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05-16-2026, 04:38 PM
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#1 |
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All Star Reserve
Join Date: Jul 2013
Location: southwestern Illinois
Posts: 813
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The Jacksonville Anchors
 Jacksonville Anchors Baseball In the year 2000, as part of MLB's rapid expansion to 60 clubs, 4 final teams were added to the map, one in each of the 4 major leagues, to bring each to a total of 15. The Northeast League added the Norfolk Navigators of Norfolk, VA; the Central League added the Austin Violets in Austin, TX; the Western League added the San Bernardino 66ers of California's Inland Empire; and the Atlantic League added our Jacksonville Anchors to the First Coast. The Anchors have played 26 seasons now, and had a fair amount of success for a modern expansion franchise, but have just fired their manager and GM after a very disappointing 2025 season. So, we're taking over as GM! About the League This version of MLB contains all the teams from my thread in the Mods forum, with an alternate history that dates from 1903. I'll get into plenty of that as we go, but here are some of the broad strokes: The most successful teams in World Series terms are the  New York Highlanders (18),  Boston Minutemen (12),  Buffalo Beacons (7), and  St. Louis Spirits (7). I would normally play as St. Louis, my home team, but they've been a little too successful for my taste - too easy to win there. Three other teams have won six titles. 37 of the league's 60 teams have won the World Series at some point in their history, and 23 have not (including Jacksonville).Speaking of the Spirits, they are the top team in terms of overall historical wins, with the  Brooklyn Kings, Minutemen,  Chicago Blues, and Highlanders rounding out the top 5.The most interesting thing about the league, from my perspective, is having four subleagues. This is not actually possible in OOTP natively, but I make it work with a pack of custom schedules that I wrote a few years back. I will be making some awards decisions myself (OOTP will not pick 4 MVPs, for example), and arranging the playoff bracket manually to match how it should go according to the rules I've set out. At times I will probably mention the "Original 16". As in the real MLB, there was a long period of time where just 16 teams in two leagues contested everything. The league expanded in 1948, 1955, 1960, 1965, 1968, 1975, 1982, 1989, 1995, and finally in 2000, with between 2-8 expansion teams at each stage. The 1960 expansion marked the introduction of the 4-subleague format, as 8 historical teams from the west coast were absorbed, as if gobbling up the classic PCL. Each league, like the AL and NL we know, has three divisions of 5 teams each, with divisions labeled North, Central, and South (though not always divided strictly on those lines). The playoff format is similar to that used by MLB in my childhood (the 90s and 2000s). Division winners qualify, as well as one wild card from each league, and division rivals cannot play one another in the first round. The division series round is also expanded to 7 games rather than 5. Once the four leagues have crowned their champions, the bracket is re-seeded with the best league champion playing the worst, regardless of which in-game subleague they play in. This does mess up the History pages in-game sometimes, but that's worth it for me.  About the Atlantic League The AL contains teams from the eastern parts of the Midwest and the South. The division alignment and 2025 standings look like this:  In the playoffs, the top-seeded Lakers were upset by New Orleans in seven games, while Memphis beat Tampa in six. The Lions then easily took down the division rival Crescents in five games to win the AL championship for the first time in their history (since 1995). Due to upsets in every league, Memphis was the top seed in the League Champions round, and defeated the lowest seed, the Western League champs from Las Vegas, in five games. But they fell to the team of destiny, the CL champion Austin Violets, who became the first team from the 2000 expansion class to win it all. The most historically successful clubs from the AL are Cleveland and Louisville, who are two of the aforementioned teams that have six championships, while Detroit has 5 and Pittsburgh 4. Those teams all were part of the Original 16, as was Cincinnati. The team that has won the AL championship the most times (1960-present) is New Orleans with 10, but they have only converted those 10 appearances in the "Final Four" to one World Series trophy, in 1987.  About the AnchorsAs mentioned, the Anchors were established in 2000. They had a pretty typical start to a franchise, losing over 100 games in the first two years, but put together their first winning season in 2004 at 85-77, only missing the playoffs by 4 games. The first playoff appearance would have to wait until 2008, where that same 85-77 record was enough to win a weak South division. Their first playoff win would have to wait, though, as they were swept by Cincinnati. The following year, in 2009. the Anchors finally got their first playoff wins, winning the AL wild card that year and upsetting a 106-win New Orleans team in the first round, before losing again to Cincinnati in their first ALCS. After that, Jacksonville entered another fallow period. Losing seasons followed in '10 and '11, after which the face of the franchise, catcher Joe Mauer, left in free agency to sign with San Francisco. Mauer (2002-11) and his longtime teammate, CF Justin Leone (2001-13), still hold a number of team records. Hard to fault Mauer, who let the Seals pay him $225 million over eight years. He would go on to play for five other teams in his career, but thankfully never came back to play against us in the AL. He only just announced his retirement, so it is actually today (November 7, 2025) that the team officially retired his number 7. There is one more number hanging beyond the outfield fences at the Grounds, and it is the #22 of Mark Prior (2002-15, 17-18). Prior was the first Anchor to win a major award, capturing the 2006 Cy Young award, and accrued 220 of his 261 career wins in an Anchors uniform. Even in retirement, he is part of the lore of the current roster - with one year left on his contract, management chose to trade him to Anaheim for two young players, including the other contender for greatest player in team history, Aledmys Diaz. (I love it when the most random players you can think of become greats.) In the mid-2010s, the Anchors started to hit big again on some of their draft picks, and it all came together starting in 2018. Their first rounders in 2013-16 were Kris Bryant, Matt Chapman, Harrison Bader, and Nicky Lopez, who were the four most important players on that 2018 team and a couple years beyond. The 2018-24 Anchors won seven straight division titles, and though five of those came with first-round exits, that run also finally, in 2024, produced Jacksonville's first Atlantic League championship with a six-game victory over Louisville. They would lose in the League Champions' round in six games to eventual champion Syracuse, but these were still new heights for the Anchors. Unfortunately, 2024 was the end of an era in a lot of ways. Bryant and Chapman were already gone before that, and the likes of Miguel Sano, Ryan Zimmerman, Yovani Gallardo, and Robbie Grossman all departed as free agents, leaving not much behind. When the 2025 season started to go south, Bader was traded to Cleveland (where he joined Sano on a playoff team). Of course, this is the season that cost our predecessors their jobs, and what we now inherit. No player has been inducted into the Hall of Fame in an Anchors cap, but Mauer, Prior, and Dan Haren have yet to become eligible. There have been two no-hitters thrown in Anchors history, both in the 2023 season, and by the immortal Frank Herrmann, who I had no recollection of (though Guardians fans might). In this league he is still active at age 40, pitching for Ottawa, and is one of five pitchers tied with a career record 3 no-hitters as he also threw one with St. Louis in 2019.  The 2025-26 Offseason Here's what needs to be done to prep for the 2026 season:
I'll run down the current state of the team before I do anything too crazy. |
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05-16-2026, 06:27 PM
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#2 |
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All Star Reserve
Join Date: Jul 2013
Location: southwestern Illinois
Posts: 813
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2025 Roster Review
This is the current state of the 40-man roster, with 36 players currently on it. Italicized players are free agents in a few weeks: Pitchers (Stu/Mov/Con/(Stamina)) #21 Hunter Greene - 75/50/50/60 #3 Trey Killian - 45/50/50/55 #47 Cal Quantrill - 45/50/65/55 #31 Bevis Simpson - 45/45/50/65 #23 Hunter York - 40/45/45/55 #5 Michael Gunn - 75/45/45 #33 B.J. Loya - 45/45/45 #1 Luis Madero - 45/45/50 #24 Nate Pearson - 80/60/55 #19 Marco Ramirez - 60/50/50 #6 Eury Ramos - 75/45/45 #26 Alejandro Requena - 45/45/45 #37 Trevor Stephan - 60/55/55 #11 Dannysmel Tavarez - 65/45/35 #10 Dylan TeBrake - 55/45/50 #7 Jose Torres - 60/50/35 #25 Josh Winckowski - 65/60/55 All of these guys except for Madero appeared with the big club this season. York and Loya were listed as our top two prospects in the most recent ranking. I guess Torres won't get a new number until the spring, now that #7 was retired out from under him. Catchers (Con/Gap/Pow/Eye) #40 Jim Arada - 50/45/30/40 #44 Bo Naylor - 50/60/50/50 Infielders #9 1B Jake Cronenworth - 50/50/50/50 #12 1B Aledmys Diaz - 60/50/65/60 #32 2B Nasim Nunez - 45/35/35/45 #20 2B Jose Peraza - 55/45/40/40 #29 2B Ramon Urias - 60/45/45/45 #17 2B Shay Whitcomb - 45/50/50/45 #27 3B Coby Mayo - 50/60/50/45 #8 SS Nicky Lopez - 65/45/30/45 Outfielders #13 Duke Ellis - 50/45/40/45 #14 Sandro Fabian - 50/50/45/35 #18 Alonso Gaitan - 45/50/40/45 #30 Max Kepler - 45/45/55/50 #77 Chris Lubanski - 50/55/50/60 #2 Kameron Misner - 40/60/45/45 #41 Tyler Nevin - 50/55/50/50 #4 Jhonkensy Noel - 45/55/55/50 #78 Jean Ramirez - 50/45/45/50 Starter Jeff Niemann and 1B Ryan Flaherty had already announced their retirements at season's end. Flaherty started 128 games at first and another 25 at DH this season, while Niemann made 28 starts on the mound. Neither was particularly critical to our success (or lack thereof), with both posting negative WAR totals. The pre-fab CPU-chosen batting order is SS Nicky Lopez - .276/2/49 DH Jake Cronenworth - .282/13/47 2B Ramon Urias - .307/18/79 1B Aledmys Diaz - .310/42/116 LF Chris Lubanski - .263/19/63 RF Tyler Nevin - .239/18/87 C Jim Arada - .254/1/31 CF Max Kepler - .248/7/36 3B Coby Mayo - .067/0/1 (10 G) Of course, Nevin is a free agent. Urias got most of the time at third in actuality, and I'm in favor of that. We'll be fine on the infield, but the outfield is ugly. |
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05-17-2026, 10:42 AM
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#3 |
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All Star Reserve
Join Date: Jul 2013
Location: southwestern Illinois
Posts: 813
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November 2025
The 2025 season all happened when I was a neutral observer, but it's still awards season.
Rookies of the Year
Relievers of the Year
Cy Young Awards
MVP Awards
The main thing to do during November was get our new coaching staff in order. We hired: - Assistant GM: Bill Grosdidier. Bill was actually the manager of our rival, the Tampa Grovers, during their most successful period. The Grovers went to the World Series four times in five years between 2000-2004, but lost all four in a Buffalo Bills-like curse state. If he wants to get into management, I'm not too petty to not give him that opportunity. - Manager: David Agado. A former minor-league starter in the Portland organization (or the Phillies organization for us), Agado is a first-time manager but rates highly and will mesh well with our pre-existing staff and players. His only really strong preference is that he hates bunting. - Bench coach: Myron Hunter. Myron had been the manager of the High-A Jeff City Jays (Jefferson City, MO) in the Kansas City organization from 2015-25. He was a free agent, and now gets his first opportunity in the big leagues. - Pitching coach: Kris Franko. Franko was the pitching coach for the Crescents in the early 2010s, during which time his proteges included Chris Carpenter, Chris Bassitt, and Zack Britton. He had been coaching in the minor leagues for a while, holding jobs in the Omaha, Milwaukee, and Salt Lake organizations. - First base coach: Yoshi Yoshinaga. A first-time coach who was a minor-league catcher in the New Orleans system in the early 90s. Naturally, he will also handle the catchers. - Team trainer: Nate Beane. Another first-timer, but his ratings are good and lack of experience comes cheap. - A few staff members carried over from previous management under manager Olmedo Saenz: hitting coach John Schulte, third base coach Brett Rossler, and scouting director Sandy Guerrero will stick around. November 11: SP Trey Killian signs an extension for 4 years at an AAV of $9.4 million.November 21:  We did make one trade in this period, and it's with those rival Grovers, acquiring SP Chris Huffman from Tampa in exchange for IF Nasim Nunez, one for one. Huffman is quite a bit older than Nunez (he is 31) but was such a late bloomer that he is just entering his first year of arbitration. So, he's not too expensive (~$2 million), and will easily fit into our rotation.November 23: Hall of Fame voting opens. The two returning players most likely to be inducted are a pair of outfielders who were teammates for 14 years in Tucson, Vernon Wells and Ryan Ludwick, though neither is a slam dunk. The three best resumes for first-time players are all, like Ludwick, real-life Cardinals: Chris Carpenter (Vancouver), Mark Mulder (Houston), and Albert Pujols (Kansas City). The game is putting together a little fan-service for me specifically, I guess. November 24:  One of the best soon-to-be-free-agents is off the market, as Western League MVP Marcus Semien resigns with Vancouver for 4 years, $34.5 million per. This covers his age 34 to 37 seasons, so we'll see.November 26:   The New York Burros trade 3B Nolan Arenado to New Mexico, bringing in 2B Travis Demeritte and seeing a pitching prospect go in each direction. Good deal for New York I would say, they save some money and my scout likes the prospect they got better.November 30:   We weren't the only ones to complete an in-division trade - Milwaukee has traded OF Randy Arozarena to the Chicago Blazers for RP Nick Vespi and outfield prospect Justin Duong.November 30 is also the date that free agency begins, so that'll be the story for a little while. |
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05-17-2026, 08:43 PM
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#4 |
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All Star Reserve
Join Date: Jul 2013
Location: southwestern Illinois
Posts: 813
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December 2025
Just going to cover the biggest deals here - maybe 1 trade or signing out of 15 is noteworthy enough. December 2:   Atlanta trades OF/DH Kyle Schwarber to Columbus, receiving prospects OF Charles Saunders and RHP Jason Jones. One of our division's most feared sluggers has left it. Barring injury, Schwarber will hit his 500th home run this season.December 4:   The LA Sabers trade SP Rick Porcello to Syracuse for two prospects, RHP Jeremiah Dreher and LF Jamal Griffen. Nice bit of business from the Sabers to get out of that contract.December 5:  Saguaros LF Yordan Alvarez signs a 5-year extension that will make him one of the league's 5 highest paid players, $44.4 million per year.December 8:   Kansas City acquires 1B Willson Contreras from Baltimore, for what is effectively nothing - Baltimore both retained money and included cash, allowing Contreras to play for the Mohawks for free. Contreras is best known for his time in Omaha, and now goes to probably their biggest rival.December 8:  C Sean Murphy had opted out of his deal with the Brooklyn Kings, and signs with the defending World Series champs in Austin for 7 years, $25.4 million per year.December 10:  C Kyle Higashioka, fresh off winning the World Series with Austin but now supplanted, signs with Cleveland for $27 million per year over 4 years.December 12: We signed OF Tony Kemp to a minor league deal. Even with no guaranteed salary, he's probably our starting CF if no other moves are made.December 15: What will probably be our biggest coup of the offseason - Jacksonville signs SP Justin Dunn to a 7-year contract. There are a few different options in there, but it will be 7 years, $154 million at most and 5 years, $113 million at the least. Dunn was the best available pitcher under the age of 30, so I'm pretty happy with that even though the news story thinks I'm paying too much. He will almost assuredly be our Opening Day starter. Dunn was a deadline acquisition by Washington from San Francisco this season, and then San Francisco made the playoffs and Washington didn't.December 15: 1B Vladimir Guerrero Jr. signs with St. Louis for 7 years, $25.2 million per. Probably the #1 available free agent, I thought he would get more than this. December 15:  SS JP Crawford signs a 7-year extension with Nashville for $31.5 million per season. Crawford has played his whole career with the Stars.December 17: With the Winter Meetings starting today, it's time for the draft lottery. We had the 7th-best odds this year with our 68-94 record, so I was hopeful but not expectant that anything would happen. Our expansion cousins, the Navigators, had the league's worst record and did stay at the top, but we hit gold! Er, maybe silver. 1st:  Norfolk (no change)2nd: Jacksonville (up from 7th)3rd:  San Antonio (up from 5th)4th:  Charlotte (no change)5th:  Houston (down from 2nd)6th:  LA Palms (up from 8th)The 3rd through 6th picks are all then moved down one slot, due to Hartford failing to sign the #2 pick last year. Toronto (was 3rd) and Atlanta (6th) drop out of the lottery places and will draft 8th and 9th. December 17: SP Johnny Cueto is still kicking around, and will be kicking around for three more years after signing with St. Louis. Cueto won a Cy Young in 2017 with Cleveland, and won 21 games with Boston in 2025.December 29: The Rule 5 draft was today - we drafted RHP Tommy Doyle from Ottawa, and did not lose anyone. With a couple of other, more minor, signings on the board, our 40-man roster now has 38 players. December 31: Well, most of our business is now done - although this signing is not nearly as big a name as he is in the real world, he'll still be a help to us. We have signed RF Ronald Acuña Jr., formerly of Omaha, for an AAV of $12.2 million. We did have to give him six years to do it, but I think that's fine. A clear upgrade over the departed Tyler Nevin on both sides of the ball.
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05-18-2026, 09:57 AM
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#5 |
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All Star Reserve
Join Date: Jul 2013
Location: southwestern Illinois
Posts: 813
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January 2026
Aside from the odd signing of a minor league free agent or two, we're pretty much done with our offseason business. The offseason center's WAR leaderboard has us at the very top in this 60-team league, with our improvement 4.5 wins better than 2nd-place St. Louis. January 3: Well this is surprising. The top free agent starting pitcher, Gerrit Cole, has returned to our division rival Atlanta Firebirds. The F-Bombs have entirely subtracted from the roster up to this point, with Schwarber traded to Columbus, Trevor Larnach signing with Syracuse, and a whole host of other exits. Cole signs for four years at $33 million per year. He came up with Atlanta, and won a Cy Young in a Firebirds uniform in 2014. Most of this decade was spent with Toronto before a deadline trade put him in Vegas.January 4:  Aaron Judge has signed an extension to remain with the Grays, at a $35 million clip over 4 years. Judge passed the 500-homer threshold in 2025, all done in Washington colors.January 7: An impressive 5 players were inducted into the Hall of Fame, all in their first years of eligibility:
The first four players will all represent their first teams in the Hall, while Buehrle will wear a Brooklyn Kings cap. January 10:  Still pitching well at age 39, David Price is still good enough to fetch a decent prospect in a trade. New Orleans has acquired Price from Washington for three prospects, most notably OF prospect Oscar Balais.January 12:  In another instance of players you wouldn't expect to still be playing at a high level, San Francisco has signed OF Jason Heyward for 3 years and $31.2 million per year. Heyward was probably the best free agent still available on the board, but definitely pretty pricey.January 15: International free agency opens on this date. No signings right away but I've got a few players in my sights. January 21: The official start of preseason this year, and time to load in the new schedule. We will open the season on Friday, March 27 at New Orleans, then go to the Trop to face the Grovers, before returning home to start our home slate against the Miami Waves. We will finish the season at home with matchups against Boston and Louisville. Our interleague matchups this season are against the NL Central (Boston, Hartford, and the three New York teams), CL North (St. Louis, Milwaukee, Minnesota, and the two Chicago teams), and the WL Central (San Francisco, Oakland, San Diego, and the two LA teams). That's a lot of big markets! I guess I never outlined the parameters of the schedule in my intro post. It's fairly similar to the current modern MLB schedule (although I made these a while ago - it actually predates MLB adopting their current schedule). We play our four division rivals 14 times apiece, the 10 teams in the AL North and Central 6 times apiece, and a total of 46 interleague games against 15 opponents, comprising one division from each of the other subleagues. There's one interleague team that we'll play 4 times versus 3 for the others, and that's the only difference between our schedule and those of our division opponents. This year, our extra game is against Boston - we'll play them twice, at Fenway in mid-April and down here in the final week of the season, two games each, instead of one three-game set. That's a slightly bad beat, since Boston was the league's best team last year (109-53), but 1 game doesn't make that much a difference. January 21:  The player I've gotten the most inbox messages about this offseason has been former Hartford Oaks closer Ronald Bolaños. He is actually a spectacular closer, but the numbers that these teams were bidding against each other with are pretty staggering. He finally signed today with the Salt Lake Bees, for 4 years and $32.5 million per season.January 22:  Former Anchor, RF Tyler Nevin, signs with Oakland for 3 years, $6 million per season. That's a deal that I definitely could have gone for but we've gone with Acuña instead.
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05-18-2026, 11:49 AM
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#6 |
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All Star Reserve
Join Date: Jul 2013
Location: southwestern Illinois
Posts: 813
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February 2026
I had three international amateurs that I originally set my sights on, but ended up signing none of them. The One That Got Away is Australian outfielder Elijah Watson-Williams - I thought I'd be able to snag him for cheap, but the bidding war got out of hand. In the end, he signed with Buffalo for more than triple what my original offer to him was. In the end, we had $8.26 million available as our spending cap, and we spent it on three players: - corner OF Gabin Imperial (Dominican Republic) - 60 Con/75 Pow/55 Eye/50 Def - $5.04MM - OF Leonardo Aleman (Dominican Republic) - 60 Con/65 Pow/55 Eye/60 Def - $2.8MM - P Oriol Navarro (Panama) - 75 Stu/50 Mov/50 Ctrl/40 Stamina - $420K I'm still pretty happy with this crew - I didn't get a big starting pitcher like I was hoping for, with Navarro probably more of a setup man, but it's still a decent haul. Spring training began on February 20. One of my most-wanted features is an actual featured spring training with Grapefruit and Cactus Leagues - I've got it all planned out. In the in-universe canon, we share spring training facilites with the New York Highlanders at what is, to us, Steinbrenner Field in Tampa. (I'd have to look back to see who the Highlanders' most iconic owner is!) February 20: Naturally, in the second inning of our very first spring training game, against those Highlanders, LF Chris Lubanski injured himself while trying to throw a runner out at the plate. The injury will cost him the rest of spring, and the first few weeks of the season. He was set to be our primary leadoff hitter. February 22: It could be worse, at least. The Suns lost SP Patrick Cooper for the season in the first inning of the very first spring training game. February 24:  One of our foes has taken care of some important business, as Miami and SP Jaime Barria sign a contract extension for 4 years, $27.4 million per year. That's honestly qualifies as a hometown discount. Barria is perhaps the AL's top starting pitcher, and to me clearly Miami's best player.February 28: I wouldn't actually celebrate an injury, but this one does affect our fortunes positively - Tampa has lost CF Michael Harris II for the year, after he somehow suffered a broken kneecap on a routine fly ball.We finished the month of February with a 6-2-1 record in spring games, all six of the wins coming consecutively after failing to win the first three. It feels strange to have pretty much gone through the whole offseason in a few days - I usually like to play very slowly, but I guess I'm amped up to be actually GMing a team instead of running the simulation for the first time in a while. In-season, I'll be posting usually a week at a time |
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05-18-2026, 04:57 PM
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#7 |
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All Star Reserve
Join Date: Jul 2013
Location: southwestern Illinois
Posts: 813
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March 2026
(I originally posted some league news here, then had to revert to March 1 when the game crashed on me in one of the early-season games.) The season starts on March 27 - let's get the rest of the way through spring without anything else going on, then make our roster cuts. Not much happened between then and the end of spring training. We finished play with a record of 16-11-3, that sounds nice. 24-year-old SP Archie Webb, our 7th round pick in 2024 from Virginia, pushed really hard to make the opening day roster. But, he hasn't pitched yet in Triple-A, so with 5 starting pitchers I like, we'll have him start the year with AAA Orlando. The final Offseason Center WAR leaderboard rates us at +6.1 WAR added, fifth highest of any team in the league and highest in the AL. We rank behind only Philadelphia, San Francisco, Chicago Blazers, and Syracuse in that metric. The other teams in our division were #12 Charlotte, #31 Miami, #45 Tampa, and #54 Atlanta. Speaking of which, the preseason predictions like us, projecting us for the second-highest record in the Atlantic League, behind only Nashville and level with Cleveland. The overall predictions are here:  I'd be pretty happy if this were a playoff team - I do think we will finish above .500, but I don't think I was thinking this rosily. I've never noticed this before, but the projected win and loss totals do not properly add up? The teams are projected for a combined record of 4877-4843. Final cuts were a bit stricter than usual - this team had so many unusable outfielders out of options. We had to waive five players: outfielders Alonso Gaitan, Max Kepler, and Sandro Fabian, and relievers Alejandro Requena and Jose Torres. The final composition of the roster is: 2026 Anchors Opening Day roster  Rotation RHP Justin Dunn RHP Cal Quantrill RHP Trey Killian RHP Hunter Greene RHP Chris Huffman Bullpen RHP Nate Pearson - closer RHP Josh Winckowski - 8th inning LHP Marco Ramirez - lefty specialist LHP Michael Gunn LHP Hunter York - long man RHP Tommy Doyle - no special role, but a Rule 5 pick RHP Dannysmel Tavarez - opener on Huffman days RHP Eury Ramos Catchers/Infield C Jim Arada C Bo Naylor 1B Aledmys Diaz 1B Jake Cronenworth (primary DH) 2B/3B Ramon Urias SS Nicky Lopez 3B Coby Mayo IF Sergio Alcantara IF Shay Whitcomb Outfield LF Duke Ellis LF Jean Ramirez CF Tony Kemp RF Ronald Acuña Jr. Injured List #77 LF Chris Lubanski I think that gets us ready for Opening Day! Next time out, we begin the 2026 campaign with visits to New Orleans and Tampa, before returning to Jacksonville to start our home campaign against Miami.
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Modern MLB expansion/rebrand logos and uniforms The Lokasi Elite League - fictional country, pro/rel pyramid Jacksonville Anchors - modern playthrough with 60 teams & 4 subleagues Last edited by Ruwisc; 05-18-2026 at 11:41 PM. |
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05-19-2026, 07:09 PM
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#8 |
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All Star Reserve
Join Date: Jul 2013
Location: southwestern Illinois
Posts: 813
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March 27-April 5, 2026     Aagh, I got all the way to the start of game 9 of this stretch and had a game crash. We were 4-4 at the time, so I won't feel too bad about whatever happens. But, we had also made a nice waiver pickup, so I hope we at least get access to that guy again. If there's a start to the season that is going to test our mettle, it's this. We begin on the road against a returning playoff team, then face off against both of our Floridian rivals, at Tampa and then home for Miami. March 27-29: Jacksonville Anchors (0-0) vs. New Orleans Crescents (0-0) New Orleans won the AL wild card spot last season, and took out the top-seeded Cleveland Lakers before falling to Memphis in the ALCS. This year's team looks a little better, I would think? The preseason predictions didn't agree, placing them fourth in a tough AL Central. Manager: Jared Sandberg (4th year) Typical lineup: CF JaCoby Jones - SS Nico Hoerner - 2B Jonathan Villar LF LaMonte Wade Jr. - C William Contreras - RF Layne Meadows DH Robbie Glendinning - 1B Mike McDade - 3B Edgardo Fermin Before the game crash, I had actually acquired McDade in a trade (though we sent him straight to AAA). Tried to replicate it this time, but the AI New Orleans GM wouldn't go for it for some reason. Game 1 Justin Dunn vs. Chad Kuhl JAX: RF Acuna, 2B Urias, DH Cronenworth, 1B Diaz, SS Lopez, 3B Mayo, CF Kemp, C Arada, LF Ellis NOC: CF Jones, SS Hoerner, 2B Villar, LF Wade, C Contreras, RF Meadows, DH Glendinning, 1B McDade, 3B Fermin Both teams went 1-2-3 in the first, Dunn recording outs in his first inning in an Anchors uniform. Lopez would collect the first hit of our season with one out in the second, but Mayo hit into a double play. Things would not go so well for Dunn in inning 2 - Wade singled, and advanced to second when Kemp let the ball get by him in center field. Not that the error would matter, as Dunn walked the next three batters in succession, scoring the season's first run. The damage was limited from there, as McDade hit into a double play (scoring a run) and Dunn struck out Fermin to keep New Orleans at 2. Hoerner made it 3-0 in the 3rd when he singled, stole second, and scored on Wade's second hit of the day. With Kuhl having faced the minimum through 3, we had the top of the order going in inning 4, and the second time around they found some things. Acuna doubled and was singled home by Urias, and Diaz hit our first home run of the year to tie the game. Dunn walked another two batters in the 4th but no harm done, except to his pitch count - in his Anchors debut, he does not finish the 5th inning despite allowing just the 3 runs. Things quieted down from there, though New Orleans was putting on much more pressure than we were despite the relatively even hit totals. Hunter York came on to pitch for us, and walked two more batters in the 7th inning, and Nate Pearson had to work around a two-on, one-out situation in the 9th. But after all that, we did scrape it to extra innings. In the 10th, with Kemp the zombie runner at 2nd base, Bo Naylor came up to pinch hit for Arada and had a leadoff, RBI double, which set the tone for the extra frame. Two more RBI knocks would follow, Acuna scoring Naylor and Diaz scoring Acuna. Pearson, on for his second inning of work, got the first two batters to K and induced a flyout from Fermin to end the night. 000 300 000 3 . 6 8 1 021 000 000 0 . 3 7 0W: Nate Pearson (1-0) L: Geremy Galindez (0-1) PotG: LaMonte Wade Jr. - 3-3, 2B, 2 BB, RBI, R Good job by the pitching staff to bend but not break. The Crescents left 13 men on base tonight to our 6. Game 2 Cal Quantrill vs. David Price JAX: RF Acuna, 2B Urias, DH Cronenworth, 1B Diaz, SS Lopez, 3B Mayo, CF Kemp, C Arada, LF Ellis NOC: CF Jones, SS Hoerner, 2B Villar, LF Wade, C Contreras, RF Meadows, DH Glendinning, 1B McDade, 3B Fermin Same lineups for both sides in Game 2. We got off to a hotter start, as Urias singled & after a fielder's choice, Diaz doubled home Cronenworth to score an early run. McDade countered with an RBI hit with two out in the 2nd inning, however, and RBIs from Jones (solo HR) and Wade (double) made it 3-1 in the third. The pitching staff as a whole did not really have it today, letting New Orleans score in six consecutive innings. Quantrill exited in the 5th, picking up 6 runs, 5 earned, but the error was also made by him. We battled back valiantly in the middle innings, getting as close as 6-5 - Urias homered in the 5th, and three successive RBI singles by Arada, Ellis, and Acuna in the 6th made it interesting. Tommy Doyle's Anchors debut didn't go as planned either, as he allowed a pair of runs in the 6th inning, and Michael Gunn allowed one as well. Each team got another run in garbage time. 100 013 010 .. 6 11 1 012 123 10x . 10 14 0W: David Price (1-0) L: Cal Quantrill (0-1) PotG: LaMonte Wade Jr. - 2-5, 2B, HR(1), 3 RBI Let's flush today and try to win the series on Sunday. Game 3 Trey Killian vs. Julio Robaina JAX: RF Acuna, SS Lopez, 2B Urias, 1B Diaz, DH Cronenworth, 3B Mayo, CF Kemp, C Arada, LF Ellis NOC: CF Jones, SS Hoerner, 2B Villar, LF Wade, C Contreras, RF Meadows, DH Glendinning, 1B McDade, 3B Fermin Only a slightly different lineup today against the lefty Robaina. Killian stranded three runners in the first two innings, and then ran into real trouble in the 3rd. After a walk and single put runners on first and second with two out, Trey walked LaMonte Wade on four pitches to load em up, and then plunked Contreras to bring home a run. Meadows followed with a two-run single and it was 3-0. We had almost nothing against Robaina today. Acuna got our first hit, a 3rd-inning single, and he did walk Diaz and hit Cronenworth with a pitch, but entering the 7th inning we had just the one hit. Diaz got into one leading off the 7th, his second home run of the series, and Cronenworth followed with a hit but was left stranded. Killian exited at that point, meeting just the bare minimum definition for a quality start and letting Gunn take over. Robaina was done after the 7th inning, but we couldn't crack the bullpen either. Two walks against Galindez in the 9th brought the go-ahead run to the plate, but he got Mayo to fly to right to win the series for New Orleans. 000 000 100 . 1 3 0 003 000 00x . 3 6 0W: Julio Robaina (1-0) L: Trey Killian (0-1) S: Geremy Galindez (1) PotG: Julio Robaina - 7 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 4 K, 1 BB What's worse, I was not able to successfully claim CF Guillermo Heredia off waivers this time - he was waived by Oakland, but Toronto got him first. March 30-April 1: Jacksonville Anchors (1-2) vs. Tampa Grovers (3-0) Tampa swept their opening series vs. Charlotte, winning three close games at the Trop. They're the only team in our division that won their opening series, which I suppose is pretty much how last year went too. Manager: Travis Quesada (9th year) Typical lineup: 2B Luis Rengifo - RF Jarren Duran - C Adley Rutschman SS Trevor Story - 3B Brayan Rocchio - 1B Joe Panik LF Julio Morban - DH Steven Kwan - CF Gerardo Parra Game 1 Hunter Greene vs. Shane Dawson JAX: RF Acuna, SS Lopez, 2B Urias, 1B Diaz, DH Cronenworth, 3B Mayo, CF Kemp, C Arada, LF Ellis TAM: 2B Rengifo, RF Duran, C Rutschman, SS Story, 3B Rocchio, 1B Panik, LF Morban, DH Kwan, CF Parra Same lefty lineup as yesterday vs. Dawson. An auspicious beginning for Greene, allowing Rengifo to hit a leadoff homer - would that foreshadow a poor outing? Yes, kinda. Another solo homer was hit by Gerardo Parra in the third, and another-another from Panik in the 4th, with Kwan adding an RBI double after Morban singled. We had at least one hit in each of the first four innings, and had three hits in the 5th but managed not to score anyway, when Acuna was thrown out at the plate by Parra. Greene finally met his maker in the fifth inning with two more runs crossing the plate on a double by Panik that made it 6-0. It was only then that we actually got a little bit off Dawson, when Cronenworth hit his first homer of the year leading off the sixth. That was the last real action of the game - we managed just one baserunner the last three innings, with Joe Wieland one out short of picking up a sterling three-inning save. 000 001 000 . 1 11 1 101 220 00x . 6 .7 0W: Shane Dawson (1-0) L: Hunter Greene (0-1) PotG: Joe Panik - 2-3, 2B, HR(1), 3 RBI Game 2 Chris Huffman vs. Daniel Gossett JAX: RF Acuna, 2B Urias, DH Cronenworth, 1B Diaz, SS Lopez, 3B Mayo, CF Kemp, C Arada, LF Ellis TAM: 2B Rengifo, CF Duran, C Rutschman, SS Story, 3B Rocchio, 1B Panik, LF Morban, RF Hernandez, DH Kwan Huffman will normally have Dannysmel Tavarez serve as his opener, but Tavarez pitched 2.2 innings last night so Chris is flying the plane. This time it was Acuna that hit the leadoff home run, his first in an Anchors uniform. Cronenworth followed him around the bases as well with his second, giving Huff an easy 2-run lead. For Chris' part, he worked around lone hits in each of the first three innings. A first-and-third, no-out situation for us in the 4th fizzled quickly when Lopez hit into a double play, but that at least allowed Cronenworth to score for the second time in the game. Good timing too, as the Grovers used a walk, two hits, and an RBI groundout to get a pair and pull within 1 run. A quick two-out rally garnered us an insurance run in the 5th, when Ellis doubled and Acuna smacked a liner into right to score him, and Lopez found another run when he homered with two out in the sixth inning, his first of the season. Tampa got one back in their half, though it could have been worse - a quick throw from Urias playing in was enough to nab Rutschman trying to score. In the 7th, we got our exclamation point. Acuna got hold of a pitch from Tampa's Dylan File and served it out to left-center for his second home run of the night, a two-run shot, and though Tampa would threaten in the 7th, and bring the tying run to the plate in the 9th inning with the bases loaded, Pearson eventually came in and got Rutschman to fly out and end the game. 200 111 200 . 7 11 0 000 201 000 . 3 10 1W: Chris Huffman (1-0) L: Daniel Gossett (0-1) S: Nate Pearson (1) PotG: Ronald Acuna Jr. - 3-5, 2 HR(2), 4 RBI We finally deal Tampa their first loss - they had been 4-0. There's already only one unbeaten team left, the defending champs in Austin, who are 4-0 with the benefit of an off day. Acuna was the #3 star of the night, behind equally good performances by Jazz Chisholm Jr. and  Bryce Harper.Game 3 Justin Dunn (0-0, 5.79) vs. Jonathan Pettibone (0-0, 0.00) JAX: RF Acuna, 2B Urias, DH Cronenworth, 1B Diaz, SS Lopez, 3B Mayo, CF Kemp, C Arada, LF Ramirez TAM: 2B Rengifo, RF Duran, SS Story, 1B Panik, 3B Rocchio, DH Kwan, LF Hernandez, CF Parra, C Okey The Tampa lineup does look noticeably thinner when Rutschman sits, though I'm posting this before the game so who knows what they'll do to Dunn. Josue Figueroa will actually toe the rubber first for Tampa, as Pettibone's opener. Neither team had a baserunner until Lopez reached on an error by his counterpart Rengifo, and that forced Figueroa out and Pettibone in. I'm leaving my insult from above in, because naturally the first run came when backup catcher Chris Okey snuck a ball inside the left foul pole to give Tampa a 1-0 lead in their third. From there things opened up a bit. A 2-run double by Rocchio extended the lead, and he went to third on the throw home allowing another run on Kwan's sac fly. We were up to the task of undoing that inning, at least - Urias hit a sac fly in the 5th with one out, and Cronenworth hit Pettibone's next pitch for a long homer, his 3rd, and we were back within a run at least. From the bottom of the 5th to bottom of the 7th, there was a total of 1 baserunner, and he was caught stealing (Panik, thrown out by Arada). So we entered the final innings trailing 4-3. With Pettibone still going in the 8th, the beneficiary of the opener break, Cronenworth stroked a one out single into short left. Diaz drew a 5-pitch walk, and suddenly, there was a whole rally going. Lopez's ground ball juuust found its way through the middle, and all runners advanced when Parra's throw was too late to get Crone, tie game! Pitching change now, and Antonio Santos provided more of the same (good for us). Mayo hit one into the gap, scoring Diaz, and it took a great defensive play by Teoscar Hernandez (those words appearing in the same order for the first time ever) to get Lopez at the plate. Not to be outdone, Kemp hit one down the line that scored Mayo, and we had turned our deficit into a two-run lead. Good thing too, as Doyle allowed Duran to hit a solo homer in the 8th inning. That was it though: Pearson did walk a pinch-hitting Rutschman, but allowed him to go no further in the 9th. 000 030 030 . 6 10 0 001 300 010 . 5 .5 1W: Eury Ramos (1-0) L: Jonathan Pettibone (0-1) S: Nate Pearson (2) PotG: Jake Cronenworth - 2-4, HR(3), 2 RBI, 2 R Great series win in my book. That caps a .500 road trip as we head back to Jacksonville for the home opener! On Monday, the draft pool was revealed. We're picking #2 thanks to the lottery balls, so I spent some time scrutinizing the top guys. The #1-ranked player by OSA is last year's #2 pick, OF Wilfredo Ledesma from Puerto Rico, who failed to sign with Hartford. The official mock draft has us taking St. John's lefty starter Louie Hernandez, which looks like a good pick - I'll have to look closer but I'd be happy taking him. April 2-5: Miami Waves (3-3) vs. Jacksonville Anchors (3-3) The Waves have a similar pattern to us thus far, losing their first series vs. Columbus but then taking two of three from Atlanta. Despite being .500, they have a -11 run differential so far - their week has included three close wins and two blowout losses. Manager: Christopher Blackwood (2nd year) Typical lineup: RF Alexander Palma - CF Jake Marisnick - LF Tyler O'Neill 3B Armando Alvarez - C Reed Webster - 2B Starlin Castro 1B Carlos Asuaje - DH Jhonny Pereda - SS Thad Hinman Game 1 George Kirby (0-1, 13.50) vs. Cal Quantrill (0-1, 10.38) MIA: RF Palma, CF Marisnick, LF O'Neill, 3B Alvarez, C Webster, 2B Castro, 1B Asuaje, DH Pereda, SS Hinman JAX: RF Acuna, 2B Urias, DH Cronenworth, 1B Diaz, SS Lopez, 3B Mayo, CF Kemp, LF Ellis, C Naylor No baserunners until the bottom of the 2nd, when Kirby walked Diaz on four pitches. Lopez walked too, and Mayo hit a ball toward Hinman that was booted. When Kemp grounded into a double play, we had scored our first run without a hit. We could score them with hits too, as Ellis showed with a single that made it 2-0. Quantrill was rolling nicely compared to in New Orleans, not allowing a hit until the 5th inning and not letting Mayo's error damage him. By the bottom of the 6th, we still just had one hit (Ellis) despite leading 2-0. But we got a pair of two-run homers in that frame, Cronenworth's 4th and Mayo's 1st, to break it open. That seemed to resign everyone to the result - Cal finished off a strong outing by pitching into the eighth, and in the end he and Hunter York combined on a three-hitter. Great way to start the home campaign! 000 000 000 . 0 3 1 020 004 00x . 6 4 1W: Cal Quantrill (1-1) L: George Kirby (0-2) PotG: Cal Quantrill - 7.1 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 7 K, 1 BB On Friday, we activated OF Chris Lubanski from the IL, and optioned OF Jean Ramirez to AAA Orlando. Game 2 Bobby Brunt (1-0, 0.00) vs. Trey Killian (0-1, 4.50) MIA: RF Palma, SS Castro, LF O'Neill, 2B Gelof, C Webster, DH Pereda, 1B Asuaje, CF Williams, 3B Hinman JAX: RF Acuna, 2B Urias, DH Cronenworth, 1B Diaz, SS Lopez, 3B Mayo, CF Kemp, C Arada, LF Ellis We got off to another good start, taking an early lead on an RBI double from Cronenworth. Gelof injured himself legging out his infield hit to start the second, requiring Hinman and Castro to slide over on the infield to accomodate 3B Armando Alvarez, who was supposed to have the day off. Alvarez would come around to score, along with Webster, on a two-run hit by Jett Williams that gave Miami the lead, and Hinman extends it with a sac fly. After a few slow innings, we would tie the game in the 5th on RBIs from Urias and Cronenworth. We would have scored one more if not for Urias getting himself thrown out while trying to advance to second on his own hit. Killian's pitch count got up fast, and he would only go 5 1/3, but not a bad 5 1/3. It would take us five relievers to get through the ninth inning, which was especially bad news because this game went to extra innings. Pearson got a couple of key strikeouts in the 10th to avoid scoring the zombie runner, but we couldn't capitalize, leaving the bases loaded; York got them in order 1-2-3, but Miami's pitchers did the same after walking Lubanski intentionally in his season debut; in the 12th inning, it was an intentional walk in either direction but no more. We started with the same strategy in the 13th, but finally got burned for it. Walking O'Neill brought up Alvarez, who doubled, and Pereda would drive both of them in to put up a 3-spot. We finally managed to score one of our own automatic runners in our 13th, but with runners on first and second, Chambuco retired both Naylor and Ellis to ice the game. 030 000 000 000 3 . 6 .9 0 100 020 000 000 1 . 4 13 0W: Davis Sharpe (1-0) L: Hunter York (0-1) S: Jose Chambuco (3) PotG: Trey Killian - 5.1 IP, 5 H, 3 R, 6 K, 2 BB Game 3 Vance Worley (0-0, 0.00) vs. Hunter Greene (0-1, 7.71) MIA: CF Marisnick, 2B Gelof, C Webster, DH Pereda, 1B Asuaje, RF DeLuca, LF Kim, SS Williams, 3B Hinman JAX: LF Lubanski, 1B Diaz, RF Acuna, DH Cronenworth, 3B Mayo, CF Ellis, 2B Whitcomb, SS Alcantara, C Arada Greene had a tough first game, and looked shaky in the first, but after leaving runners on the corners in the first he seemed to settle in. Our order set the tone by hitting back-to-back home runs for the first time this year, coming from Diaz and Acuna. Starting with the last batter of the first, Greene would retire 11 straight Waves, and didn't allow another hit until the 6th. Shay Whitcomb recorded his first RBI of the season in the 5th inning, driving Mayo around, and Acuna extended the lead further with his second home run of the game and 4th so far this season in the 7th. Eury Ramos allowed three Waves to reach in the 9th, breaking the shutout, but at least we didn't have to use Winckowski or Pearson today. 000 000 001 . 1 .5 3 200 010 10x . 4 15 0W: Hunter Greene (1-1) L: Vance Worley (0-1) PotG: Hunter Greene - 6.1 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 9 K, 2 BB Acuna had three extra base hits in the game, so it's a confounding choice for PotG despite Greene's 9 K. Game 4 Grayson Rodriguez (0-1, 8.44) vs. Chris Huffman (1-0, 4.26) MIA: RF Palma, CF Marisnick, LF O'Neill, 3B Alvarez, DH Gelof, 2B Castro, C Pereda, 1B Kim, SS Hinman JAX: LF Lubanski, 2B Urias, SS Lopez, 1B Diaz, DH Cronenworth, CF Kemp, RF Ellis, 3B Alcantara, C Naylor This game was weird early. O'Neill's 2-run homer gave Miami an early lead off of the opener Tavarez, while Diaz countered with one of his own for Jacksonville. Duke Ellis hit his first homer of the year in the second inning, while O'Neill went yard again, this time off Huffman and a 3-run shot, to give the Waves the lead back. When O'Neill came up again in the 4th, he didn't homer, but he almost did, hitting an RBI double deep off the wall in right center. But we came right back - Sergio Alcantara picked up his first two RBI of the year with a bases-loaded double, and then Kemp scored on a wild pitch to tie the game at 6. Unfortunately, the Waves took the lead right back on a Gelof home run in the 5th, and trying to outdo O'Neill, Gelof cracked another one in the 6th off of Tommy Doyle, this time a 3-run shot. Urias had a two-run single in the next half inning to halve the lead, but Tyler O'Neill came up one more time and beat out an infield hit to post his 4th RBI knock of the game. One more run scored on a wild pitch, and we didn't muster much after that. 203 113 200 . 12 14 0 210 302 000 . .8 .7 0W: Davis Sharpe (2-0) L: Chris Huffman (1-1) PotG: Tyler O'Neill - 4-6, 2B, 2 HR(3), 7 RBI So, Miami earns a split, and we finish this first week-plus of games on a split as well, 5-5. Elsewhere: March 28: Already out for the season with Tommy John surgery, Miami SP Alex Krumroy suffers a setback that will cost him the first half of the 2027 season as well. Krumroy is a fictional player, Miami's 1st-round pick in 2024 (the first year that I added fictional players).March 29:  Pines ace Suk-min Schmidt (which, what a name for a fictional player) is done for the year. He exited Minnesota's opening day loss to Dallas with a shoulder injury, which turned out to be a torn rotator cuff.March 29:  SP Greg Smith, who in our world won a total of 8 games between the 2008 A's and 2010 Rockies, picked up his 250th win in this afternoon's 3-0 win for the Javelinas at Citi Field against the Burros. Smith honestly is probably headed for the Hall of Fame. He is one of the most dependable pitchers of all time, making over 30 starts in every season of his career, which dates back to 2006!March 29:  Another milestone on this Sunday afternoon, as Joey Gallo hit his 400th career home run in an 11-1 loss to the Silver Sox.March 29: One more - Chris Davis picked up his 2,500th career hit in a win over Dallas, a 2-run single in the 5th inning as part of a 4-RBI day.April 1:  Cherries 2B Yoan Moncada brought his hit streak to 25 games dating back to last season. This is already longer than any streak that was ended in 2025 - Fernando Tatis Jr. of the Scorpions got a 29-gamer in late 2024. The all-time record in this alt-history, for what it's worth, is the 49-game hit streak of Hall-of-Fame Washington Grays 1B Mickey Vernon in 1944, the year he won his first batting title. Moncada's streak would be snapped on Friday at 26 games, however.April 2: Acorns 3B Jake Lamb hit his 400th career home run in a 7-6 loss to the Chicago Blazers. April 3:  Centurions SS Ha-Seong Kim hit for the cycle in dramatic fashion in Cincinnati's 6-4 win over Pittsburgh. He drove in 5 of the 6 runs, finishing his cycle with a bases-clearing double in the 8th inning that gave the Cents the lead.April 3: The day after his team allowed Lamb's 400th homer, Blazers LF Alex Gordon hits his 400th home run in a loss to the LA Sabers.----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- AL Standings:  Anchors' player of the week(s): Ronald Acuna Jr. - 16-42, 3 2B, 4 HR, 9 RBI, 1.133 OPS. Players of the week: NL:  Trea Turner - 11-24, 2 HR, 3 RBIAL: Devon Travis - 13-26, 5 HR, 13 RBI, 9 RCL: Randy Arozarena - 10-19, 4 HR, 11 RBI, 6 RWL:  Julio Rodriguez - 12-28, 2 HR, 3 2B, 9 RBI, 8 RPower rankings: 32nd of 60. Makes sense with a perfectly .500 record. Next week: after our first off day of the season, we welcome a return visit from the New Orleans Crescents, then have our first interleague trip of the season as we head to Milwaukee. |
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05-20-2026, 03:05 PM
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All Star Reserve
Join Date: Jul 2013
Location: southwestern Illinois
Posts: 813
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April 6-12, 2026  One thing I forgot to mention last week: on Tuesday, we traded OF Max Kepler to New Orleans for IF Edgardo Fermin, who had started all three games of the opening series. Here are the Crescents again, with a familiar face: April 7-9: New Orleans Crescents (4-5) vs. Jacksonville Anchors (5-5) This is already our final matchup with New Orleans. After beating us two of three at their place, they lost their two intervening series, at home to Charlotte and at Detroit. After they play us for the second and final time, they'll go home and do the same with Detroit. (We won't see Shohei Ohtani's Spark Plugs until just before the All-Star break.) Manager: Jared Sandberg (4th year) Typical lineup: CF Robert Gonzalez - SS Nico Hoerner - 2B Jonathan Villar LF LaMonte Wade Jr. - C William Contreras - RF Layne Meadows 3B Robbie Glendinning - 1B Mike McDade - DH Max Kepler Game 1 Chad Kuhl (0-1, 1.98) vs. Justin Dunn (0-0, 6.30) NOC: LF Gonzalez, SS Hoerner, 2B Villar, DH Wade, C Contreras, RF Meadows, 3B Glendinning, CF Jones, 1B Mann JAX: LF Lubanski, 2B Urias, SS Lopez, 1B Diaz, DH Cronenworth, RF Acuna, CF Kemp, 3B Mayo, C Arada Same pitching matchup as on opening day in New Orleans, but this time with us in our pinstripes and the Crescents in their beautiful cornflower blues. The two #7 hitters, Glendinning and Kemp, traded solo shots in the 2nd inning. Otherwise, the early story was missed opportunities - Dunn walked four batters in the first three innings, while Kuhl was scattering Anchor hits. Devin Mann, making his first start of the year, hit a double off the wall over Kemp's head to score Meadows and break the tie, as Kuhl worked around two hits by Cronenworth in the middle innings, and was helped a bit by eager Anchor bats giving him a 4-pitch seventh inning. Dunn gave up one more solo homer, to William Contreras, in the 6th, and faced two more batters but that was it for him. 5 1/3 innings, 3 runs, and leaving in line for an L. Not worse than his first two starts, mind, but not a great start. Contreras added a sac fly later on, and Villar hit his first homer against Doyle in the 9th. Mayo had a sac fly in the 9th, but all that did was give Geremy Galindez credit for a save. 010 101 101 . 5 8 1 010 000 001 . 2 8 0W: Chad Kuhl (1-1) L: Justin Dunn (0-1) S: Geremy Galindez (3) PotG: Robbie Glendinning - 3-3, HR(1), BB I needed a second trade to properly get rid of Kepler, since the former Crescent Fermin would not accept an assignment to the minors either. So we've made another trade with a team we played recently, sending Fermin to Miami for LHP Jakob Hernandez. Hernandez pitched an inning against us in our 4-1 win last Saturday, and his most useful asset is his greater than zero option years. Between the two deals, we also saved about $5 million. Game 2 Christian James (1-0, 0.00) vs. Cal Quantrill (1-1, 3.86) NOC: CF Gonzalez, SS Hoerner, 2B Villar, LF Wade, C Contreras, RF Meadows, 3B Glendinning, 1B McDade, DH Kepler JAX: LF Lubanski, 2B Urias, SS Lopez, 1B Diaz, DH Cronenworth, RF Acuna, CF Kemp, 3B Mayo, C Arada We didn't see James last time out - this is just his second start. The game properly began when Cronenworth hit the first pitch of the second inning for a home run, and then Acuna followed him by hitting one out to the batter's eye. Back to back bombs, and the 5th of the season for both of them. Diaz added a 2-run double in the 3rd, went to third base on the throw, and scored on Crone's groundout to make it 5-0. Quantrill showed cracks in the 4th inning, allowing two hits which enabled Villar to scamper home on a wild pitch. While we added on a run on a Lopez double, New Orleans tallied 4 hits in the 6th inning, which would be Quantrill's last, and scored 3 runs on them. Suddenly, it was a fairly close game. But, the bullpen shut it down. The combination of Marco Ramirez, Eury Ramos, and Nate Pearson threw three perfect innings to close down a Jacksonville win. 000 103 000 . 4 .7 0 023 010 01x . 7 11 0W: Cal Quantrill (2-1) L: Christian James (1-1) S: Nate Pearson (3) PotG: Jake Cronenworth - 2-4, HR(5), 3 RBI Game 3 David Price (1-0, 4.09) vs. Trey Killian (0-1, 4.76) NOC: CF Jones, SS Hoerner, 2B Villar, LF Wade, C Contreras, RF Meadows, 3B Glendinning, 1B McDade, DH Kepler JAX: LF Lubanski, 2B Urias, SS Lopez, 1B Diaz, DH Cronenworth, RF Acuna, CF Kemp, 3B Mayo, C Arada (whoops, I accidentally originally cut this report short somehow.) Important for Trey to be efficient in this game to try to keep his pitch count at a reasonable rate, and he did that to start, working around hits by Contreras and Gonzalez early on. The scoring began the second time through the order, as Lubanski went deep for his first of the year! New Orleans hit right back with an RBI groundout from Contreras, but Diaz then pushed on over the wall to extend the cushion. The Crescents came back to tie us a few times, in fact. I remember the first baseball video games I had as a kid was one of EA's Triple Play series, I think 2001, for our family's Windows XP computer. At some point, I messed with the settings & cheat codes in just the wrong way that the game had an extreme "rubberbanding" effect in my games; any time my team went ahead, the opponent would lead off the next inning with exactly as many solo home runs as they needed to tie the game, then go back to normal difficulty once it was tied. Maybe I was a bad pitcher as a preteen nerd... Anyway, after Lubanski extended the lead with a sac fly to 3-1, the Crescents immediately responded with a two-run shot from Layne Meadows; when Acuna drove Lopez around with a hit to go up 4-3, New Orleans got a walk and a double to tie it back up off of Winckowski. (Killian was pretty efficient in the game after all; his 7 innings in 93 pitches, not too bad.) We had two hits in the 8th and one in the 9th, but not enough to avoid extra innings. With Kepler the automatic runner for New Orleans, JaCoby Jones executed a sac bunt, but in Pearson's second inning of work he got out of it with a K and a ground ball. Nothing doing in our half of the inning, though, with Urias stranded at third as well. Pearson went out for a 3rd inning, but after getting two out (and an intentional walk) he was starting to get gassed. York came in and finished the 11th. It was his win, then, when Alcantara pinch-hit for Whitcomb (who had pinch-run for Arada) and drove a ball up the middle to score Acuna and walk it off. 000 102 010 00 . 4 .7 0 001 111 000 01 . 5 11 0W: Hunter York (1-1) L: Charlie Furbush (0-1) PotG: Trey Killian - 7 IP, 6 H, 3 R, 10 K, 1 BB WIth that, we earn a split of the season series against the Crescents - that works for me. I'm trying to remind myself that this team did only win 68 games last season. Now let's head back out on the road - time for some interleague action. This'll be a short trip, just 5 games as we go to Milwaukee first, then Boston. April 10-12: Jacksonville Anchors (7-6) vs. Milwaukee Coopers (6-6) Being a Central League team, we only play Milwaukee once every three years, so let's drink in the sights and sounds. The reverse of Miami last week, the Coopers are a .500 team so far, but with a +19 run differential in 12 games. They are returning home for just their second home series of the season, having just wrapped a three-series road trip through Texas (Austin, Dallas, El Paso). Manager: Edison Payro (2nd year) Typical lineup: CF Ji-hwan Bae - DH Lourdes Gurriel Jr. - 3B Alec Bohm SS Ezequiel Tovar - LF Nails Ragland - 1B Dash Winningham RF Ruben Cardenas - C Jesus Montero - 2B Orlando Arcia Game 1 Hunter Greene (1-1, 3.27) vs. Newman Micele (0-0, 9.00) JAX: LF Lubanski, 2B Urias, SS Lopez, 1B Diaz, DH Cronenworth, RF Acuna, CF Kemp, 3B Mayo, C Arada MIL: CF Bae, DH Gurriel, 3B Bohm, SS Tovar, RF Cardenas, 1B Winningham, LF Duong, C Montero, 2B Arcia Micele is fictional, Milwaukee's 2nd round pick in 2024 who has been really rushed to the majors in my opinion. He made his major league debut last Saturday in Dallas, in a wild game that Milwaukee ended up winning 14-11. We had four singles off of him in the 1st inning, culminating in a two-out, two-run hit for Acuna. But when Milwaukee's 6th-place hitter came up with two out, he did Ronald one better - with one run already in Winningham smashed a 3-run homer, right out to about where that truck used to sit in right-center in Milwaukee. Urias got one back in our second, driving Mayo around after he'd reached on an error by Bohm, but the Coopers again doubled our output, Gurriel hitting his 4th homer with Montero on to make it 6-3. Needing 69 pitches to finish two innings, our manager Agado gave Greene the hook after that and let Hunter York go for a stretch. It was 6-3 for quite a while. We weren't helped by Micele's ability to get us to ground into double plays - that happened in the 3rd and in the 5th. York stabilized for Jacksonville as well - even though there were five hits and an error over his three innings, he didn't allow any runs. Arada, for his part, reached on an error to start the 7th against reliever Rosmel Purroy. Two outs later, Lopez singled and Diaz homered, tying the game at 6 and tying him for the early AL lead in home runs, also at 6. We didn't threaten much in the 8th or 9th. With Pearson having thrown 2 2/3 innings yesterday, Eury Ramos was tabbed for the 9th in a tie game, and it didn't go well. With one on, one out, Gurriel smashed his second home run of the night to walk it off. 210 000 300 . 6 12 1 420 000 002 . 8 14 2W: Horacio Andujar (1-0) L: Eury Ramos (1-1) PotG: Lourdes Gurriel Jr. - 4-5, 2 HR(5), 4 RBI, 3 R Bullpen was good, despite Ramos giving up the walkoff. Greene seems to be prone to these blowup starts - in the crash version of week 1, he gave up 9 runs in 2+ innings to Miami. Can I put "consistency" in the dev lab? Game 2 Chris Huffman (1-1, 6.97) vs. Jeff Prado (0-1, 7.20) JAX: LF Lubanski, 2B Urias, SS Lopez, 1B Diaz, DH Cronenworth, RF Acuna, CF Kemp, 3B Mayo, C Arada MIL: CF Bae, DH Gurriel, 3B Bohm, SS Tovar, LF Ragland, 1B Winningham, RF Cardenas, C Montero, 2B Arcia One thing of note - it's quite cold this time of year in Milwaukee. Game time temps are below 50 for all three games this weekend. I've never looked into this with OOTP - does temperature actually affect the game? We might expect to see low offensive outputs this early in the season, and heating up in August and beyond. Dannysmel Tavarez started as the opener again, and despite allowing two hits and a stolen base, he got through two clean innings, thanks in part to one double play and the second inning ending on a deep fly ball that Cardenas just barely didn't get enough of. In between those two innings, we had taken the lead on a Cronenworth homer, and when his spot came around again in the next inning he put a two-run double over Ragland's head in left. Huffman came in to begin his outing in the 3rd inning and promptly allowed a homer to the #9 hitter Arcia, and Milwaukee briefly tied the game in the 4th on a pair of RBI singles from Winningham and Montero. Prado could just not stop Jake Cronenworth, though! Crone had his third extra-base hit of the afternoon in the 5th, driving Diaz home from first with a double off the centerfield wall, and Acuna finally provided an RBI from the rest of the lineup by getting Cronenworth around. The Coopers got back within one on a sac fly from Winningham that scored Tovar, but against Rafael De Paula in the 7th the order went walk, single, wild pitch to score Cronenworth, then two more singles, Mayo driving in Acuna for a 3-run lead. That's where we would eventually end up. Arcia hit a second solo homer in the 7th inning, which ended Huffman's night after 4 1/3 innings, and Cronenworth would add a fourth RBI hit in the 8th, this time a single which scored Urias. Pearson closed it down to get one of the less stressful saves he'll have this year. 012 020 210 . 8 16 0 001 201 100 . 5 .9 1W: Chris Huffman (2-1) L: Jeff Prado (0-2) S: Nate Pearson (4) PotG: Jake Cronenworth - 4-4, 2 2B, HR(6), 5 RBI, 3 R, BB Our linescore by inning was pleasingly palindromic. You don't see that too often with that few zeroes. Cronenworth was the #1 star of the day on a busy Saturday, even surpassing the game score of Brooklyn's Khalil Lee, who had 3 HR against Hartford. Game 3 Justin Dunn (0-1, 5.87) vs. Micah Szymanski (1-1, 4.96) JAX: LF Lubanski, 2B Urias, SS Lopez, 1B Diaz, DH Cronenworth, RF Acuna, CF Kemp, 3B Mayo, C Naylor MIL: CF Bae, DH Gurriel, 3B Bohm, SS Tovar, LF Ragland, 1B Winningham, RF Cardenas, C Montero, 2B Arcia Both pitchers started quickly, getting through two innings facing the minimum with the help of a double play on both sides. The start of the offensive day came off the bat of Coby Mayo, hitting his second homer of the young season, and we doubled that lead in the 4th on an RBI groundout from Diaz. Dunn never got all that comfortable, allowing hits in six of his eight innings, but hey he pitched into the 8th. He was fairly efficient in doing so, and the only guy who got too far was when Ruben Cardenas homered in the 5th inning. Szymanski would go even further despite trailing - he pitched into the 9th inning, only needing 93 pitches to get 8 1/3 innings down and leaving with only a man on first. Too bad for him that reliever Sam Bragg would allow that runner to come around and then some. Nicky Lopez beat out a would-be inning-ending double play, giving Aledmys Diaz the turn he needed to smack his 300th major league home run to make the scoreline insurmountable. With no more save situation, Tommy Doyle counted it up 1-2-3. 001 100 003 . 5 7 0 000 010 000 . 1 7 0W: Justin Dunn (1-1) L: Micah Szymanski (1-2) PotG: Justin Dunn - 7.2 IP, 7 H, 1 R, 8 K, 0 BB Nice pair of series wins this week. Elsewhere: April 7: Cody Bellinger, the reigning Central League MVP, is likely done for the 2026 season with a broken kneecap. If he is able to return, it would only be if the Blazers could make a run to the playoffs without him - not likely.April 10: On Friday, two of our minor league pitchers threw complete-game shutouts. At high-A Gainesville in the Florida State League, Riley Kinser blanked Ocala 3-0, and at A Lafayette in the Texas League, Carlos Concha threw a one-hitter against Huntsville.April 12: On the same day as Diaz, Waves LF Tyler O'Neill hit his 300th home run as well, which tied the game in the 9th inning ahead of Zack Gelof's walkoff as they beat Nashville 4-3.----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- AL Standings:  Anchors' player of the week: DH Jake Cronenworth - 11-24, 3 2B, 2 HR, 8 RBI. Players of the week: NL: RF Nomar Mazara - 11-25, 6 HR, 13 RBI, 9 RAL: RF Ronald Rightnowar - 9-17, 2 2B, 3 HR, 7 RBICL: C Austin Hedges - 6-14, 2 2B, 4 HR, 10 RBIWL: 2B Gunnar Henderson - 14-21, 4 HR, 7 RBIHedges didn't start any of the games in our series, and only pinch hit twice, which is weird considering he had 4 home runs in their El Paso series. Power rankings: 21st of 60. Next week: it's a sparser week - we have two days off surrounding our two-game trip to Boston, then return home to face Columbus to start a stretch of 20 games in 20 days.
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Modern MLB expansion/rebrand logos and uniforms The Lokasi Elite League - fictional country, pro/rel pyramid Jacksonville Anchors - modern playthrough with 60 teams & 4 subleagues Last edited by Ruwisc; 05-20-2026 at 05:04 PM. |
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05-21-2026, 05:56 PM
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#10 |
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All Star Reserve
Join Date: Jul 2013
Location: southwestern Illinois
Posts: 813
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April 13-19, 2026   On Monday, we finalized a contract extension with DH Jake Cronenworth, for 2 years, $9.4 million per year. I was surprised to see him only wanting two years, so we just went for it. April 14-15: Jacksonville Anchors (9-7) vs. Boston Minutemen (6-9) It's been a very frustrating start for the Minutemen, who have lost 5 of 6, including a sweep at the hands of their archrivals, the Highlanders, at Hilltop Park. They're on the tail end of a quick 5-game homestand at Fenway, having just hosted Montreal. Manager: Vince Lachance (4th year) Typical lineup: RF Ian Happ - SS Wenceel Perez - LF Alek Thomas CF Daulton Varsho - DH Matt Wieters - 2B Javier Baez 1B David Thompson - 3B Joey Orio - C Alex Isola Miguel Rojas is expected to return from injury in time for Wednesday's game, while Travis Shaw will miss the series for Boston. Game 1 Cal Quantrill (2-1, 4.58) vs. Nolan Stensgaard (2-1, 2.82) JAX: LF Lubanski, 2B Urias, SS Lopez, 1B Diaz, DH Cronenworth, RF Acuna, CF Kemp, 3B Mayo, C Arada BOS: RF Happ, SS Perez, LF Thomas, CF Varsho, DH Wieters, 2B Baez, 1B Thompson, 3B Orio, C Isola Stensgaard is possibly already the best pitcher in the league just 36 starts into his big league career. Given that Paul Skenes didn't amount to much in this timeline, I have thought about renaming Stensgaard to give Skenes a presence in the league. That's how I think of him, anyway. He is fictional, and was just the #35 pick in the 2024 draft - normally a player this good this fast would never get as far as Boston in the draft with their consistent quality. Our best chances against Stensgaard would come early. Diaz doubled to lead off the 2nd, but eventually was stranded at third base, and singles by Urias and Diaz in the 4th would give us runners at the corners and one out but Cronenworth was doubled up. In between those two opportunities, the game had gotten away from Quantrill. Javy Baez broke the ice with an RBI single in the bottom of the 2nd, which would have gone for two runs if Wieters hadn't gotten himself thrown out trying to stretch a single into a double. The third is where it really got away, where Thomas doubled home two runs with the bases loaded, Wieters added a sac fly, and Baez tripled... his RBI total on the night by hitting a home run. 6-0 Boston. Stensgaard was nails after that, pretty much. We grounded into three double plays, which helped him be efficient. Baez tacked on another run with a groundout, and in a later inning he was doubled home by Isola. The only consolation was that we were able to prevent Stensgaard from shutting us out, when a leadoff double by Lubanski in the 9th was followed by two groundouts. He finished off his complete game on the next batter. 000 000 001 . 1 .6 0 015 010 01x . 8 12 0W: Nolan Stensgaard (3-1) L: Cal Quantrill (2-2) PotG: Nolan Stensgaard - CG, 6 H, 1 R, 9 K, 1 BB Let's hope we don't face him again in September when the Minutemen come to Jacksonville. Game 2 Trey Killian (0-1, 4.42) vs. Jen-Ho Tseng (0-2, 10.12) JAX: LF Lubanski, 2B Urias, SS Lopez, 1B Diaz, DH Cronenworth, RF Acuna, CF Kemp, 3B Mayo, C Arada BOS: RF Happ, SS Rojas, LF Thomas, CF Varsho, 2B Perez, 1B Thompson, DH Wieters, 3B Orio, C Isola There we go, I'd much rather face Tseng, although it was Killian who buckled first, allowing Wenceel Perez to plug the gap for a two-run double. After Trey hit Miguel Rojas on the wrist (causing him to leave the game in his first game back from injury) Thomas hit a double to score the pinch-running Baez. Killian settled in from there, with the help of a couple double plays - he also stranded the bases loaded in the 5th inning. Ultimately, he was only able to go 5 1/3 innings, but it's not the disaster start it could have been. Down 3-0 entering the 4th, Acuna got one back for us by splitting the speedy Thomas and Varsho in the outfield, winding up with an RBI triple to get us on the board. Tseng ended up having his best start of the year, pitching a very efficient 8 innings (85 pitches) with just the one run allowed. So we entered the 9th down 3-1, going up against Boston closer Eric Johnson. He got the first two men out, needing 7 pitches to retire Diaz but getting him and Cronenworth with no damage. But Acuna hit the first pitch for a two-out single, and when Johnson ran a 3-1 count against Kemp, he smashed a ball to right field that went over the short wall at Fenway and over the bullpen entirely, tying the game. Pearson got the Minutemen in order in the 9th, so we were off to extras again. Johnson back out for the 10th, we were unable to advance the zombie runner Mayo any further than 3rd, thanks in part to a weak ground ball back to the pitcher hit by Lubanski, but Pearson held serve as well so further into the night we went. In the 11th, with runners on first and third and one out, Cronenworth hit a ball that in some parts of the field gets through for a hit, but was caught easily by Nick Maton, a defensive replacement at third base. Acuna popped out to end that threat, but again, Pearson came up big in the bottom of the 11th, intentionally walking Perez then getting Thompson to hit into a double play. Winckowski came in and ensured we would have a scoreless 12th as well, although Boston loaded the bases. Javier Baez, having entered the game when Miguel Rojas was hit by a pitch, left after being hit as well, with Andrew Benintendi now forced to play third base in the 13th, a position he has never played before. In that 13th, we got the first run of extras as Lopez drove Lubanski around. I very briefly thought Benintendi was going to turn a triple play after that, as he got a ground ball from Diaz right near the bag, but it was a 5-4-3 double play instead. Nonetheless, we were held to one run. Still, that was enough for Winckowski, who went 1-2-3 in his second inning of work to grab a Jacksonville W! 000 100 002 000 1 . 4 9 1 201 000 000 000 0 . 3 7 0W: Josh Winckowski (1-0) L: Duane Underwood Jr. (0-1) PotG: Jen-Ho Tseng - 8 IP, 6 H, 1 R, 6 K, 0 BB Feels like an undeserved split of this two-game set. How often do you hold a team scoreless for four extra innings nowadays? April 17-19: Columbus Explorers (12-7) vs. Jacksonville Anchors (10-8) Columbus is off to a strong start, currently just a half game behind Cincinnati in the North, but they are 4-5 across their last three series, having started particularly well. They have been a very strong hitting team to this point, scoring 109 runs in their 19 games so far, 2nd-most in the AL (again behind Cincinnati). Manager: Ignacio Rodriguez (4th year) Typical lineup: CF Evan Carter - DH Sheedy Gitelman - 3B Reuben Winters LF Kyle Schwarber - C Reese McGuire - 1B Colt Keith RF Tyler Naquin - 2B Brendon Davis - SS Luther Sala Game 1 German Marquez (1-2, 3.65) vs. Hunter Greene (1-1, 6.92) COL: CF Carter, DH Gitelman, 3B Winters, LF Schwarber, C McGuire, 1B Keith, RF Naquin, 2B Davis, SS Sala JAX: LF Lubanski, 2B Urias, SS Lopez, 1B Diaz, RF Acuna, DH Cronenworth, 3B Mayo, CF Kemp, C Arada Marquez is, nominally, the Explorers' ace, and though he had picked up two losses so far his numbers seem fine. Sending Greene in vs. this potent offense feels dangerous... Naquin was the first to do damage, hitting a solo homer with two out in the 2nd inning, and Winters added an RBI knock the next time around. We were flailing against Marquez early, with Arada the first Anchor to reach base via a 3rd-inning walk. Both teams went in order in the 4th, and then we finally got our first hit of the night when Acuna led off the fifth inning with a base hit. He stole second, got to third when Kemp walked, and then scored on a hit by Arada along with Cronenworth. The rally was stifled by Kemp getting thrown out at third on that same play, but the game was tied entering the 6th. Greene was done after 5 - no immense damage, good for him, but too high a pitch count. Marco Ramirez was the first out of the pen, and he had a rough go of it. He walked Keith, Naquin and Davis with one out, and pinch-hitter Jose Fermin singled to score Keith. We were a bit lucky that it was just one run, as Evan Carter hit a sharp ground ball that just happened to be right at Urias, which helped us get out of it. An RBI double by Kemp in the bottom of the 7th tied the game, but not for long: Winckowski gave up a pair in the 8th on Naquin's second homer of the night, and the combination of Tavarez and York allowed four more runs in the 9th. Kemp's RBI double for us was too little too late. 011 001 024 . 9 11 0 000 020 101 . 4 .6 0W: Hayden Yuenger (2-0) L: Josh Winckowski (1-1) S: Howard Craig (1) PotG: Tyler Naquin - 3-4, 2 HR(5), 3 RBI, BB Naquin was the #2 star of the night. Game 2 Kyle Gibson (0-0, 6.19) vs. Justin Dunn (1-1, 4.30) COL: CF Carter, DH Gitelman, 3B Winters, LF Schwarber, C McGuire, 1B Keith, RF Naquin, 2B Davis, SS Sala JAX: LF Lubanski, 2B Urias, SS Lopez, 1B Diaz, RF Acuna, DH Cronenworth, 3B Mayo, CF Kemp, C Arada In this game 2, we definitely have the pitching advantage. Both teams were playing a bit shaky at first; Schwarber made an error in left field, which was countered by Lopez making one at short, and Mayo also made an error in the 4th inning that ultimately led to the game's first run, when Keith drove Winters around on a double. Acuna started a rally for us in the bottom of that same inning by singling with two out and stealing second. A sharp single by Cronenworth into left-center tied the game, and Mayo atoned for his error with his third home run, giving Dunn a two-run lead to work with. Dunn ultimately allowed just three hits, all of which were doubles for some reason, in 7 1/3 innings. Lubanski, Urias, and Mayo all had further RBI hits in the late innings, and Michael Gunn retired all five batters he faced to finish off a clean win. 000 100 000 . 1 .3 1 000 300 21x . 6 10 2W: Justin Dunn (2-1) L: Kyle Gibson (0-1) PotG: Justin Dunn - 7.1 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 0 ER, 9 K, 3 BB Shoutout as well to Coby Mayo, who despite his error that led to the lone run for the Explorers, had three extra-base hits in the game. Game 3 Robert Dugger (1-1, 7.11) vs. Chris Huffman (2-1, 7.98) COL: CF Carter, DH Gitelman, 3B Winters, LF Schwarber, C McGuire, 1B Keith, RF Naquin, 2B Fermin, SS Sala JAX: LF Lubanski, 2B Urias, SS Lopez, 1B Diaz, RF Acuna, DH Cronenworth, 3B Mayo, CF Kemp, C Arada With Tavarez as the opener, Columbus put together a two out rally with Winters drawing a walk, stealing second, and then scoring easily on Schwarber's double. We got off to an auspicious start when Lubanski had to be helped off the field following his leadoff double, though it looks like he'll avoid IL time; Diaz drove home the pinch-runner Duke Ellis to ease our minds on that front, & Urias would have an RBI triple in the 2nd inning. The Explorers were just as capable of stringing hits together as we were, and with Huffman now in the game, Winters tied the game in the 3rd with a hit, and Sala gave them the lead in the 4th. The game looked like it might spiral away from us when Evan Carter's home run made it 5-2, but the see-saw swung right back our way again. With the benefit of an error on Fermin, Ellis hit his 2nd home run off of Jose Alvarado to get us within 1, and two baserunners later, Acuna tied the game with a single. Both bullpens did their jobs from there, with just one total hit in the final three innings, and we go back to extras for the 5th time already this year. Nate Pearson continued his excellent record in extra-inning games (and excellent record in general), coaxing two shallow fly balls that Winters could not advance on, and a groundout to keep Columbus scoreless. Leading off the 10th for us, Arada hit a ball to right that Kemp didn't read properly, so wasn't able to score on the single; however, he could walk home when Urias also singled through the drawn-in infield, his fifth hit of the night. Anchors win! 101 102 000 0 . 5 .8 2 110 003 000 1 . 6 13 0W: Nate Pearson (2-0) L: Seth Nordlin (0-1) PotG: Ramon Urias - 5-6, 2B, 3B, 2 RBI, R We're now 4-1 in extra innings, which fully accounts for the fact that we're 3 games over .500 as a whole. Nate Pearson now has 16 2/3 scoreless innings under his belt, the most of any pitcher with a 0.00 ERA in the majors. Elsewhere: April 13: Explorers LF Kyle Schwarber hit his 500th career home run in the 4th inning of Columbus' eventual 6-5 win over Louisville. I was slightly relieved to see this, since that meant it wouldn't happen against us on the weekend.April 15:  Forrest Outlaw isn't just a pseudonym for Robin Hood, he's also a promising young 3B for the Pilots, and he had a nice 5-5 day in a 13-10 win over the LA Palms in Anaheim. This was a bit shaky for Seattle, who led by as much as 12-0 and 13-1 in the game and watched it slowly slip away from them.April 16: Grovers SP Jonathan Pettibone, who pitched against us a couple of weeks ago, is out for the season with a torn labrum. Pettibone was a minor league free agent who has bounced between several teams the past few years - Indy, Oakland, Philadelphia, and his original team the Palms.April 17:  At 40 years old, Tim Lincecum is still out there shoving it - or at least he was. After a reunion tour with his original team, the Violets, ended with him getting a World Series ring (despite being injured), he wasn't quite ready to hang them up and signed with Denver for this season. But, he also suffered a torn labrum in Tuesday's win over the Blazers, ending his season prematurely. Who knows if he'll try to return for 2027 - it's surprising enough that he made it this long.April 18: SP Will McEachin, a prospect of ours pitching at AA Tallahassee, has also had his season ended by a torn labrum.April 18:  A momentous occasion, as Racers 1B Paul Goldschmidt recorded his 3000th hit, albeit in an 11-8 loss to Atlanta. The milestone single came in the bottom of the 5th inning, Goldy having homered in the previous inning for his 2999th hit. His 3001st hit later would also be a homer.April 19: It really is pitcher injury season, as Suns SP Jose Berrios is also done for the year, and into next year as well, where he will be a free agent.----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Another winning week. Now we're in the midst of our stretch of 20 games in 20 days, with our next off day coming on May 7. AL Standings:  Anchors' player of the week: closer Nate Pearson - 5 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 4 K/3 BB, 1-0 Players of the week: NL: 3B Yoan Moncada - 9-19, 3 2B, 3 HR, 10 RAL:  SS Osvaldo Abreu - 13-21, 2 HR, 4 RBICL: SP Michael Wacha - 14.1 IP, 2 ER, 19 K/2 BB, 1-0WL: 3B Alex Bregman - 12-22, 4 HR, 8 RBI, 9 R Power rankings: 12th of 60 this week, up nine spots. Next week: we have played a pretty difficult schedule so far, with our worst opponent so far by record being 10-11 Milwaukee (after splitting with us, Boston immediately swept Norfolk to get to .500). That difficult schedule continues next week with two division leaders: 4 games at home vs. Tampa, then a visit to Cincinnati.
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Modern MLB expansion/rebrand logos and uniforms The Lokasi Elite League - fictional country, pro/rel pyramid Jacksonville Anchors - modern playthrough with 60 teams & 4 subleagues Last edited by Ruwisc; 05-21-2026 at 06:02 PM. |
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05-24-2026, 10:23 AM
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#11 |
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All Star Starter
Join Date: Nov 2022
Location: Philadelphia
Posts: 1,618
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I'd be glad to hear about some of your setup settings, particularly in the early 20th century/ before minors, or how you handle player creation and movement. As ever Im working on building a large scale world league like this.
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05-25-2026, 10:35 AM
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#12 |
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Minors (Triple A)
Join Date: Jun 2025
Location: Worcester, MA
Posts: 284
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How do you get those tiny logos to work?
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05-26-2026, 04:45 PM
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#13 | ||
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All Star Reserve
Join Date: Jul 2013
Location: southwestern Illinois
Posts: 813
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Quote:
Quote:
, and https://u.cubeupload.com/ruwisc2/tam.png becomes using the [img] tags, for example.April 20-26, 2026  Really tough week ahead of us here. Tampa and Cincinnati currently have the top two records in the Atlantic League. Thankfully, things soften up a bit next week, but that's for next week. Let's welcome the Grovers to Jacksonville for the first time this year. April 20-23: Tampa Grovers (15-7) vs. Jacksonville Anchors (12-9) Our second outing against our division leader & biggest rival right now. After this 4-game set, we won't see them again until August, when we'll play them on two consecutive weekends. They are coming into this series on a high, having just swept the mighty St. Louis Spirits at home. On a positive note, we'll avoid ace Pablo Lopez this week as he pitched on Sunday. Manager: Travis Quesada (9th year) Typical lineup: 2B Luis Rengifo - RF Jarren Duran - C Adley Rutschman SS Trevor Story - 3B Brayan Rocchio - 1B Joe Panik LF Julio Morban - DH Steven Kwan - CF Gerardo Parra Game 1 Monty Stewart (1-1, 6.33) vs. Cal Quantrill (2-2, 6.43) TAM: 2B Rengifo, RF Duran, C Rutschman, 1B Panik, 3B Rocchio, DH Kwan, LF Morban, CF Parra, SS Arredondo JAX: LF Lubanski, 2B Urias, SS Lopez, 1B Diaz, RF Acuna, DH Cronenworth, 3B Mayo, CF Kemp, C Arada Both starters off to mediocre starts in 2026. It was Quantrill that blinked first; Rocchio doubled leading off the second, advanced on a wild pitch, and then Kwan hit the next pitch for a sac fly. We grabbed a bit of momentum in the third inning, when Arada singled with one out and Urias singled with two... but not fleet of foot, Arada was caught by Duran while trying to go first to third. Rocchio had a near-repeat performance in the 4th inning, when he led off with a hit, stole second, and scored on a single by Parra with two out, but we also got this one back quickly on a homer by Nicky Lopez. Quantrill wasn't bad on the day, just inefficient - his six innings cost him 101 pitches. It was in the 7th, under the bullpen's watch, that things went actually wrong. Eury Ramos came out first, and though he got two outs, he also walked two batters and allowed a pair of RBI hits, a triple by Rengifo and a double by Duran. Hunter York was then summoned to turn Rocchio around and bat him from the right side... but it was no different. He stroked a two-run double that made it 6-1, and Kwan followed by driving him around to cap a 5-run inning. We could only mount one more run after that, although that one run was a complete bomb by Lubanski. Stewart finished the 8th inning after that, and we went quietly. 010 100 500 . 7 10 0 000 100 010 . 2 .8 0W: Monty Stewart (2-1) L: Cal Quantrill (2-3) PotG: Brayan Rocchio - 3-3, 2 2B, 2 RBI, 3 R, BB Game 2 T.J. Zeuch (2-0, 2.08) vs Trey Killian (0-1, 4.56) TAM: 2B Rengifo, CF Duran, C Rutschman, SS Story, 3B Rocchio, DH Kwan, LF Morban, RF Hernandez, 1B Rizzo JAX: LF Lubanski, 2B Urias, SS Lopez, 1B Diaz, RF Acuna, DH Cronenworth, 3B Mayo, CF Kemp, C Naylor Both teams threatened in the first inning, but each pitcher was able to coax a double play that got them out of it. Killian settled down well, only needing 6 pitches to get through the second inning. We threatened Zeuch a little more, but he was able to wiggle out of trouble in the 2nd inning. Not much happened until the 5th, when (there's that man again) Rocchio led off with a double into the left field corner, and he was scored by Kwan to break the ice. Killian responded by getting the next three men out on four pitches, though. We finally knocked out Zeuch in the 6th inning with a walk and single from Urias and Lopez, and a poor choice of throws from the outfield placed them at 2nd and 3rd. When Quesada went to the bullpen to bring out... Aroldis Chapman... Acuna shot a single to right that scored both and gave the Anchors the lead. From there, Killian's efficiency in the earlier innings had paid dividends for him as he was able to get through 8 without further damage. Nate Pearson came on for the 9th, set to face Rutschman, Story, and Rocchio... and he struck out the side! Ball game over. 000 010 000 . 1 3 0 000 002 00x . 2 7 1W: Trey Killian (1-1) L: T.J. Zeuch (2-1) S: Nate Pearson (5) PotG: Trey Killian - 8 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 4 K, 2 BB Game 3 Shane Dawson (2-0, 3.86) vs. Hunter Greene (1-1, 6.00) TAM: RF Duran, DH Kwan, 3B Story, 1B Panik, 2B Rocchio, LF Morban, CF Parra, C Okey, SS Arredondo JAX: LF Ellis, 2B Urias, SS Lopez, 1B Diaz, RF Acuna, DH Cronenworth, 3B Mayo, CF Kemp, C Arada Greene started out fairly strong, not allowing a hit in the first three innings. Let's ignore that he walked two batters and hit two more, that's probably not relevant. Meanwhile, while we had threatened in the first inning, we blew up for a crooked number when Kemp and Urias both went yard in the 2nd inning. Ramon's was a three run shot following Arada and Ellis both getting on, and we had a quick lead. Tampa would chip away with a pair in the 4th, when (who else) Rocchio drove in the first run with an RBI triple, and then could walk home on Chris Okey's hit. Ellis drove in a run in the next half-inning at least, which spelled the end of the night for Dawson, just 3 2/3 innings pitched. Not necessarily a loss for Dawson though, with Panik cutting it to a 1-run game soon after with his 3rd homer of the season. Greene would exit after 5, somehow raising his ERA from 6 while still being in line for a win in theory. He was helped by the combo of Kemp and Urias again in the 6th inning - Tony led off with a hit off Dylan File, and later came around on Ramon's triple off Josue Figueroa. The Anchor bullpen wasn't perfect, but solid. Gunn allowed just a walk in his inning, and Winckowski a lone single in his. When Aledmys Diaz completed the scoring with a two-run double, manager Dave Agado did not feel the need to bring Pearson out for the 9th, and Hunter York shut it down just fine. 000 220 000 . 4 6 0 040 101 02x . 8 9 0W: Hunter Greene (2-1) L: Shane Dawson (2-1) PotG: Ramon Urias - 2-5, 3B, HR(2), 4 RBI We secure at least a split, which feels quite nice. Game 4 Daniel Gossett (0-2, 5.71) vs. Justin Dunn (2-1, 3.26) TAM: 2B Rengifo, DH Kwan, C Rutschman, 3B Story, 1B Panik, LF Morban, RF Hernandez, CF Parra, SS Arredondo JAX: LF Lubanski, 2B Urias, SS Lopez, 1B Diaz, RF Acuna, DH Cronenworth, 3B Mayo, CF Kemp, C Arada Urias singled and was caught stealing to end the first inning, giving Aledmys Diaz a second crack at Gossett in the 2nd; he took advantage, cracking his team-leading 8th home run. Dunn was cruising early, facing the minimum through three innings. Teoscar Hernandez had singled leading off the 3rd inning, but when Parra tried to sac bunt, he popped it in the air right to Dunn, which became a double play! Jacksonville exploded in the 5th inning! A struggling Jake Cronenworth started the inning with a single (his first hit since Saturday). Mayo immediately drove him and himself around with a bomb, and Kemp/Arada followed with a pair of doubles to score another run. Lubanski made an out, but Gossett walked Urias on four pitches and Lopez cranked our second homer of the inning, ending the night for Gossett and making it a 6-run inning. That was pretty much all she wrote. Dunn allowed single runs in the 7th and 8th, and we tacked on a few more in the late innings ourselves, including a homer for Cronenworth - slump busted? At any rate, a really good series win for team JAX. 000 000 110 .. 2 .8 0 010 060 12x . 10 13 0W: Justin Dunn (3-1) L: Daniel Gossett (0-3) PotG: Justin Dunn - 7.1 IP, 6 H, 1 R, 6 K, 0 BB Winning 3 out of 4 from Tampa feels like a big achievement, and we pull within a half game of them for the early division lead. Manager David Agado has indicated that he wants to demote Chris Huffman from the rotation and add Hunter York. I'm fine with that on principle, but it is gonna #@!% up our rotation in terms of short rest in the short term. So, we temporarily go to a six-man rotation, and I'll start looking for trade partners for Huffman. Maybe there's a CF out there somewhere that he can fetch us? Now, back out on the road for a Midwestern trip. April 24-26: Jacksonville Anchors (15-10) vs. Cincinnati Centurions (15-10) We enter Cincinnati with the Cents having lost their last 2 and 6 of 10, dropping from their 11-4 start to reach the same record we have now. They have been an "oops-all-offense" team to this point, scoring the most runs in all of MLB, but allowing the second-most. We could see a few shootouts this weekend. Manager: Tom Rice (8th year) Typical lineup: 1B Chris Coghlan - SS Ha-seong Kim - LF Christian Walker 2B Cavan Biggio - C Ji-man Choi - CF Bobby Dean 3B Jose Gomez - RF Anthony Gose - DH Donovan Solano Game 1 Chris Huffman (2-1, 7.78) vs. Bryce Elder (2-3, 8.88) JAX: LF Lubanski, 2B Urias, SS Lopez, 1B Diaz, RF Acuna, DH Cronenworth, 3B Mayo, CF Ellis, C Arada CIN: 1B Coghlan, SS Kim, LF Walker, 2B Biggio, C Choi, CF Dean, 3B Gomez, RF Gose, DH Solano This was a weird back-and-forth game. We opened with back-to-back homers from Lubanski and Urias, while Kim countered with a solo shot, and Gose had an RBI groundout in the second inning. When Lubanski came up again, it was with Arada on second, and Chris singled him around before scoring on Diaz' double, which Cronenworth also followed with an RBI hit. But, Bobby Dean came right back with a two-run single to cut our lead back to one. Finally, after 3 innings of chaos, there was a scoreless fourth inning; Bryce Elder appeared to injure himself on the final pitch of that 4th, and did not come back out for the 5th inning. Aledmys Diaz broke the silence there by smacking his 9th homer out to left field, off Jose Appleton. Cincinnati was not done counterpunching, though, as Choi's 5th home run of the year chased Huffman and tied the game. For how ugly things were for the starters, both bullpens did quite well. In the 6-7-8-9th innings, there was a total of one hit, each hurler keeping the status quo of a 6-6 tie. We went to extras yet again! The same was actually true in the 10th as well - both teams intentionally walked a batter at a strategic moment, with no damage ultimately done. The 11th inning was different. With Acuna starting as the zombie runner, the Cents chose to walk Cronenworth to start the inning and face Mayo. Mayo worked an extremely tough PA and drew an 8 pitch walk from Luis Pena to load the bases with nobody out. Ellis hit a soft liner to third, which thankfully did not become a double play, and then Bo Naylor came up, having pinch-hit for Arada earlier in the game, and hit the first pitch just inside the left-field foul pole at GABP for a grand slam! Pearson coaxed a soft liner of his own, plus a strikeout and grounder to second to preserve his scoreless streak (in 3 innings of work) and sew up another extra-inning win. 203 010 000 04 . 10 12 0 112 020 000 00 .. 6 .5 0W: Nate Pearson (3-0) L: Luis Pena (1-1) PotG: Aledmys Diaz - 2-4, 2B, HR(9), 2 RBI, 2 R, BB Game 2 Cal Quantrill (2-3, 5.67) vs. Jose Urquidy (3-0, 3.72) JAX: LF Lubanski, 1B Diaz, RF Acuna, DH Cronenworth, 3B Mayo, CF Kemp, 2B Whitcomb, SS Alcantara, C Arada CIN: 1B Coghlan, SS Kim, LF Walker, 2B Biggio, C Choi, CF Dean, 3B Gomez, RF Gose, DH Solano With the lineup shifted due to days off for our middle infielders, Acuna took advantage in hitting a first-inning homer way out to left-center off of Urquidy. Quantrill retired the first four he faced until a triple for the much-faster-than-he-looks Ji-man Choi, who in this sim never moved off of catcher. But he never did scamper around & was left there at third. When Gose walked to lead off the 3rd, Solano attempted to sac bunt, and missed; Arada threw out Gose trying to steal on the next pitch, probably making Solano feel quite bad. Post-homer, Urquidy did a nice job of keeping the ball on the ground. We hit into double plays in three successive innings. Kim, Walker, and Biggio started the sixth inning with successive hits, and it was only then that the Centurions broke through against Quantrill. They could only tie the game, though, so it'd be a no-decision for Urquidy, who exited after six innings of one-run ball. Quantrill wasn't too far behind, leaving when he allowed a 2-out double to Coghlan in the 7th inning - that threat was cleaned up by Michael Gunn on one pitch. In the top of the 8th inning, we had a rally going. Nicky Lopez came on to hit for Whitcomb, and singled, and Alcantara copied him. Arada grounded out, but hit it slowly enough that it still advanced both runners. With the infield in, Lubanski's hard grounder was snared by Ha-seong Kim with enough time to get Lopez at the plate, but when the infielders came back with two out, Diaz hit a lil nubber along the third base line that allowed Alcantara to score and give us a lead. Gunn threw a clean 8th as well. In the 9th we turned to Marco Ramirez with Pearson having thrown three innings yesterday, and we were sweating. He walked Gomez on five pitches, and Gose dumped a single into left field to put the tying and winning runs aboard. When Solano tattooed the first pitch into the outfield, I gulped, but it went right at Kemp for the first out. That settled Marco down - he got Coghlan to pop up, and Kim hit a shallow fly ball that nestled into Acuna's glove for another W. 100 000 010 . 2 9 0 000 001 000 . 1 9 0W: Michael Gunn (1-0) L: Manuel Cachutt (0-2) S: Marco Ramirez (1) PotG: Cal Quantrill - 6.2 IP, 8 H, 1 R, 5 K, 3 BB Five straight wins against two pretty good teams. What's better, the Grovers blew a late lead and lost at Nashville, which gives us possession of first place for the first time this year (just by a half-game). Game 3 Trey Killian (1-1, 3.69) vs. Merlin Peterson (1-1, 3.80) JAX: LF Lubanski, 2B Urias, SS Lopez, 1B Diaz, DH Cronenworth, CF Kemp, RF Ellis, 3B Alcantara, C Naylor CIN: 1B Coghlan, SS Kim, LF Walker, 2B Biggio, C Choi, RF Gose, 3B Gomez, DH Solano, CF Dean Peterson is a rookie, the #22 pick in last summer's draft. If this were my team, he would definitely not be in the big leagues right now... anyway, we touched him up for a pair of solo homers in the first, Urias' 4th and Diaz's 10th. We had a pair of hits in the 2nd but didn't score thanks in large part to a double play, after which Killian allowed a pair of doubles to Choi and Gomez to give one run back. With the top of the order up in the 3rd again though, Lubanski reached and Lopez cranked one out into the right-center bleachers to make it 4-1 Anchors. In the 4th, Ellis led off with a hit, and then the next three battters all had long appearances that resulted in walks. 7 pitches to Alcantara, 6 to Naylor, and 9 to Lubanski. Urias added a sac fly, which ended the day for Peterson, and Lopez smashed a two-run double off of Jose Appleton to make it 8-1. At this point, I thought the game was over, but the Cents did not. They chipped away a couple at a time; Walker hit a two-run homer in the 5th, Gose a solo shot in the 6th off Ramos, and Biggio a two-run shot in the 7th off Gunn. With one more insurance run having been tacked on intermittently, that made it just a two-run game entering the late innings. Josh Winckowski stabilized by pitching a clean 8th, and then we were able to put it away. Sergio Alcantara came up with the bases loaded and no out in the 9th, and smashed his first homer in an Anchors uniform and our second late-inning grand slam of the weekend to put it out of reach. Winckowski actually left with the bases loaded, no out in the 9th inning, so it wasn't totally smooth sailing, but when Christian Walker got himself doubled off of first base on a liner hit by Biggio, that killed the momentum. 202 401 004 . 13 11 1 010 031 200 .. 7 10 0W: Trey Killian (2-1) L: Merlin Peterson (1-2) PotG: Nicky Lopez - 2-4, 2B, HR(4), 4 RBI, BB It's a pretty clutch time for a six-game win streak. Tampa lost again at Nashville on Sunday as well, so we're going into a new week with a 1.5-game lead. Elsewhere: April 22: Just before we faced them, Cents LF Christian Walker recorded his 2000th hit in a blowout loss, 16-2 to Louisville in their series finale.April 22: Scorpions DH Brandon Lowe hit his 300th homer in a dramatic come-from-behind win over Salt Lake. It was a 3-run shot that took Las Vegas from 6-4 down to 7-6 up.April 24: Sabers lefthander Wade Miley has announced he will retire at the end of the season. Miley has pitched for 11 different teams, mostly as a starter, and will finish his career off in the same place where it began, having previously pitched for the Sabers from 2010-15.April 24: Brooklyn's Carlos Martinez (the Cardinals pitcher) is actually the highest paid player in MLB currently, making $46.5 million for the 2026 season. That won't be the case after this year, but he is still getting one more impressive payday, signing a 5-year extension with the Kings that will take him through his age-38 season at an AAV of $30.4 million.----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Because Milwaukee had a 4-2 week, we can now say that every single team we have played so far this season is currently above .500. That will definitely change next week (Atlanta has the worst record in the AL) but it makes me feel even better about sitting 18-10 going into the end of April here. We hold the best record in the AL currently. AL Standings:  Anchors' player of the week: SS Nicky Lopez - 11-26, 3 HR, 8 RBI, 3 BB to just 2 K. Players of the week: NL: SP Jhoulys Chacin - 2-0, 14 IP, 4 H, 0 R, 18 K/2 BBAL:  3B Colin Moran - 14-26, 4 HR, 13 RBI, 7 RCL:  LF Chas McCormick - 15-28, 5 HR, 14 RBI, 11 RWL: DH Brandon Lowe - 9-23, 6 HR, 13 RBIPower rankings: 3rd, behind the only two teams to have reached 20 wins so far - 22-7 Brooklyn and  20-8 Dallas.Next week: our Midwest road trip continues into Chicago, where we will face the Blazers on the south side, then we return home for our first matchup of the year with the Atlanta Firebirds. |
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05-29-2026, 12:18 AM
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#14 |
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All Star Reserve
Join Date: Jul 2013
Location: southwestern Illinois
Posts: 813
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I thought it would be interesting to give a timeline of the expansion to 60 teams as I've laid it out. Obviously it's wild and weird, and mostly unrealistic, to have a 60-team major league but here's how I did it.
1903 16 teams contested the first 45 seasons of the league. Similar markets to the classic 16 AL & NL teams we know, but with only New York & Chicago having multiple teams. The teams played a balanced 154-game schedule in this period. The teams are also, as ever, aligned geographically:
1948 In 1948, the league expanded for the first time, from 16 teams to 20. Baltimore and Buffalo joined the Eastern League, while Indianapolis and Milwaukee joined the Western League. At this point, we made the jump to 162 games, just like real MLB did when expanding each league from 8 to 10. Buffalo was notable in this period for taking huge advantage of the early implementation of the draft, using their bad early years to acquire Mays, Mantle, Aaron and Mathews, the core that won them all seven of their World Series between 1955-63.1955 The league expands once again, adding two more teams to each league. This marks MLB's first foray into Canada, with  Montreal and Toronto being the new Eastern League teams. The Western League goes further west, into Dallas and Kansas City.1960 At this point, as could have happened in real life but didn't, MLB absorbed the Pacific Coast League, taking its eight teams into the league to make 32 in total. Those teams were Los Angeles, Los Angeles, Oakland,  Portland, Sacramento,  San Diego, San Francisco, and Seattle. This is the point at which the league was also realigned the most dramatically. The Eastern and Western Leagues were discontinued, and replaced with the 4-league system that carries through to today. The 8 PCL teams became the new Western League, 8 teams from the old WL formed the Central League, 8 teams from the old EL formed the Northeast League, and the remaining 4 teams from the two leagues combined to become the Atlantic League. Those 8 AL originals were Buffalo, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Detroit, Montreal, Pittsburgh, Syracuse, and Toronto, only half of which are still in the AL today.1965 For the first time, the leagues become imbalanced, as Houston and Minnesota are admitted into the CL, making 34 teams total.1968 The last expansion that will consist of just two teams; Atlanta and New Orleans are added to the AL.1975 The league expands by six teams in 1975, bringing the total to 42. Columbus and Miami go into the AL, Denver and  Omaha to the CL, and Salt Lake and Vancouver go into the WL. We also have the only other instances of pre-existing teams changing leagues, as Buffalo, Montreal, Syracuse, and Toronto move from the AL to the NL, and Indianapolis & Louisville move from the CL to the AL. The end result is 12 teams in the NL and 10 in the other three leagues.1982 Another expansion by six teams, bringing the total to 48 and 12 in each league. Charlotte and Nashville join the AL,  Oklahoma and San Antonio join the CL, and Las Vegas and Phoenix join the WL. At this point, the teams are also organized into divisions for the first time, 13 years after it happened in MLB. Each league has North and South divisions with six teams apiece. This also marks the first expansion to the playoffs in 22 years, as 8 teams now qualify, one from each division.1989 Four more expansion teams are added in '89, two each in the CL and NL. Newark goes into the NL South, Ottawa to the NL North, and El Paso and New Mexico both go to the CL South, while Kansas City changes divisions.1995 Two teams each are added to the WL and AL, bringing each league to 14 teams and each division to 7. Memphis and Tampa join the AL South, with Louisville switching divisions, while  Reno joins the WL North and Tucson the WL South.2000 The final expansion, and the one that contains our Anchors. One last team is admitted to each of the four leagues, and interleague play begins. This is also the point at which the leagues realign to three divisions of 5, necessitating a wild card spot in each league and an expansion of the bracket to 16 playoff teams total. Each of the 4 expansion teams, Norfolk in the NL, Jacksonville in the AL, Austin in the CL, and  San Bernardino in the WL, go into their respective leagues' South divisions.World Series winners by year:  This is the nature of a large league, but there are some quite intense title droughts, including two longer than a hundred years: Detroit, despite having 5 championships won all of them in the span of 1908-1916, and the Chicago Blazers have never won it all, not even once. 23 teams have never won it all, including 12 who have played more than 50 seasons. 13 teams have never even played in a World Series, while 5 teams have yet to win their league's pennant: Ottawa and Norfolk in the NL, Miami in the AL (despite having 51 years to do it), and Tucson & San Bernardino in the WL. |
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06-04-2026, 08:26 PM
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#15 |
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All Star Reserve
Join Date: Jul 2013
Location: southwestern Illinois
Posts: 813
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April 27-May 3, 2026   On Monday, we made a trade that I had teased as a possibility last week, acquiring OF Michael Siani from the Chicago Blues in exchange for RHP Chris Huffman & RHP Hector Garcia Jr. I probably didn't actually need to get rid of Huffman, but Siani will help our outfield mix and including Huffman makes it a near-wash financially (costing us around $300k). Garcia is a nothing prospect, but they wouldn't do the deal without him for some reason. In a corresponding move, we optioned Duke Ellis to Orlando and recalled LHP Jakob Hernandez, who was acquired in a deal earlier in April from Miami. Hernandez will wear #64, and Siani will wear #42 (Jackie Robinson didn't amount to much in this sim)April 27-29: Jacksonville Anchors (18-10) vs. Chicago Blazers (12-16) The Blazers play on the south side, so if you're adjusting your mental model of the league, these are the Sox, and the Blues are the Cubs. Despite having been around since the foundation of the league in 1903, the Blazers have never once won the World Series, which is pretty amazing. This is the team that Babe Ruth played for and everything. They haven't made the World Series since 1957, and have won a grand total of two playoff series in their entire 123-year existence (with eight defeats). This year's Blazers are slumping a bit - they're an average offensive team so far, with more in the way of homers and less in singles, and average in the bullpen. It's the rotation that has held them up, with all five pitchers sporting ERAs above 5 at the moment. Manager: Scott Green (2nd year) Typical lineup: CF Adam Engel - RF Randy Arozarena - DH Alex Gordon 3B Mike Brosseau - 1B AJ Reed - C Ernesto Lantz 2B Edmundo Sosa - LF Samir Duenez - SS Calten Daal The Blazers are without Cody Bellinger, last year's CL MVP, probably for the rest of the season. Sosa and Duenez are also banged up, but looks like both will play in the Monday night opener. Game 1 Hunter York (1-1, 1.96) vs. Travis MacGregor (0-3, 7.30) JAX: CF Siani, 3B Urias, SS Lopez, RF Acuna, DH Cronenworth, 1B Mayo, LF Kemp, 2B Alcantara, C Arada BLZ: CF Engel, RF Arozarena, 3B Brosseau, DH Gordon, 2B Sosa, 1B Reed, LF Duenez, C Susac, SS Daal York is the first lefty to start a game for this year's Anchors, so we'll start to see a little more lineup variation. Our lineup variation seems to just be days off for Diaz and Lubanski. York got through the lineup the first time without allowing a hit, only surrendering a walk to Sosa. But the Blazers staged an impressive rally from there, Engel striking a double followed by five singles in a row, which would score 4 runs. It was only Duenez that he was able to stifle to finally end a long inning. An error by Sosa led to two runs for us in the 4th inning, both unearned, with Kemp grabbing an RBI after the error as well. Both starters finished their five innings and got the heck out. We threatened against Sawyer Schillaci in the 6th, putting two men on base, and had men on base in every inning except for the 3rd, but the Blazer bullpen shut us down from there. Eury Ramos gave up a pair in the 7th to account for the final scoring, though also unearned due to an E4 just like our two runs had been. That 3rd-inning rally really was the difference. 000 200 000 . 2 .9 1 004 000 20x . 6 11 1W: Travis MacGregor (1-3) L: Hunter York (1-2) PotG: Travis MacGregor - 5 IP, 6 H, 2 R, 0 ER, 5 K, 0 BB Siani was also 0-5 in his Spirits debut. Luckily, we won't usually need him to bat leadoff. Game 2 Hunter Greene (2-1, 6.26) vs. Chance Adams (2-3, 8.16) JAX: LF Lubanski, 3B Urias, SS Lopez, RF Acuna, DH Cronenworth, 1B Mayo, CF Siani, 2B Alcantara, C Arada BLZ: CF Engel, RF Arozarena, DH Gordon, 3B Brosseau, 1B Reed, C Lantz, 2B Sosa, LF Duenez, SS Daal Don't like seeing Diaz sit for a second game in a row, although he still has the fatigue icon next to his name. He did pinch-hit for Mayo yesterday, taking 2 ABs and playing 4 innings in the field, so I guess that tracks. Greene has been prone to long balls so far, allowing 3 more in the first early innings here - Arozarena's 7th, Sosa's 2nd, and the light-hitting Daal's first of the year, altogether staking Chicago to a 5-0 lead. We could have folded from there, but we didn't at least; Cronenworth led off the 5th inning with a homer, and the Anchors scored two more with the help of an error, leading to an RBI hit for Arada and a sac fly for Lubanski. We got Adams out of there in the 6th inning, and when Gillian Wernet came in for the 7th he proved to be a guy that the Anchors could get to. Sergio Alcantara tripled to score Mayo, then came home on a wild pitch with Lubanski at the plate, tying the game at 5! Dave Agado brought on Pearson to start the 8th, which has typically been a good move, but he finally surrendered his first run of the season, in walkoff style. Arozarena singled to lead off the 9th, Gordon doubled him to third, and Brosseau brought him home with a sac fly. 000 030 200 . 5 7 2 120 200 001 . 6 9 1W: Jace Beck (1-1) L: Nate Pearson (3-1) PotG: Edmundo Sosa - 2-3, HR(2), 2 RBI, 2 R, BB Pearson still has a sub-0.5 ERA, but I was enjoying watching that 0.00. We'll have to try to salvage one game on Wednesday. Game 3 Justin Dunn (3-1, 2.87) vs. Sean Murphy (2-0, 5.27) JAX: LF Lubanski, RF Acuna, 2B Urias, 1B Diaz, DH Cronenworth, SS Lopez, 3B Mayo, CF Kemp, C Arada BLZ: CF Engel, RF Arozarena, DH Gordon, 3B Brosseau, 1B Reed, C Lantz, 2B Sosa, LF Duenez, SS Daal It was time for a "get right" game, and poor Murphy had to be the one to shoulder it. Against the league's second-best player named Sean Murphy, we dinked and dunked our way to four runs in the first inning, with RBI hits from Urias, Lopez, and two runs on a double by Mayo. Dunn got a 1-2-3 bottom of the first, and Murphy clearly needed some baserunners so he could rest. Arada singled leading off the 2nd, Lubanski walked, Urias was hit to load the bases, and then Aledmys Diaz offered a very different way of scoring four runs, sneaking a grand slam just inside the pole! For those counting, that's 8 runs on the board before Chicago records a hit. From there, the question was whether Justin Dunn would record a shutout, and he nearly did, pitching into the 9th inning and allowing just a sprinkle. Cronenworth added a two-run shot in garbage time, and we just needed 7 pitches from Tommy Doyle to get the final two outs and salvage a non-sweep in this series. 440 000 002 . 10 10 0 000 000 000 .. 0 .4 0W: Justin Dunn (4-1) L: Sean Murphy (2-1) PotG: Justin Dunn - 8.1 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 11 K/1 BB April 30-May 3: Atlanta Firebirds (10-19) vs. Jacksonville Anchors (19-12) The F-Bombs are coming off of a 2-game split with the New York Burros in Queens, and are stopping by here for a four-game set before heading back to Cobb County. They won their two series before that, so despite being 10-19, Atlanta is on their way up (having started 5-16). The trio of Ronald Rightnowar (fictional) with Devon Travis and Brandon Drury has been quite effective, with Rightnowar being an early AL MVP candidate. Most of Atlanta's stats are terrible, but they are tied for the AL lead in homers (tied with Charlotte at 49 each, while we have 48 ourselves). Manager: Salomon Torres (3rd year) Typical lineup: LF Maxwell Georgiades - 2B Thairo Estrada - DH Ronald Rightnowar 1B Devon Travis - 3B Brandon Drury - RF Stone Garrett CF Austin Slater - C Matheu Nelson - SS Yairo Munoz Every hitter in the lineup is right-handed, that's weird. Game 1 Gerrit Cole (2-0, 4.54) vs. Cal Quantrill (2-3, 4.81) ATL: LF Georgiades, 2B Estrada, DH Rightnowar, 1B Travis, 3B Drury, RF Garrett, CF Slater, C Nelson, SS Munoz JAX: LF Lubanski, 2B Urias, 1B Diaz, RF Acuna, DH Cronenworth, 3B Mayo, CF Siani, SS Alcantara, C Naylor After both pitchers breezed through the first inning, Garrett wore Quantrill down with a 10-pitch at bat that resulted in a double, and Slater quickly singled him around. Rightnowar tripled that lead in the next frame when he hit his AL-lead-equalling 12th home run out to right with Georgiades aboard. It was only in the next half inning that the first Anchor reached base, with Siani's double (his first hit in a Jacksonville uniform), though we stranded him right there. Cal continued to labor, ultimately not finishing the 5th inning - he surrendered one more run on an RBI hit from Estrada before departing. It took him 100 pitches to record just 14 outs. Cole, meanwhile, was shutting us down fairly effectively, though we finally managed to score in the 6th without a hit. Lubanski walked, stole second, advanced on a wild pitch, and scored on Diaz's groundout, so we wouldn't be shut out at least. But Rightnowar came right back with another two-run homer in the top of the 7th, and that was kinda that. We chased Cole in the 7th but only managed a single run from there. 012 010 210 . 7 8 1 000 001 100 . 2 7 1W: Gerrit Cole (3-0) L: Cal Quantrill (2-4) PotG: Ronald Rightnowar - 3-5, 2 HR(13), 4 RBI Game 2 Patrick Monteverde (1-1, 5.40) vs. Trey Killian (2-1, 4.17) ATL: 1B Travis, LF Georgiades, 3B Drury, DH Rightnowar, 2B Estrada, RF Garrett, CF Slater, C Nelson, SS Munoz JAX: CF Siani, 1B Diaz, SS Lopez, RF Acuna, DH Cronenworth, 3B Mayo, C Arada, 2B Alcantara, LF Kemp Killian breezed through the order the first time, giving up just one hit to Estrada. Monteverde wasn't far behind, though he ran into trouble in the 3rd. Kemp walked with one out, and Siani tried to bunt, missed twice, then singled with two strikes to better his original plan. After an out, Nicky Lopez scored both of them with an RBI hit, and Acuna followed with a double that made it 3-0. The Firebirds' best opportunity so far came in the 5th inning, when a walk and a hit put two on with nobody out. But Killian coaxed Nelson into a 6-4-3 double play to escape any real damage. It was only in the 7th that Atlanta got to him. Estrada doubled and evaded a tag on a fielder's choice attempt to advance to third, allowing him to score on Slater's groundout, and Cedric Mullins hit the first pitch of the 8th inning for a homer while pinch-hitting for Munoz, which ended Trey's night. Winckowski stemmed the tide with three quick outs, and while Pearson allowed Estrada to get aboard with his third hit of the night, the next pitch was a 5-4-3 double play off the bat of Garrett! 000 000 110 . 2 5 0 003 000 00x . 3 5 0W: Trey Killian (3-1) L: Patrick Monteverde (1-2) S: Nate Pearson (6) PotG: Trey Killian - 7 IP, 4 H, 2 R, 6 K/2 BB Game 3 Denyi Reyes (ATL debut) vs. Hunter York (1-2, 3.09) ATL: 1B Travis, 2B Estrada, DH Rightnowar, LF Georgiades, 3B Drury, RF Garrett, CF Slater, C Nelson, SS Munoz JAX: LF Lubanski, 2B Urias, SS Lopez, 1B Diaz, DH Cronenworth, 3B Mayo, RF Siani, CF Kemp, C Arada Reyes is new to Atlanta, but has pitched plenty in the AL with Cincinnati and Pittsburgh before that. He was called up from Gwinnett earlier in the week when Taylor Hearn was DFA'd. Hearn, for his part, is a former Anchor who pitched 92 games in his only year with our major league team; we sent him to Indianapolis in the deal that brought us Cronenworth. Both pitchers started well. While Thairo Estrada continued his hot streak with a base hit in the first with one out, that was the only hit either team would have until Kemp got Jacksonville on the hit board in the third. Rightnowar and Georgiades strung together two hits in the 4th to score a run, which the middle of our order took personally as they immediately responded with two on a homer by Cronenworth. A very early pinch-hitting appearance by Preston Paul, subbing for Munoz in the 5th, tied the game with a second RBI double. York was solid through 5, but didn't get an out in the 6th, leaving for Marco Ramirez with two runners on. Ramirez had been great, allowing just 2 runs all season to this point, but gave up two more here plus York's two runners. Marco struck out Drury, but Garrett drove in two with a hit, and later Ryan Gebhardt (another guy inserted into the #9 spot) drove in two more. Suddenly it was 6-2... But, we also knocked out Reyes before he could get an out in the 6th. With one on and one out, Coby Mayo delivered an RBI triple, and Siani hit Pat Urckfitz's next pitch for a two-run bomb, 434 feet on his first home run with the team, and back to a one-run game. Eury Ramos walked two Firebirds in the 7th but escaped by getting Garrett to fly out. Chris Lubanski came up after the stretch, and immediately tied the game with a homer off of Ty Adcock! What's better, we would add one more in the frame, as an error on Gebhardt at short eventually became another run on a double in the gap by Cronenworth. From there, the big guns and the defensive replacements came in, and Gunn & Pearson shut down Atlanta in the final two innings. 000 114 000 . 6 10 1 000 203 20x . 7 .7 0W: Eury Ramos (2-1) L: Ty Adcock (0-1) S: Nate Pearson (7) PotG: Jake Cronenworth - 2-4, 2B, HR(10), 3 RBI Kinda surprised we won this game, to be honest. Game 4 Justin Donatella (0-5, 8.33) vs. Hunter Greene (2-1, 6.83) ATL: 1B Travis, LF Georgiades, DH Rightnowar, 2B Estrada, RF Garrett, CF Slater, C Rindfleisch, 3B Gebhardt, SS Munoz JAX: LF Lubanski, 2B Urias, SS Lopez, 1B Diaz, RF Acuna, DH Cronenworth, CF Siani, 3B Alcantara, C Naylor A pair of two-out walks came back to bite Greene in the first, Garrett's triple scoring both of them. We cashed in an error by Munoz in the bottom of the first to cut that lead in half. After both teams went in order in the 2nd, Devon Travis hit his 10th homer leading off the third, and Gebhardt extended the lead in the 4th by driving in Garrett. It was always going to be one of these weird games with neither pitcher really putting up much resistance; when Diaz walked and Acuna singled in the bottom of the 4th, Cronenworth tied the game 4-4 by homering for the second day in a row, his 11th to match Diaz for the team lead. Greene was done after 5, but I'm fine with that and I'm guessing manager Agado is too. Donatella, however, did not finish the 5th, as Urias took him deep with two outs to give us the lead for the first time today! The Anchors bullpen shut things down from there, in a pretty low-stress way. Gunn, Ramirez, and Winckowski all threw scoreless frames, and we added single tallies in two more innings later on to give us a 3-run lead entering the 9th. With Pearson having recorded saves in the last two games, Agado handed the ball to the Rule 5er Tommy Doyle, who despite allowing the tying run to come to the plate, shut things down too. 201 100 000 . 4 .6 2 100 311 10x . 7 11 0W: Hunter Greene (3-1) L: Justin Donatella (0-6) S: Tommy Doyle (1) PotG: Aledmys Diaz - 3-3, 2B, RBI, 2 R, BB Good stuff. I was more scared of Atlanta than I probably needed to be. Elsewhere: April 29: Crescents SP David Price recorded his 250th win tonight in a 6-4 win over Cincinnati. Only three of those wins have been recorded in New Orleans blue; 104 were in the navy and red of the Dallas Titans, 133 in the Bronx with the Highlanders, where he also won a Cy Young and a ring in 2019, and 10 games were won in Washington last year.May 1: The Sails thumped the Saguaros 16-4 in Tucson on Friday night, with OF Hunter Renfroe drawing the biggest praise - he was 5-6 with a triple, two homers, and scored 4 times (a double shy of the cycle).May 2: A legend is hanging them up - Miguel Cabrera has announced he will retire at season's end. Cabrera is the all-time hit king in this simulation, with over 4300 of them, breaking Cal Ripken Jr.'s record last season. He also became MLB's all-time leader in games played earlier this season, surpassing A-Rod. He will be best remembered for his time in Austin and on the south side of Chicago, but has team-hopped to whoever will sign him in recent years - Minnesota, New Mexico, Vancouver, and now Buffalo. Outside of his rookie year, he has never played fewer than 150 games in a season. He has an outside chance to be the fourth player to hit 800 home runs - he will need 23 more to go with the 5 he has hit this season.May 2: Centurions 1B Chris Coghlan hits for the cycle in a 9-7 win over Detroit. His 3-run homer in the 4th inning was a big one, as it gave Cincinnati a 7-6 lead.May 2: One of the best individual offensive performances of the season thus far - Monarques LF Dylan Carlson was 5-5 with a double, a walk, and three home runs against the LA Palms in a 13-10 Montreal win in Anaheim. All three homers came with at least one man on base, giving him 7 RBI when he had a total of 9 in the previous 31 games.May 2:  It goes to show just how different a re-simulation can be - Justin Smoak of the Keystones hit his 600th home run on Saturday. This is not quite the achievement that we might think of it as, as he's the 43rd player to reach that milestone, but it's still a #@%!load of homers. If he does go into the Hall of Fame, Smoak will likely have a Dallas Titans logo on his hat.May 3: Waves SP Bobby Brunt is done for the season with a torn elbow ligament. He pitched against us a few weeks ago in what turned out to be an extra-inning win for Miami.May 3: And this is certainly the best team offensive performance of the season thus far. The San Francisco Seals destroyed a good St. Louis team in an interleague matchup, 22-5 at Oracle Park. This game generated three separate inbox messages for me for the three Seals who recorded 5-hit games. Scott Manea, a rare leadoff-hitting catcher, was 5-7 and drove in 3; hitting ahead of him was 5-6 SS Tristan Gray, who drove in 6 runs and scored 4 times, and the 39-year-old DH Lorenzo Cain was 6-6 with 5 RBI, including a 3-run homer. St. Louis also committed 5 errors in the game, including 2 by CF Joe Aeilts, and walked 6 batters.----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Given our opening two losses in Chicago, I hadn't foreseen this as a 4-3 week, so good job rebounding. The 1s and 0s that make up our Anchors are more resilient than I am, apparently. AL Standings:  Anchors' player of the week: DH Jake Cronenworth - 10-26, 4 HR, 10 RBI, 1.313 OPS Players of the week: NL: SP Walker Buehler - 2-0, 15 IP, 2 ER, 9 H, 12 K/0 BBAL: LF LaMonte Wade Jr. - 10-20, 5 HR, 13 RBI, 8 RCL: 3B David Fry - 10-23, 4 HR, 10 RBI, 8 RWL: DH Lorenzo Cain - 15-28, 3 HR, 13 RBIPower rankings: 5th of 60, down two spots from last week. Next week: we finish the homestand with three games against Pittsburgh, which finally concludes our stretch of 20 straight days with a game. We'll head up to Cleveland for a weekend set after that.
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Modern MLB expansion/rebrand logos and uniforms The Lokasi Elite League - fictional country, pro/rel pyramid Jacksonville Anchors - modern playthrough with 60 teams & 4 subleagues Last edited by Ruwisc; 06-04-2026 at 08:48 PM. |
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06-05-2026, 09:03 AM
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#16 |
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All Star Reserve
Join Date: Jul 2013
Location: southwestern Illinois
Posts: 813
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April recap
Anchors' record: 17-10 March: 2-3 April: 17-10 We nearly went the whole month without losing a series, before dropping two of three to the Blazers last week. Player of the month: CL Nate Pearson - 11 G, 0.47 ERA, 4 H in 19.1 IP, 26 K/10 BB. Not often that a reliever is in contention for these things but Pearson is one of the best out there. Also an early candidate to be our All-Star representative, as he has been the last three seasons before this one. End of April standings (a few days before the AL standings posted above)  Playoff bracket if the season ended now: NL: vs. , vs. AL: / vs. , vs.  CL: vs. , vs. WL: vs. , vs. Obviously, much will change, but I'm hoping our position does not - we currently hold the #1 seed in the Atlantic League, which would set us up with at least two rounds of home-field advantage. Monthly awards: Batters of the month: NL: RF Aaron Judge - .341, 9 HR, 27 RBI, 20 RAL: LF Tyler O'Neill - .360, 11 HR, 27 RBI, 23 RCL: LF Harold Ramirez - .436, 11 XBH, 12 RBIWL: 3B Alex Bregman - .326, 12 HR, 26 RBI, 23 RPitchers of the month: NL: Casey Kelly - 2-0, 6 GS, 2.09 ERA, 42 K/6 BBAL: Corbin Burnes - 6-0, 2.00 ERA, 46 K/5 BBCL: Anthony DeSclafani - 4-1, 2.43 ERA, 33.1 IP, 26 K/7 BB, .238 BAAWL: Jacob Johnson - 2-1, 6 GS, 30.2 IP, 1.76 ERA, 38 K/4 BBRookies of the month: NL: C Dakota Kovacs - .289, 3 2B, 9 HR, 20 RBIAL: DH Ronald Rightnowar - .415, 5 2B, 11 HR, 24 RBI, 21 RCL: LF Henry Mogavero - .457, 5 HR, 12 RBI, 16 RWL: SP Joshua Mickelson - 6 GS, 33 IP, 3.00 ERA, 31 K/9 BB
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06-06-2026, 07:42 PM
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#17 |
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Bat Boy
Join Date: Nov 2024
Posts: 5
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Really big fan of this series and the teams (Although I definitely disagree with a few of the expansion picks in here)
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06-12-2026, 01:01 AM
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#18 | |
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All Star Reserve
Join Date: Jul 2013
Location: southwestern Illinois
Posts: 813
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Quote:
May 4-10, 2026   May 4-6: Pittsburgh Barons (15-18) vs. Jacksonville Anchors (22-13) Pittsburgh is in last place, but it's a very tight AL North and they're actually just 3.5 back. They are slumping a bit, having lost 10 of their last 15 after a 10-8 start. They have played 20 games at home and just 13 on the road - this is the start of a 10-game road trip that will tie for their longest of the season. Many of Pittsburgh's stats are quite poor, but they do have a good bullpen and they keep the ball in the ballpark. If only they were any good defensively. Manager: Ryan Johansen (2nd year) Typical lineup: RF Jake McCarthy - CF Tyrone Taylor - SS Jeffrey McCracken DH Zach Neto - 3B Sweeny Dilmot - 2B Wilmer Difo LF J.B. Moss - C Caleb Carey - 1B Jedd Gyorko The fictional McCracken is Pittsburgh's best position player by a long shot, the only one who ranks in the top half of the positional power rankings. Johansen was also previously manager in Portland from 2018-22, having gotten that job at just 36 years of age (now 44). Game 1 Thomas Pannone (2-1, 3.80) vs. Justin Dunn (4-1, 2.35) PIT: RF McCarthy, CF Taylor, SS McCracken, DH Neto, 3B Wilmot, 2B Difo, LF Moss, C Carey, 1B Gyorko JAX: LF Lubanski, 2B Urias, SS Lopez, 1B Diaz, RF Acuna, DH Cronenworth, 3B Mayo, CF Siani, C Arada Pannone's ratings are terrible, but his results are good enough & have been for most of his career. His last win, a few weeks ago against Cincinnati, was the 90th of his career. That said, Urias greeted him rudely with a one-out home run in the first inning, his 6th of the year, the next four batters all singled to produce two more runs, and Mayo capped the rally by scoring a run on a groundout, 4-0 Anchors. Caleb Carey cut the lead in twain with a two-run homer off of Dunn, and then not much happened for a couple innings. After Urias singled with one out in the 5th, Pannone exited for Mike Lee, which turned out to be a mistake as Diaz doubled to score a run, two walks loaded the bases for Mayo, and he scored two more with a knock. Lopez added a run-scoring hit in the 6th against Tim Berry to make it 8-2. Justin Dunn seemed happy to exit at that point, handing the ball to the newest Anchors pitcher Jakob Hernandez. His third appearance for the team was by far his longest, as he went the rest of the way and retired 9 of the 10 batters he faced for a save the long way.  020 000 000 . 2 .5 0 400 031 00x . 8 12 0W: Justin Dunn (5-1) L: Thomas Pannone (2-2) S: Jakob Hernandez (1) PotG: Justin Dunn - 6 IP, 4 H, 2 R, 5 K/2 BB Game 2 Aaron Nola (1-3, 4.06) vs. Cal Quantrill (2-4, 5.17) PIT: RF McCarthy, CF Taylor, SS McCracken, DH Neto, 3B Wilmot, 2B Difo, LF Moss, C Carey, 1B Gyorko JAX: LF Lubanski, RF Acuna, 3B Urias, SS Lopez, DH Cronenworth, 1B Mayo, 2B Alcantara, C Arada, CF Kemp This will be one game where we definitely do not have the pitching advantage - Nola is about as good as we know him as, and a lifelong Baron. Both teams went in order in the first, and left a man on third base in the second. Leading off the 3rd, Quantrill plunked Gyorko with a 3-0 pitch, which was the start of a 3-run rally for Pittsburgh that ended in a Neto home run. Moss added a solo shot in the next inning to make it 4-0. The Anchors have made it clear that they don't quit, though; while we left two runners on in the 4th, we put two on the board in the 5th with RBIs for Lubanski and Urias. We were also able to knock Nola out of the game in the 6th, driving up his pitch count to over 100, with an ultimately fruitless double by Alcantara as the final blow. Quantrill surrendered one more run in the 7th, his final inning, on a sac fly from Taylor. Good timing for Pittsburgh, as Acuna's 7th homer of the season would have tied the game otherwise, but made it 5-4 Barons instead. It stayed that way until the lefty fireballing closer Ethan Small came on to close the game out. He has a propensity for wildness, which came out here with a walk to Kemp. He also went down 3-0 on Lubanski, before nicely battling back to strike him out, but walked Acuna on four pitches. On a 1-0 pitch to Urias, he finally gets one in the zone, but Ramon shoots it into the left-field corner, and two runners jet around the bases to walk the game off! 003 100 100 . 5 .8 0 000 020 202 . 6 10 0W: Dannysmel Tavarez (1-0) L: Ethan Small (3-1) PotG: Ramon Urias - 3-5, walkoff 2B, 3 RBI Did not think we were gonna get that one either. I don't normally have teams where the weakest part is the rotation - with the lineup and bullpen being fairly strong I guess that is going to lead to some comeback wins. One thing that is definitely working in our favor is a big strikeout differential - we have the third-most on the mound, and the third-fewest at the dish (and tops in the AL in both metrics). Game 3 Jake Arrieta (0-5, 9.73) vs. Trey Killian (3-1, 3.92) PIT: RF McCarthy, CF Taylor, SS McCracken, DH Neto, 3B Wilmot, 2B Difo, LF Moss, 1B Gyorko, C Fisher JAX: LF Lubanski, 2B Urias, 1B Diaz, RF Acuna, DH Cronenworth, 3B Mayo, CF Siani, SS Alcantara, C Arada Arrieta's ratings are OK, but his stats are obviously awful. Not sure if I've ever seen a WHIP above 2... He is in his first season with Pittsburgh, but is quite familiar to our organization as he's spent almost his entire career in the AL (Memphis 2009-16, Cleveland 2018-25) with only a single-season stop in Phoenix giving him experience outside our league. Despite his poor numbers, it was Killian that got roughed up today. The less said about this game, the better. 9 of Pittsburgh's 13 hits went for extra bases, including five home runs. We got a homer from Coby Mayo in the 2nd inning, but by that point it was already 5-0 and it got worse after that. 140 311 010 . 11 13 0 011 000 000 .. 2 .5 0W: Jake Arrieta (1-5) L: Trey Killian (3-2) S: Drew Pomeranz (1) PotG: Jeffrey McCracken - 3-5, 2B, HR(7), 5 RBI, 2 R This was Arrieta's 250th career win, meaning he's been shooting for that milestone in every start he's made this season. So no sweep of Pittsburgh, and we now head out on a nine-game road trip, our second-longest trip of the season. May 8-10: Jacksonville Anchors (24-14) vs. Cleveland Lakers (18-19) Despite their sub-.500 record, Cleveland is a scary team to visit. They have the second-best run differential in the AL, better than ours and only behind similarly-near-.500 Louisville. Their Pythagorean record is 21-16, which is also better than our 21-17. The Lakers were the AL's top seed a year ago, helped by a couple of former Anchors in Miguel Sano and Harrison Bader, but were upset in the first round by wild card New Orleans. Manager: Doug Johnson (2nd year) Typical lineup: CF Rafael Ortega - 2B Dom Nunez - LF Masataka Yoshida DH Kyle Higashioka - 1B Nathaniel Lowe - 3B Dickie Joe Thon RF Garrett Cooper - C Levi Cooke - SS Ruben Tejada Our old friend Sano is due to return from the IL on Saturday, which will certainly change this lineup. He broke his thumb on a hit-by-pitch against Charlotte on April 16. Somewhat surprising to me that that's only a three-week injury, but good for him I guess. Game 1 Hunter York (1-2, 3.81) vs. Jaime Garcia (2-4, 4.43) JAX: CF Siani, 2B Urias, SS Lopez, 1B Diaz, RF Acuna, DH Cronenworth, 3B Mayo, C Arada, LF Kemp CLE: CF Ortega, 2B Nunez, LF Yoshida, DH Higashioka, 1B Lowe, 3B Thon, RF Cooper, C Cooke, SS Tejada Garcia is the biggest surprise so far, I think, in terms of "wow, this guy's still kicking around". He is in his 20th MLB season, but first in the AL, following extended stays in Omaha (2007-13), Boston (2014-17), and Oklahoma (2018-25). He is likely a hall of famer, with over 250 career wins, a Cy Young award in 2019, and will probably get his 4000th strikeout this year. Siani opened the game with a walk, and Urias hit Garcia's 1-0 pitch down the third-base line for a quick RBI double, though Urias had to dangle himself as an easy out at third to get the run home. That made Diaz's 12th home run of the year a solo shot, but still we found ourselves up 2-0. The Lakers similarly had their first two batters reach, but York was able to shut them down including strikeouts of Yoshida and Lowe. In the top of the 2nd, we somehow walked away with nothing after having the bases loaded, no out. Popup, strikeout, lazy fly ball. Things were quiet until the 4th, when Mayo doubled the lead with a two-run shot, his 6th, and 4 singles and a balk produced another three runs in the 5th to end Garcia's night. York had settled in quite nicely, and didn't allow his second hit on the night until the 6th inning. He left after 5.1 innings, after giving up one run on a fielder's choice to Yoshida. Josh Winckowski came on to pitch the final 3 2/3 innings, in contrast to his usual 8th inning role, and retire all 11 batters he faced for a save the hard way. We picked away quite nicely at the Cleveland bullpen, picking up RBI hits for Kemp in the 7th, Diaz in the 8th, and Siani in the 9th. 200 230 121 . 11 17 0 000 001 000 .. 1 .3 1W: Hunter York (2-2) L: Jaime Garcia (2-5) S: Josh Winckowski (1) PotG: Coby Mayo - 3-5, 2B, HR(6), 2 RBI, 2 R Balanced production all through - everyone had at least one hit, and everyone but Lopez had an RBI. Game 2 Hunter Greene (3-1, 6.89) vs. Eric Pardinho (2-1, 3.03) JAX: LF Lubanski, 2B Urias, SS Lopez, 1B Diaz, RF Acuna, DH Cronenworth, 3B Mayo, CF Siani, C Arada CLE: CF Ortega, 2B Thon, LF Yoshida, 3B Sano, 1B Lowe, DH Higashioka, RF Cooper, C Cooke, SS Tejada Pardinho, a former top-10 prospect, hasn't quite put it together yet, but is off to a pretty good start. Underlying numbers look good... Both pitchers started well. Pardinho faced the minimum through three, with the benefit of a double play, and while Greene allowed three baserunners in that timeframe it didn't cost him. But the 4th inning was quite different. Lubanski started things with a walk, before Urias was plunked by the next pitch. Diaz came through with an RBI hit, and then with two out the runs rained down. Cronenworth drew a walk to load the bases, before Coby Mayo homered for the third straight game, a grand slam! Not done yet either, as Siani and Arada combined for another run on a single and double, before Lubanski finally made the third out. 6-0 Anchors! The party was short-lived. Sano led off the 4th inning with a bomb to dead center, and Lowe made it back-to-back on back-to-back pitches. A few batters later, Cooke took Greene deep as well, and after a sleepy first three innings it was suddenly 6-4. At least the lengthy rally had forced Pardinho out of the game, as he didn't come out for the fifth. Greene made it a bit further, but perhaps one batter too long; with two out, Cooper singled, and when we replaced Greene with Gunn, it made no difference to Cooke, who hit his second two-run homer of the game to tie it. No-decisions for both starters. The later innings were relatively sleepy; Gunn, Ramos, and Ramirez combined to retire the next 7 batters they faced, & while we got two men on against Hector Rondon in the 7th it was nothing in the end. It was only against the Cleveland closer, Steven Inch, that we made waves; Sergio Alcantara pinch-hit for Arada and singled, and Lubanski's double put two men in scoring position with no out. Inch got Urias to pop up, but on a 1-2 pitch, Nicky Lopez reached out the other way, and put a bloop hit just out of the reach of Yoshida and Sano, to score two go-ahead runs! Pearson, having not pitched in a week, came on for an easy 1-2-3 save. 000 600 002 . 8 11 0 000 402 000 . 6 .6 0W: Marco Ramirez (1-0) L: Steven Inch (1-1) S: Nate Pearson (8) PotG: Levi Cooke - 2-3, 2 HR(6), 4 RBI Game 3 Justin Dunn (5-1, 2.42) vs. Steve Johnson (1-2, 5.50) JAX: LF Lubanski, 2B Urias, SS Lopez, 1B Diaz, RF Acuna, DH Cronenworth, 3B Mayo, CF Siani, C Arada CLE: CF Ortega, 2B Nunez, LF Yoshida, 3B Sano, 1B Lowe, DH Thon, RF Cooper, C Cooke, SS Tejada Johnson, a 37-year-old journeyman, somehow managed to convince the Lakers brass to guarantee him 3 years and $36 million, significantly more than the combined earnings from his entire career to this point. Not a great contract. Still, he slowed us down in the early going. Our first good opportunity came in the 3rd, when Siani led off with a hit, stole second, and was balked to third. But the others couldn't do anything about it, and he was left there. Dunn left runners on the corners in the first, but the second time around the lineup he did get burned, giving up a solo homer to Ortega, just his 2nd of the year. The Anchors got to Johnson in the 4th inning for a 4-spot, with an RBI double from Diaz, and a homer by Siani, but Cleveland got two back on a home run by Cooper to make it 4-3, then the floodgates opened in the fifth. A total of 7 hits, a walk, and a hit by pitch produced eight runs for the Lakers, five of which were charged to Dunn and three to Jakob Hernandez. While two more RBI for Siani in the 6th made it a bit closer, we couldn't muster any more against the Lakers' bullpen. 000 402 000 .. 6 10 0 001 280 00x . 11 13 0W: Steve Johnson (2-2) L: Justin Dunn (5-2) PotG: Rafael Ortega - 4-5, 2B, 2 HR(3), 4 RBI, 3 R Ortega was the league's #1 star on the night, while Michael Siani (3-3, HR, 4 RBI) was the #3 star. Elsewhere: May 8: A World Series rematch took place this weekend, with the champions Austin visiting the defending AL champions in Memphis. On Friday, the balanced attack of the Lions was able to outweigh the 5-hit barrage from Austin's Yasiel Puig, who singled in every odd-numbered inning of the game.May 8: The Kansas City Mohawks became the first team this season with a double-digit win streak, beating Philadelphia on Friday for their 10th straight. The streak also included a sweep of El Paso and a perfect road trip through Minnesota and Phoenix. They would eventually sweep the Keystones to reach 12 games won in a row, taking over the mantle as the top team in baseball right now.May 9: Spirits LF Aman Prevost is the latest to join the 5-hit parade, though he was hardly alone as St. Louis had 20 hits in their 9-2 win over New Mexico. SS Corey Seager had 4 hits that all went for extra bases.----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- So, it's a 4-2 week with a pair of series wins. Can never really complain too much about that. AL Standings:  Anchors' player of the week: 3B Coby Mayo - 10-22, 3 HR, 11 RBI, 1.367 OPS Players of the week: NL: RF Aaron Judge - 11-22, 4 2B, 3 HR, 7 RBIAL: LF Josh Rojas - 14-24, 4 HR, 9 RBI, 9 RCL: CF Joc Pederson - 11-23, 4 HR, 14 RBIWL: C Will Smith - 6-14, 6 XBH, 5 RBI, 1.744 OPSPower rankings: 4th (up one spot) Next week: we continue our road trip with a pair of interleague series, playing a WL opponent for the first time in Oakland, then returning to Chicago (but this time at Wrigley). |
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Ronald Bolanos
