runs in each of the last 8 seasons, but that streak will likely end in 1980 due to batting leadoff. Entering the month of August Lajoie has driven in 40 runs.

Dazzy Vance is 16-3 on the season so far with an ERA under 2,

Greg Maddux is having a strange season. His 2.42 ERA is third best in the league, but even though he's not giving up a lot of runs, his record is only 12-10. He's been hot lately to pull himself above .500 on the season. His Wisconsin Timber Rattlers are right in the thick of the race for the division title. Will be interesting to see if he can win 8 more games over the next two months to keep his streak of winning 20 games alive.

I never realized that Ron Santo only played till he was 34 years old. Santo is 34 in my league and he's been having his worst season by far, at times struggling to keep his average above .200. A good July got his average up into the .230's, so I'm hoping he can right the ship and continue his career. The OOTP gods can be so cruel.

The Arkansas Travelers have kept Alan Trammell on their roster all season so far, but continue to start Royce Clayton at SS the majority of the time. Trammell has served as Clayton's backup at SS, but he's also got starts as the teams DH. The trade deadline just passed. I was watching to see if the Travelers would trade Clayton or heaven forbid, Trammell.

Another I never realized tidbit is the fact that Mike Morse came into the league as a SS. Was about to gripe about the Cedar Rapids Kernels using Morse as their everyday SS, doing so with stellar red 1 rating, but finding out he played there in real life makes my gripe have a lot less bite.

[David Watts]

Dazzy Vance is now 18-4 on the season. Got to watch him toss a gem this morning before I came to work. Vance pitched a complete game victory for his Toledo Mud Hens over the first place Wisconsin Timber Rattlers, striking out 16 batters in the game. 14 tied the Toledo record, 15 broke it and number 16 was just a little icing on the cake.

Kid Nichols has taken over the home run lead for the time being over Cecil Fielder.

[David Watts]

08/22/1980, Mark McGwire blasts home run number 300 off Jack Baldschun. McGwire is just 30 years old.

[David Watts]

Wisconsin's Dick Donovan has been on fire of late and is now leading all starters with 20 wins. Donovan is 20-3 on the season. Toldedo's Dazzy Vance hit a cool spell late in August seeing his ERA rise above 2 and his record fall to 19-7. Jacob deGrom and Greg Maddux are both 16-11 on the season. As of right now, I give the edge to Jacob deGrom in terms of chances to take home the Cy Youngs award.

Well, all the surprises have fallen out of the batting race and things are now back in the hands of Nap Lajoie and Tris Speaker. Well, Ryne Sandberg's average is steadily climbing, so Lajoie better stay hot.

Looking like Wisconsin and Memphis will be the division winners, but with a month to play it's too early call the race. Tulsa is 5 games behind Memphis and Toledo is only 3 behind Wisconsin. The Great Lakes Loons have righted the ship as of late and now hold the 2nd wild card spot. The race between the Loons and Tulsa for that wild card should be a good one. The Loons just got Jackson Merrill back from the IL, making them a lot tougher to beat.

Been using start the highest rested starter the entire history of this league so far. Wondering if at some point soon, that strategy will change to sometimes start the highest rested?