The IBL's Chicago Iron Pigs

[gehrig38]

I'm predicting a Green Bay/Pittsburgh World Series. I want to say the Blizzard are going to steamroll from here, going 8-1 or 8-2, but Pittsburgh's pitching seems to be hitting their stride at the exact moment you want your SP to get on a roll. But I will go Green Bay to win it all, in 6 games.

GAME 1

Frontier League

Green Bay Blizzard-Kirby Dean (1-0 3.68)
@
Arizona Greyhounds-Gabriel Pimentel (1-0 3.2)

Green Bay, down 4-2 entering the 7th, scored 8 times in over the final 3 led by 3B Scott Rolen's 5-6 day. Rolen singled 4 times and hit his 1st post season homer, driving in 2. Chase Utley went 3-5 with 3 RBI's, Josh Hamilton hit his 1st homer and Andruw Jones went 2-5 with 2 doubles and 2 RBI's in the Blizzards 10-5 win. Jesus Gonzalez went 2-3 with 3 RBI's in the loss.
Green Bay 10 Arizona 5
W K Dean (2-0) L Pimentel (1-1) S R Lopez (1)
HR GB Rolen (1) Hamilton (1)
Green Bay leads the series 1-0

Coastal League

Pittsburgh Bulldogs-Ramon Roa (1-0 0.00)
@
Sacramento River Cats-Joel Downs (0-1 3.52)

Paul Reeves 6th inning grand slam broke a 1-1 tie and propelled the Bulldogs to an 8-3 win in the LCS opener. Ramon Roa punched out 10 over 7 innings as Joel Downs gave up 6 in 5.1IP.
Pittsburgh 8 Sacramento 3
W Roa (2-0) L Downs (0-2)
HR PIT Reeves (2) McCabe (2) SAC J White (1)
Pittsburgh leads 1-0

[gehrig38]

GAME 2's

Frontier League

Green Bay Blizzard-Matt Freestone (0-0 7.50)
@
Arizona Greyhounds-John Graham (0-0 3.38)

John Graham tossed 7 shutout innings, giving up just 3 hits and Andres Romero hit 4th inning grand slam to account for all the scoring in the game. Graham would throw a 7-3-0-0-2-1 line for the W. Matt Fresstone tossed a CG, going 8-5-4-4-1-7 on 94 pitches in the loss.
Arizona 4 Green Bay 0
W Graham (1-0) L Freestone (0-1)
HR AZ Romero (1)
Series tied 1-1

Coastal League

Pittsburgh Bulldogs-Vincent Bray (1-1 4.50)
@
Sacramento River Cats-Mike Davis (1-0 1.35)

Vasco Pitzi (SAC) hit a 2 out 2 run homer in the 4th to break a 1-1 tie and Mike Davis combined with 4 River Cat relievers on a 4 hitter as Sacramento evened the series at 1 apiece. Vincent Bray went 7.1-8-4-4-2-7 in the loss.
Sacramento 4 Pittsburgh 1
W Davis (2-0) L Bray (1-2) S Gonzales (3)
HR SAC Pitzi (2)
Series tied at 1-1

[gehrig38]

Game 3's

Frontier League

Arizona Greyhounds-Alfredo Alejandrez (0-1 9.00)
@
Green Bay Blizzard-Grant Thomas (0-0 1.93)

Scott Rolen went 3-4, drove in a run and scored twice on the same day he agreed to a 4 year 60M dollar contract extension. The Blizzard broke open a 4-3 game with a 4 run 7th to take a 2-1 series lead. Carl Crawford went 3-5 with a single, double and triple, stolen base and scored 3 times and Chase Utley hit a solo homer in the 9-3 win. Arturo Olivo went 3-5 in the loss.
Green Bay 9 Arizona 3
W G Thomas (1-0) L Alejandrez (0-2)
HR GB Utley (2)
Green Bay leads the series 2-1

Coastal League

Sacramento River Cats-Esteban Valdez (1-0 1.00)
@
Pittsburgh Bulldogs-Vincente Castillo (0-0 3.52)

Sacramento got 3 in the 2nd and 3 in the 3rd and Esteban Valdez went 8 and gave up just 3 earned runs. Chris Darcy went 3-5 with a solo homer and Julio Gonzales saved his 4th of the post season.
Sacramento 6 Pittsburgh 3
W Valdez (2-0) L Castillo (0-1) S Gonzales (4)
HR SAC Darcy (1) S Miller (1)
Sacramento leads the series 2-1

[gehrig38]

Game 4's

Frontier League

Arizona Greyhounds-Gabriel Pimentel (1-1 5.79)
@
Green Bay-Kirby Dean (2-0 4.30)

Andruw Jones and Todd Helton homered, Scott Rolen went 3-4 and Kirby Dean won his 3rd game of the post season as Green Bay held on for a 5-4 win in front of 42, 533 screaming Blizzard fans.
Green Bay 5 Arizona 4
W Dean (3-0) L Pimentel (1-2) S Herreva (4)
HR GB Helton (2) A Jones (1)
Green Bay leads the series 3-1

Coastal League

Sacramento River Cats-Joel Downs (0-2 6.23)
@
Pittsburgh Bulldogs-Glen Harvey (1-0 2.70)

Jorge Ortiz went 3-4 with a double and an RBI and Lance Berkman was 2-4 with HR as Sacramento, after trailing 2-1 in the 3rd, scored 8 unanswered runs to take a 3-1 series lead over Pittsburgh.
Sacramento 9 Pittsburgh 3
W Downs (1-2) L Harvey (1-1)
HR SAC Berkman (2) PIT Holmes (1)
Sacramento leads the series 3-1

[gehrig38]

GAME 5's

Frontier League

Arizona Greyhounds-Will Davidson (0-0 0.00)
@
Green Bay Blizzard-Matt Freestone (0-1 5.79)

Green Bay is heading to its first World Series after scoring 7 runs in the 4th inning and holding on to beat Arizona 9-6. Chase Utley (3) John Porter (1) and Andruw Jones homered, Utley and Jones hitting 3 run shots. Carl Crawford doubled and stole 2 bases and Francisco Herreva saved his 5th game by getting the final 3 outs.
Green Bay 9 Arizona 6
W Freestone (1-1) L Davidson (0-1) S Herreva (5)
HR GB Porter (1) A Jones (2) Utley (3)
Green Bay wins the series 4-1
SERIES MVP-Chase Utley 7-17 2B, 2 HR's 8 RBI's

Coastal League

Sacramento River Cats-David Powell (1-0 3.72)
@
Pittsburgh Bulldogs-Ramon Roa (2-0 2.03)

Sacramento will be heading to its 2nd World Series in 7 years, and first as a Coastal League champion, after hitting 3 home runs and having Dave Powell and Bill Barlow combine on a 4-hitter. Powell actually tossed 6.1 no hit innings before being pulled with a 9-0 lead.
Sacramento 9 Pittsburgh 1
W Powell (2-0) L Road (2-1)
HR PIT J Ortiz (3) P Peters (1) S Miller (2)
Sacramento wins the series 4-1
SERIES MVP Chris Darcy 9-20 3 Runs 3 2B's 1 HR 5 RBI's

[gehrig38]

A look at the 2018 team pages for the League Champions.

[gehrig38]

Extra innings, and a great finish.

[gehrig38]

Another extra inning game, and by extra I mean EXTRA!

[Orcin]

Holy cow! Fourteen innings followed by twenty-one innings the next day... do the pitchers still have arms attached?

[gehrig38]

Game 3, only 9 innings...

[gehrig38]

This ones going 7...

[gehrig38]

Another extra inning game. FWIW I would consider, and I think most others would, a Sacramento win to be a huge upset. I didn't think they'd have a chance at this. Not to mention Green Bay will be the first true WC to win it all.

[gehrig38]

And we're headed to a 7th game...

[gehrig38]

Green Bay Blizzard (Kirby Dean 4-0 4.71)
@
Sacramento (Joel Downs (1-3 7.50)


Andruw Jones hits an RBI ground out and Josh Hamilton drives in Scott Rolen with an RBI single in a 2 run Green Bay 1st.

And the game remains 2-0 through 3 full innings.

Sherwoood Miller gets the first Sacramento hit, a 4th inning triple, and Howard Mathis doubles him in. 2 outs later Chris Darcy's RBI ground out ties the game.

Jorge Ortiz (SAC) drills a 2 out double scoring Kevin Cramer to give the River Cats a 3-2 lead after 5 innings.

In the 6th Sacramento gets a 2 run single from Brent Hopper to open up a 5-2 after 6.

Darcy, in the bottom of the 8th, extends the lead with a solo homer. Sacramento then ends all doubt, scoring 7 more times to rout Green Bay 13-2, and win their first IBL World Series Title.

World Series MVP
Esteban Valdez 0-0 1.06 17 IP 16 H 2 BB 17 K's

[gehrig38]

Sacramento River Cats

[gehrig38]

Brooklyn Owner passes, son to take over the franchise.
Brooklyn Cyclones owner Juan Fernandez passed away today, and son Kevin will now assume control of the Cyclones franchise. Brooklyn has made the post season 2 times in the past 7 seasons, and missed, by a 163rd game loss, the post season this year. Kevin is reportedly a tolerant guy but very controlling of the financial side of things.

Season ending personel changes, expiring contracts.

Manager Jared Smith and pitching coach Pete Hardin’s contracts are up. There is no middle ground for Smith, he’s looking for 1.5M or more. 62 year old bench coach Art Mcpherson has been offered and accepted the job for the 2019 season. The plan is to hand the reigns to Hitting coach Ron Glass in the next year or two, depending on how long Art wants to manage. Both are outstanding baseball men.

General Manager news:
1) Michigan has fired Nick White as their GM. Coming from El Paso in 2017 his teams managed a 143-181 record the past 2 years.
2) Alaska fired Ted Johnston. After coming from Dayton in 2015 the Avalanche made the playoffs in 2016 but have won 90/83/73 games over the 3 seasons Johnston’s been the GM.
3) LA fired GM Juan Castillo after their 77-85 last place finish.

Manager news:
Dallas fired Manager Antonio Lopez after 2 seasons of 65 and 66 wins. The Texans have made moves to get much stronger on the field and I’m guessing the ‘rebuilding’ mentality is now out the door, with the manager.

[gehrig38]

Made some adjustments in the Koufax award, Had Perkins winning, I thought Roa's season was much more deserving. Bray could have won another as well. Bulldogs have 1-2 in the Koufax, Rookie of the year in Shook and Rivera award winner in Boswell. That's a good staff. Angelo Gomez wins the Aaron award in the Coastal, the 2nd season after winning it in the Frontier.

[gehrig38]

A look at the business side of this franchise.

[gehrig38]

Salary Arbitration:
We are working on some potential deals with arbitration guys, I’d really like to get some room in the operating budget to increase the dollars committed to player development, and still keep a world series contender on the field,bBut 2 things are clear, we will not resign Walt Thompson, but will offer him arbitration, and 1B Miguel Deleon’s 2.6M arb # means he’ll be packaged in some sort of deal.

Chicago gets top IBL prospect in 5 player trade...

26 year old 1B Miguel Deleon will now head back to Buffalo, where he spent the past year and a half before coming over in a trade. Deleon is either the most unliked, or under-appreciated player in the IBL. My guess is the latter. He had a 209 hit season for the Bulldogs in 2017, but was then pushed into a platoon/reserve role, before being traded to Buffalo where he was also a utility, bench, backup, playing in just 104 games in 2 years. His issue? He has no real position, and he’s the slowest player, by a wide margin, in the league. He’s just 26, left handed, and a durable guy who’s a team leader. I wasn't going to take on his arbitration case, because win or lose it’s a 2 million plus outlay for a guy that will spend the year in AAA. So I shopped around, and landed on 20 year old Andy Morgan. Andy’s a 20 year old 6’3” 205 pound right handed starting pitcher, who just so happens to be the IBL’s #6 rated prospect. He was the New York Knights #1 draft choice (8th overall) in 2016, and was dealt to Buffalo that same year for SP JR Robinson. My scouts love him, an ace arm and makeup. He’s a year or two from being IBL ready, but his fastball is now hitting triple digits, often. The price was not light. Besides OF Troy Becker, 26 year old SP Jesus Estrada and Deleon, we had to let go of our 2nd pick next year, and one of the original Iron Pigs, catcher Eric Hudson. The pick is ok, as we’ll get compensation for Walt Thompson when he signs, and Martin Ramirez is ready to assume backup duties in the big leagues as a catcher so we felt we could afford the pieces we needed to get the deal done. With Morgan headed to Belleview, we now have 4 4-5 star prospects pitching in A ball next year, or starting there anyway. The 40 man roster is at 31 players, with 3 on the DL, so we’ll have room for the Rule 5.

[gehrig38]

11/10
Pittsburgh adds an all star:
The Bulldogs acquired 33 year old 4 time all star and 2 time gold glove winner Mario Orosco from the Staten Island Yankees for 3B Pedro Ramos and 20 year old OF prospect Gary Garrett. Orosco is 4th all time in OBP in the IBL at .421 over 1018 IBL games. He’s a career .301 hitter with 1130 hits, 261 doubles, 56 3B’s and 50 HR’s. He’s signed through the 2019 season. Ramos is a career .212/.321/.370 hitter with 56 HR’s in 440 IBL games. Garrett was the Bulldogs 4th rounder in 2016 out of Chester HS, Chester PA. He’s a big power, speed OF prospect.

11/11
Manged to ink PC Bob Hill to take over the Chicago staff. He’s spent the past 7 years as the PC in Staten Island. He’s an excellent teacher and handles players of all ages exceptionally well. Ironically Pete Hardin has signed on with Staten Island to be their PC.

11/16
Jared Smith was named Manager of the Year (actually there’s a game bug that named my NEW manager, manager of the year instead of the Manager that actually managed the team) for 2018. He’s signed a 5 year deal to manage the El Paso Diablos.

11/25
Jake Ellison asked 2.656M, we offered 2.1M, player won
John Johnston asked 1.005M, we offered 650K, team won
Dave Winston asked 2.75M, we offered 2.2M, team won
Mike Moore asked 2.862M, we offered 2.2M, player won

11/27
Walt Thompson, as expected, declined arbitration and filed for free agency.