History Campaign - All the way from 1871

[TheEquinox]

Welcome to my new career game!
Taking the route all the way from 1871 to present day!

Note: I've been posting these in the blog system so far, but as that seems to be quite buggy and I was adviced to post here instead, I'm going to move the blog entries to a forum thread here.

I just started a new historical game in 1871, taking control of the Boston Red Stockings as GM+Manager.

I'll post about 2-3 blog entries per season, one displaying the final pro roster after trades are made and the new season starts, one after the regular season and before the playoffs (if any) and one at the end of each season.

Additionally, I might post another entry if anything significant happens, like a major trade in mid season or some bad injury and the like.

I'm not going to write in a roleplaying style with fictional interviews and such, I'll focus on the game, my strategy and the development of the league over time instead.

I hope you enjoy this blog and any feedback is welcome.

So, let's get started. The game is set up and this is what the Boston Red Stockings look like:



Empty - right. We're going to start with an inaugural draft before the first season.

We start out in the National League as one of four teams, facing four more teams in the American League.

Here's the initial league setup:




I'll get the draft done and post an update with the initial rosters.

[TheEquinox]

Alright, the draft went alright, there's an excessive amount of quality batters but almost no useful pitchers.

Especially Starting Pitchers don't seem to exist in 1871, basically all pitchers are Relievers or Closers. A 1-man rotation seems to be standard, so I just picked the reliever with the most stamina and made him the #1 Starting Pitcher.

All in all, I think the pitching staff is terrible compared to the other teams, which is going to hurt in this season.

But see for yourself, here's the pitching staff (no idea why that 3B and RF are listed there, just ignore them):



Santiago seems to be the only quality pitcher which should be worth keeping for a while. The rest will have to be replaced by better people as soon as possible.

As for the batters, I think the team looks pretty solid so far:



Some of these younger guys should probably spend a few seasons in the minors, but they're the best I could get, so they'll have to be pros right away. The starters are pretty nice however.

I realized there's basically no player with a contact rating >50 (out of 100), so it's going to be interesting to see if these guys will hit a lot. And they probably will, because as I said before, the pitchers of this era are even more terrible...

Meet the Boston Red Stockings 1871:



Upper half in the rankings for every position except LF - looks like the initial season could turn out really well. My owner just wants me to end it with a positive win-loss result, which should definately be doable with this lineup.

Another thing worth mentioning is the staff situation. I'm starting out with a good pitching coach, but for the other staff positions, there's almost nobody available. Just 2-3 Unproven people with no experience on the staff market. Looks like only luck will determine if I sent my contract offers to the right people, who will develop into the next coaching legends.

So much for now, now I'm curious to see how the season will go

[TheEquinox]

Hey there,

I'm back with the mid-season standings and some interesting developments.

First of all, there's something to celebrate in the first MLB season for the National League:



Wohoo, a narrow 9-8 win in the Allstars game! Some dude from Chicago picked up the MVP award, but there were sever Boston players involved as well:



With Treacey (LF), Malone (C/DH), Bechtel (RF/DH), Meyerle (3B), Birchfield (3B), Uribe (2B), Reach (1B) and Pitcher Santiago, eigth Boston players appeared in the Allstar game - this is very nice and will certainly boost their popularity quite a bit!

Other than that, the season went surprisingly well so far. In the MLB preseason predictions, Boston was put on the last place in the National League, with an estimated 14-16 record.

This is how the standinds turned out so far:



Quite okay so far, I'd say. Fortunately my owner thinks the same. He's quite happy with the team's performance so far.

Especially the pitchers are doing much better than expected, but see yourself:



I tried around a bit, Santiago was doing fine initally but then blew a game up big time, so I tried some of the others.

As it turns out now, Santiago and Ring will be the main starters for now.

After all, I think I have way too many pitchers in my roster. There's only just a game every week, so I don't really need that many people for the rotation. But for the rest of the season, they'll have to stay where there are, because there are no more useable rookies ready to be pulled up to the Majors left.

Speaking of rookies, I just made some adjustments to the Major League Roster. Some of my young dudes developed really well in the Minors, so they got a promotion.

Here's the batting staff for the second half of the season:



Four nice new outfielders which developed from 1 or 1,5 stars to 2,5 to 4 stars within half a season. Especially Bellan seems like a nice player, he can hopefully jump in for Treacey quite regularly.

Guzman and Lane are players which had some slight development in the minors and somehow they ended up with paid contracts. I don't know how, maybe my owner gave those contracts to them. Whatever, they weren't worse than the two guys they replace, so if they take a paycheck home with them, at least I want to see them deliver something for the money.

At the end, I'd like to take a closer look at our top-performers so far. Two players did exceptionally well in the first half of the season. Let's have a look at them.

The first guy to mention is Levi 'Long Levi' Meyerle.



His contact rating grew very quickly throughout the season and he managed to bat with an AVG of .5 - which is topping both leagues by a mile. If this guy goes on like this, the young MLB might end up with it's first superstar pretty soon.

The second guy worth mentioning here is 'English Dynamite' Al Reach on 2nd base:



Nowhere near Meyerlein's stats of course, but he's still batting a remarkable .438 AVG so far and he leads the league in RBIs by a mile.

If I look at his player profile, I wonder why I picked him in the 4th round of the draft. He's old, he's english (no offense) and his ratings aren't overwhelming. Well, whatever I thought when I picked him up, I guess it was a lucky pick!

Last but not least: Which image sizes do you guys prefer? I scaled most of the pictures down to 1024x768, but I guess some number-heavy screens will be quite unreadable at that size. When I use the original image size, it seems like the post is messed up in the end. I wish there was some kind of a thumbnail function here, but I guess I'll just keep going and see if anyone has a suggestion.

As always: Comments/Feedback welcome.

[TheEquinox]

The first season in Major League Baseball history has come to an end.

While the Baltimore Canaries built up a large lead in the American League early on, the National League decision was open until the last game.

Here are the results of the 1871 regular season:



Boston lost the National League in the last two weeks of the season with two losses against a strong Chicago team.

Sadly, an injury stopped Al Reach just weeks before the regular season end, which proved to be a huge loss. In the end he even lost his 12 RBI lead in the leaderboards to Chicago's Catcher Cal McVey.

It's a shame to lose the league so narrowly, but all in all I think I'm fine with these results. We fulfilled our owner's goal and we proved the preseason predictions wrong. There's still plenty of time for our youngsters to reach their full potential and to grab some silverware for the Red Stockings.

And those youngsters are really great already. A look at the National League Leaderboards proves this:



Have a look at Levi Meyerle's AVG. His contact rating is now almost maxed out at 96/100 with an Avoid K's of 94/100. Imagine what he can do when he starts with these ratings in game one of the new season!

However, there is one player in the league which did even better. Sadly, he's not in my franchise, but who says we can't at least try to get him for the new season?



A triple crown in the first MLB season is certainly worth mentioning. I'm pretty sure Al Pratt will be on the radar for just about every team in the league, so it will be interesting to see where he'll end up for the 1872 season! He's particularly interesting for Boston, as our pitching performances seemed to be a major problem this season.

But a triple crown hero doesn't necessary mean you'll also rock the playoffs. A lesson Chicago had to learn the hard way:



Ladies and Gentlemen, applaud the first MLB champion in history: The Baltimore Canaries!

The 4-2 series victory over the Chicago White Stockings was a well deserved result after they dominated the American League pretty heavily.

Chicago Catcher Cal McVey picking up the World Series MVP honors won't be more than a small comfort for Chicago.

This ends the 1871 season, stay tuned for the 1872 roster changes!

[TheEquinox]

Okay, long and picture heavy post coming up now. Several key trades and some nice captures in the draft which I think are worth mentioning.

I'll make a separate post for the final roster at the start of the 1872 season.

Okay, let's get started.

First trade was made right after the end of the 1871 Playoffs. And it was a big one:



Our englishman and RBI-hunter Al Reach was shipped to the champions from Baltimore in exchange for star-LF John Cotton and two prospects.

I had trouble agreeing to this deal because of Reach's top-performance in the last season, but if you factor in Reach's age and our own lack of a good LF, I just had to take this.

Fan-reaction was quite bad, Reach was one of their favourites after his RBI-hunt last year, but I hope they'll get over it once Cotton starts to produce for us.

And here is Boston's new star-outfielder:



Following this trade, I spent the rest of the postseason in trying to find a good starting pitcher, because we don't really have anyone in this crucial position.

Sadly, this turned into a mission impossible. None of the other teams wanted to even trade a mediocre SP for less than half my roster - probably because there still aren't many 'real' SPs around.

Then the draft pool was announced and I spotted this guy:



As a rookie, he's the second best SP in the baseball world right away. I badly wanted to get him, but Boston was only 5th in the draft order, and he was picked up as 4th pick by Cincinatti

I checked the draft pool again, and realized there were only two SPs in the pool. As Cy here was picked by our rivals from Cincinatti, I decided to take the other one, even though he's not nearly as good:



At least, we got a real SP in our team now, and he certainly has potential. I'll put him on #1 of the 1-man rotation right away. I understand it's a tough ask for the young guy to headline the team from his 1st day in MLB, but what choice do I have?

The next gap in the roster, I had to deal with was the 2B position. After Reach's departure, there wasn't much left here, so I wanted to get another top performer in.

I found him in Dick Higham, who had a +0.4 AVG season in Cleveland last year. Luckily, Cleveland didn't want anyone I would have missed, so it's a done deal:



They requested Robbie Martinez, which we had gotten as a prospect in the previous John Cotton deal, and Jim Brooks a 1/4 star right fielder from our A-Level minor league team. The two other guys we got aren't really worth mentioning. I think this was a good deal for us, we got a top 2B and they got two prospects which will have to be developed first.

So, say welcome to the latest Boston Soon-to-be-legend Dick Higham:



He lacks a bit in quickness and isn't a great defender, but he can be used as catcher as well (another gap in our roster) and is a premium batter. I think he fits perfectly into our lineup.

Last but not least, there's another deal worth mentioning here. Our 35 y.o. backup SS developed into a 4.5 / 4.5 stars 1B last season, so there wasn't a backup for Uribe on the SS position anymore.

This is why I decided to take this trade offer from Brooklyn:



Our roster was a bit crowded by good RFs, and Burd was the worst of them, so this wasn't a difficult decison to make. I'm not sure why Burd is ranked #47 prospect to be honest, I was only my 4th best RF. Anyways, Dickie will be a good backup for Uribe, and I'm happy with this trade:



This guy is really quick and a base-stealing kind of player. Not really the kind of player which fits into our gameplan/strategy in Boston, but it can't be wrong to have a couple of those in the roster as well. We'll see if he will be able to develop into a starting lineup player.

This concludes the trades and acquisitions for the upcoming season. I'll post the final 1872 Boston roster in the next blog entry.

Would love to read what people think about these trades, so feel free to comment.

[TheEquinox]

Here's another quick post, still related to the 1871 season.

I forgot to add the season awards to my 1871 season wrap up, so here we go.

Here's the Platinum Sticks:



Levi grabbing the award for the 3B position isn't really a surprise. As the best AVG hitter in the young MLB history, this was a no-brainer. However, it's a little sad, he was the only one in our team who was honored here. Something which will hopefully change in the next season!

Great Glove:



As it seems, it's not just Levi's broad bat which makes him an exceptional player, he also seems to have a big glove on his hand! Again, I was a little surprised we didn't have more of those.

League MVP:



Levi came in second here, which is a great achievement! Chicago's George Hall is a somewhat surprising choice here. He's batted a +0.4 AVG, yes, but Levi was close to +0.46! But okay, this way Levi's still got some title left to capture for the future, I guess this will be good for his motivation. At least I hope so

And now the biggest surprise, I really hadn't expected that:



John Stewart (not my real name btw.) picking up the NL's skipper of the year is really strange. Of course I feel honored, but I can't really understand what qualified myself over Chicago's manager. I'm not going to complain, as I'm sure this will lead to some extra-trust by my owner. So hopefully he won't fire me straight away in a bad season.

That's it, next time I'll include these in the season wrap-up post.

[TheEquinox]

Hello there,

Opening Day is here and the final rosters are set up. Let's take a look at the changes. First of all, the new pitching staff:



I decided to send about half of our RPs back to the minor system, as 1-man rotations are still common in the MLB and with just one game every 1 or 2 weeks, we certainly don't need so many different pitchers. Whether or not the new season is going to be successful will greatly depend on new draft signing Candy Cummings. Let's hope the young man will be able to gel into MLB baseball quickly...

One of the guys which I sent back to AAA is Mike Edmunds. He served as one of the RPs last season, and it seems like he has a decent potential of becoming a regular SP as well. So I'm going to give him some regular pitching time in AAA and will hope he can develop into a second option that way:



Let's move on to the batting staff for the upcoming season:



The first thing to mention is our problem on the catcher position. Fergy Malone was an all-star last season but he dropped from 4.5 stars to 3 stars. It seems like his actual ratings didn't change much, so the new rating is probably based on the other catchers in the MLB which seem to have improved quite a bit. I'll have to keep an eye on this and if Fergy can't keep up this season, we'll have to bring someone else in sooner or later.

On the 1B position, we have quite some kind of a luxury problem. I'll probably stick with Joe Start as the #1 on this position, mainly due to his Contact rating, but it's good to know we have quality alternatives here. With Dickey Pearce switching from SS to 1B due to his age, and new minor league upstart Santos Coro this position is perfectly covered.

As mentioned before, the 2B position will be covered by new signing Dick Higham after the departure of englishman Al Reach in the preseason. His new backup will be former AAA key player Jose 'Stormy' Leon.

The 3B position will obviously be occupied by Levi Meyerle, who is meant to lead the team through a successful campaign. Tom J Carey switched from 2B to 3B and will be Meyerle's main backup player. Dustin Birchfield was an all-star last season but his ratings are declining, so maybe he is going to be traded away if a good opportunity arises. Last but not least, Elias Uresti played a good season in AAA last year and is going to collect some initial MLB experience this year.

Santiago Uribe, who was promoted from AAA to the MLB roster in last year's mid-season has really developed well and will be on the starting lineup at the SS position this year. His new backup, Dickie Flowers, who was obtained in a previously mentioned trade, will have to prove he can be a suitable backup.

On the LF position, we obtained John Cotton in a big trade in the pre-season. However, during spring training, a young man from the minor league system made quite an impact and his star ratings exploded. So Cotton will have to fight for his starting lineup place with Count Gedney. Alex Gutierrez will get some more time for development as our 3rd choice on this position. Last season's starter Henry Burroughs' ratings really crashed during the off-season which is we he was sent back to AAA where he can hopefully recover.

Right-Fielder George Bechtel is our top-seeded choice for this position. With his even more improved ratings, he should be a safe bet for another All-Star nomination. Juan Gonzales played an exceptionally well Double-A season, so I decided to let him move from AA to MLB right away as a backup player for Bechtelafter last season's backup player Larry Burd failed to develop too much and was traded to Brooklyn in exchange for SS Dickie Flowers.

Fred Treacy will be a staple on the CF position again and hopefully he will be able to grab another all-star selection on this position. His last year's backup, Steve Bellan, didn't live up to the high hopes I had for the kid, so he was sent back to AAA. Treacy's backup will be RF George Bechtel who is able to play CF as well.


I'm going to conclude the 1872 Boston MLB roster presentation with a screenshot of the 'Meet The Team' page:

[TheEquinox]

Okay, 15 of 30 ballgames are played, and things went really unlucky so far. Many close Ls 9-8, 7-6 a.s.o. have sent us to 3rd position in the NL:



Levi is getting his job done again, the other positive surprise so far is the new SP Candy Cummings, who did much better in his first season than I had feared. Many others didn't perform so far, so I made a few roster adjustment in the mid-season:



I realized Dick Higham was able to play on the catcher position. After loads and loads of passed balls and wild pitches caused by Fergy Malone, I decided to give it a try. His now vacant 2B position was taken by former SS Santiago Uribe, while Dickie Flowers will get some games as SS now. CF Steve Bellan returned from AAA after an early season injury of Fred Treacey and will stay in the roster as a backup now that Fred is back again. The final change is AAA rookie LF Josh Brech, who can also play 3B if needed and who replaces Dustin Birchfield, whose rating continued to decline. As all of my LFs failed miserably so far, I decided to give the youngster a try and so far he did quite okay.

I'm not too pessimistic so far, despite the lousy record of 6-9 because as I said, many losses were close losses, mainly caused by fielder errors. If my baby-pitcher keeps up his good work and those 50-50 games start to drop for my team, this can still become a somewhat successful season.

[TheEquinox]

Another season is in the books. Surprisingly, this season had 50 games instead of 30. I didn't see that coming, but after all, my last 'mid-season' post was a bit too early I guess.

Whatever, lets have a look at the regular season results first:



Once again, we managed to end the season with a positive W/L ratio, but we didn't really stand a chance against Chicago this time. This is mostly due to an injury of Levi Meyerle who missed about 10 games, which really hurt out performance.

In the American League, the Canaries were leading for quite a while, but fell apart towards the end and narrowly missed last season's playoff rematch by being intercepted by St.Louis.

Despite his injury, Levi had a fantastic season as the next screenshot proves:



I really wonder where he'd have ended up without that injury. Well, maybe we'll get to see next year!

The playoff series turned into a demonstration of superiority:



Chicago managed to clinch the first title for the National League without any difficulty. Their LF, Charly Pabor, who had played an average regular season at most, picked up MVP honors.

Looking back at the season, it was an unspectacular year for Boston. Levi won the batter crown again, but other than that, there were no really outstanding performances.

A ray of hope comes from the Great Glove award ceremony this year:



Levi wasn't able to defend his title, due to his injury, but with 1B Joe Start, RF George Bechtel and 2B Santiago Uribe, three of our players picked up the title for their defensive efforts. That's certainly some good news which gives a little hope for the new season.

The platinum stick provided another image:



With Levi being to only player in MLB to hit and AVG > 0.4 in the 50 game season, this once again didn't come as a surprise. This guy's a real asset when it comes to producing hits and driving in runs and we'll have to do anything to keep him in Boston.

Manager of the year went to the Chicago skipper this season, and rightfully so. To be honest, the guy deserved it last season already, but lets not talk about that any more.

This concludes the season, but there are many areas which need improvements in our team, so stay tuned for the upcoming transfers and draft picks. I hope I can already tease you a bit by promising, there will be huge changes!

[TheEquinox]

The spring training is over, it's opening day 1873. Another 50 matches against Chicago, Brooklyn and Cincinatti are ahead of us.

I've made a change to the game settings, I changed the star ratings to be relative to the MLB instead of absolute. I don't think it should really make a difference, because there are no international leagues yet (and I'm not sure there will be any in a history game) - so I think both settings should yield the same results. But I was wrong. The new setting seems to be much more realistic. Now there are only like 30 players with a rating >= 4 stars and not hundreds anymore.

However, changing this setting also opened my eyes about my roster. Suddenly, almost everybody dropped to 2.5 or 3 stars - except Levi Meyerle, who is rated with 4.5 stars on his 3B position and Joe Start, who got a 4 star rating as 1B. As Levi and Joe were our only real constant top-performers so far, I think this star rating evaluation is much better.

This also was a good help in making some trades. And I'm going to start with a huge one:



We sent 4* 1B Joe Start, 3.5* 2B Santiago Uribe and 2* SS Dickey Pearce to Baltimore in exchange for 5* LF Tom York and 4* potential prospect RF Carlos Tamayo.

With Start and Uribe, we are losing two Boston fan favourites, which they obviously didn't like at all. Both were regular starters last season, Joe Start played in 49 of 50 games. Baltimore wanted both of them or Levi in exchange for York, so there wasn't much of a choice.

Both are obvious losses for our team, but I think we can compensate them relatively well. We've got plenty of other options on the 1B position, and we still got Dick Higham who can fill the gap on the 2B position.

However, Tom York is a real gem:



According to his stats, his best seasons are still to come, but I think his ratings speak for themselves. He lacks a bit defensively, but so do most players in the MLB. 15 Errors per game per team happen regularly, so that's not the biggest focus. I believe Tom is the perfect guy at the #4 or #5 spot in the batting lineup, and we'll see if he can deliver a few homeruns this year. If he hits 5, he'll likely top the league.

Another position we urgently needed to improve, was the Shortstop position. I found a candidate for a trade which seemed to fit the bill:



After the acquiry of Tom York for the LF position, we had five LFs in the roster, so I decided to let Count Gedney go. That wasn't quite enough yet to convince Cleveland yet, so I put the 2.5 star 1B prospect Omar Garcia and 25$ in cash on top of it. Good riddance, and here's our new shortstop, Mike McGeary:



According to his ratings, he's a slightly above average hitter and a solid defender. He's also quick and should be able to steal a few bases. I'm pretty confident, he'll do the job for the season.

The last transfer is probably the most exciting one. The first year draft came up with this starting pitcher:



Obviously, I had no chance to get him, as he was the #1 pick of the draft by the Cincinatti Reds. Luckily, it seemed they were really in the mood to make a trade, and this is what we came up with:



While Candy Cummings did a better job than expected in his first MLB season, he just wasn't able to keep up with the Chicago's two time triple-crown pitcher Al Pratt. Not even close. I wanted a real bomb for the SP spot, someone who would be able to offer some competition to Pratt. I didn't know the Chicago Pitcher was going to pick up a 9 month injury just two weeks before opening day at the time we made this trade, but anyways, I think with Hugh Campbell, the future looks very bright for Boston. Daniel Cervantes and Mark Drake are two players which didn't manage to break through into the first team permanently, so I think they aren't really a big loss.

The draft was completed without any real highlights for Boston. Other than Hugh, 1873 was a very weak vintage of new players, and we didn't pick up anyone worth mentioning.

Here is the final roster for the 1873 season:

Pitchers:



Mike Edmunds returned from AAA this year, after my attempt to turn him into a Starter kind of failed. A reliever is what he is and what he will stay.

Batters:



The catcher position will be covered by Jorge Guzman this season. He's been Dick Higham's backup last season, but after we had to move Dick back to the 2B position, it's now Jorge's time to show his potential on the field.

Dan Cadron is a left-fielder I promoted from the minors towards the end of last season. He developed into a very nice 1B player during the off-season and spring training, and he'll get his chance to try and compensate the loss of Joe Start this season.

The rest of the squad seems to be relatively solid. Certainly not worse than the previous season. I'm really keen to see what kind of an impact our new signings can make. Especially Hugh Campbell as a starter...

We'll see. Onward to the first ballgame!

[TheEquinox]

25 out of 50 games are done, and it's been another average season so far. My high expectations for this year's roster didn't materialize on the scoreboards yet, but we aren't cut off from the NL title race yet as well, so we'll have to see what happens in the second half and if our two high octance new signings Tom York and Mike McGeary will finally start to perform.

Standings:



It's quite remarkable to see Cincinatti top the league this year after they've been tailing the league every season so far. Two time NL champions Chicago don't seem to be competitive without their star pitcher and two times triple crown winner Al Pratt, who is still recovering from a 9 month injury, either.

In the AL, the Canaries are heading the league again, just like in the previous seasons. Will be interesting to see if they fall apart again towards the end of the season and whether St.Louis or even Philadelphia for a change will be able to interecept them again.

As I mentioned already, our two big trade acquiries haven't been performing at all so far:



Tom York is hitting an AVG of .305 so far, which isn't terrible but nowhere near what we expected from him. Mike McGeary hasn't performed at all so far. Hit AVG is terrible compared to league averages, but at least he's got less Errors than our previous SS. Hopefully they'll both be able to improve a lot in the second half, or it's going to be another forgettable runner-up season for Boston...

The All-Star game didn't go well for the NL this time either, but we had some of our people selected again:



Nine of our players were picked up into the AllStars roster this year (compared to eleven last season). Not terrible, but not great either. Nice to see our new 1B Robbie Stoltenberg on that list, who joined the team from AAA this season and has been an okay replacement for Joe Start so far.

Out of our nine players, seven appeared in the ballgame, which was lost 11-5 (SP Hugh Campbell and RP Michael Santiago aren't visible in the screenshot):



A little positive surprise was Tom York, who picked up the MVP honors despite the heavy loss. Let's hope that's a good sign for the rest of the season...

[TheEquinox]

Hey there,

the regular season is over and there's a reason why I'm not going to post the regular season and the playoffs in one update. The second half of the season turned out very nice for Boston. We've been chasing Cincinnati for quite a while and were finally able to intercept them in game 41. It was an up and down from there, but we managed to keep a lead of two games in front of Cincinnati until the final 3-game series against them. The first of those three games was lost 12-3 after an incredible performance of Cincinnati's SP Rynie Wolters, who managed to keep us at 6 hits.

Now we were just one game ahead, and everybody in Boston was talking about the 'eternal runner-up' curse already. Gladly, the boys were able to put themselves together for the following match, which was won 8-3, mainly due to two triples hit by our icon Levi Meyerle in the 4th and the 5th inning, driving in 4 runs. Now it was official and the final game against Cincinnati turned into one long party night:

National League Champions 1873
Boston Red Stockings

Everybody in Boston is proud, the club was finally able to make it into the annals of Baseball history! Interestingly, the team wasn't carried to victory by our two major signings Tom York and Mike McGeary, who both played average seasons to put it mildly.

Instead, this success is based on the Fab-5:



Our rookie pitcher, drafted at the first year draft by Cincinnati at the start of the season and trader in for our previous pitching staff. Hugh Campbell missed the triple crown by 0.04 ERA and six Strikeouts. I'd bet he would have made it if he didn't miss six weeks in the first half of the season through injury. Next year, the competition is going to be tougher, as Al Pratt is back from his long-time injury and will certainly try to get back to his previous form, but these stats in his first season is certainly encouraging!



Long Levi as the boys call him (I guess I don't want to know in more detail why), is certainly THE big Boston icon in these early years of the MLB. He's gained nationwide popularity, after winning the NL batters crown three times in a row now. This is his first season where he narrowly missed the 0.4 AVG, but this is also the first season where he wasn't stopped by an injury. He's still only 24 years old, so this guy has a bright future ahead of him. Much to the excitement of our fans, Levi and me agreed on a new 5 year contract after his current contract expires, so the fairy tale may continue!



The Dude Jorge Guzman played himself into the heart of every Boston fan this year. He hasn't been a starter so far and was stuck behind former Boston catcher Fergy Malone, who left for Chicago last season. This season was his first one as a regular starter, and to be frankly honest, I expected him to fail, and was already keeping an eye on the catcher market. But Jorge proved everybody wrong by playing a fantastic season. His contact rating developed from ~50 to 72 this year and given the fact, he's only just 26, who knows where it's going to stop?



Dick Higham had already proven his skills in the 1871 opening season playing for Cleveland. We picked him up last season with high hopes which he failed to meet in 1872. However, with a contact rating of 74 and all other batting ratings >50, I wasn't ready to give him up yet. Looks like he just needed a season to gel in here in Boston. Great season, Dick, keep it up and continue to make us proud!



George Bechtel has been a constant performer since the first season, but he never really reached his full potential. According to his ratings, he's a power hitting / Homerun guy (58 contact, 78 HR power) but he failed to knock even one out of the stadium during his career so far. But still, this was by far his best season, hitting an AVG of .379 in 46 games is a great achievement. I hope he can repeat this next year, and during the playoffs now of course.

Especially those five players brought glory to Boston this year, but lets have a look at the performances of the rest of the players:



Parker Zimmer jumped in as a starter during Hugh Campbell's injury period. With limited success as you can see. As glad as I am to have Hugh in my bullpen, I'm a little worried about the lack of alternatives. We saw what happened to Chicago when their SP went out of service for 9 months, and with this current lineup, I'm afraid the same might happen to us if things get ugly.



Both Tom York and Mike McGeary managed to stabilize a bit towards the end of the season, but we clearly expect more of them, especially Tom. Who knows, maybe they also just needed a season to get familiar in Boston, like Dick Higham. We'll see...

Former minor-leaguer Robbie Stoltenberg battled Santos Coro for the 1B starting lineup. Robbie's the better hitter, while Santos is the better defender and produces much less errors. I think this race is still undecided especially with Juan Gonzales who is also still in the competition.

Despite his WAR of -0.1, the performance of youngster Carlos Tamayo in the Right Field seemed encouraging. He tied up a nice hitting AVG which makes him a good pinch hitter in close games. Could be a sleeper for the future!

This concludes my regular season end report. I'll be back with a summary of the world series:

Baltimore Canaries vs.
Boston Red Stockings

[TheEquinox]

Alright, it's time for the 1873 MLB world series.

Lets have a look at the playoff rosters:

Baltimore Canaries:



One of the stars in this team is SP Asa Brainard, who missed most of the regular season, but still managed to finish with a 8-4 record and an ERA of 2.44.

The other guy to keep an eye on is right Fielder Lip Pike. He's hit an incredible 5 Homeruns this season to top the AL, as well as 41 RBI at an AVG of .298.

We also get so see former Boston stars Joe Start and Santiago Uribe again. Lets hope they don't enjoy their resurgence too much!

Boston:



A successful campaign will stand an fall with the performances of the Fab-5, especially Hugh Campbell. I also hope, Tom York will be able to contribute big time in this Best-Of-Seven series. He's already proven he can be an asset in big games, after capturing the All-Stars game MVP honors this year.

[TheEquinox]

The world series starts with two ballgames at Newington Park in Baltimore. It's a historic moment for the Boston players as they enter the arena. This is their first appearance in the World Series!

Looking at the lineups, we seem to be the underdogs against Baltimore. Their SP is class and their Batting rotation is made up by well established-top performers in the AL. After seeing this, I'm not surprised they've been dominating the AL since the first ballgame in 1871.

But it's not over before it's over, right? So lets just tell the boys to go out their and give it their best. The result was a surprise anyway



Dick Higham hit an incredible 6-for-6 and laid the foundation for our World Series opening victory. 15-9, what a performance to start into this post-season!

Boston Red Stockings - 1
Baltimore Canaries - 0

[TheEquinox]

In the second away game in Baltimore, Boston put up another exceptional performance. Both teams didn't make many errors (for this baseball era), so the game was based more on individual performances.



In the end, Boston crushed the Canaries with an astonishing 14-6 in their own ballpark. Player of the day was Robbie Stoltenberg who started for Santiago Coro, who had been hitless in Game 1. He went 3-for-4 and laid the foundation for this victory.

Boston Red Stockings - 2
Baltimore Canaries - 0

[TheEquinox]

With a 2-0 series lead, I'm confident for the first ballgame in the World Series at home in our own ballpark at the South End Grounds. I decided to give Tom York a break after he failed to produce a single hit in the last game. John Cotton would take his place in the left field today and get some playoff experience.

After six innings, we were up 7-3, but then the Canaries came back in inning 7 to make it 7-5 and the game could have gone either way. Cotton was hitless in four at-bats at that point, so I decided to bring Tom York back into the game. That turned out to be the best decision of the day:



Will this be the first sweep in the MLB World Series history? What the hell is wrong with Baltimore? Questions, questions... but the simple answer tonight is:

Boston Red Stockings - 3
Baltimore Canaries - 0

[TheEquinox]

Facing Baltimore for game 4 with a 3-0 lead an in our own ballpark, the chance for a historic evening for Boston was quite high. I'm pretty sure nobody expected Baltimore to fall apart in the World Series like that, after their strong performance in the regular season, but especially their pitchers let them down big time.

Game 4 was a tight one, as Baltimore took off with a good start and completely shut down our batters in the first innings. We were behind 3-2 after the sixth inning, but in inning 8, a couple of errors by Baltimore gave us 3 more runs which were enough to sweep Baltimore:



It's a remarkable achievement for Boston. I surely hoped our improved team would be able to compete for the NL championship this season, but winning it all certainly was never on the cards. That said, it's even more satisfying to lift the trophy into the night sky today!

Here's the complete series overview:



With 12 hits in 20 AB, it's no surprise Dick Higham picked up the World Series MVP honors. His incredible 6-for-6 run in the first game was already amazing and he kept up his performance in every game. Well done, Dick!

MLB Champions 1873: Boston Red Stockings

Another season is in the books, and everybody here is keen to see if Boston can repeat their run in the next season. I'm pretty sure it's going to be a tougher challenge, as Chicago has their star pitcher back and will be much more competitive again, so we'll have to see.

Stay tuned for trades and the 1874 opening day rosters!

[TheEquinox]

Just to complete this very successful 1873 season report, here's a list of our players who racked up some awards:



With Dick Higham, Levi Meyerle and George Bechtel, three guys from the Fab-5 were able to grab a Platinum Stick award this year!



Only one Glove award this year for Jorge Guzman. He's the discovery of the season!



Our irish rookie pitcher Hugh Campbell picked up the NL's Cy Young Awards in his first pro season! Amazing!



Levi Meyerle picks up the well deserved NL regular season MVP honors!



My personal second Manager of the year award in the National League is the first one which seems truly deserved. I wonder how many more I can pick up?

[TheEquinox]

Party time is over in Boston, a new season knocks at the door and we'll have to do our best to stay in the competition for another NL championship. That's my owner's minimum expectation this season, and I think it will be tough, with Chicago - with a recovered Al Pratt - likely being our major opponent.

The first-year player draft was terrible again. One average SP and a nice SS prospect were the only worthwhile players this year, but we didn't get any of them due to the fact we were placed #7 in the draft order. So I decided to not sign any rookies this season.

Instead I wanted to address the looming problem on the CF position for the new season. Sadly, that turned out harder than expected, as noone was willing to trade their top CFs for anything less than half my roster. I think I found a solution, however. Tom York was moved from LF to CF at the cost of .5 star rating. He's now a 4.5 star CF with 50 defensive rating on that position. In order to fill the gap he left on the LF position, I agreed to the following trade:



Steve King is a 4/4 star LF with above average contact and top Avoid K rating. He's a bit old with 31, but I'm sure we can still get a few good seasons out of him. Lance Cardin was one of our starting lineup CFs in 1871 but his ratings declined ever since and he was relegated to AAA in 1872 and never made a comeback. Not sure what Cincinnati sees in him, or if they just wanted to save up some salary money, but it's a done deal.

Another thing I was unhappy with, was Mike McGeary's performance as an SS. I began to shop him around, just to see what I could get for him and the result was a big trade with Philadelphia:



We basically switched our SS staff and I got some prospects on top. Alex Gutierrez didn't really perform in Boston during the past few seasons and with the large amount of potential LF backup players, I thought I wouldn't miss him much. With Davy Force, we picked up one of the AL's best performers last season. He assembled an incredible 3.3 WAR for Philadelphia last year and has a contact rating of 76 and an Avoid K's rating of 100. I'm pretty sure we'll enjoy his stay in Boston.

Last but not least, I made a small trade, just to get rid of Jose Leon. With a contact rating of 16, and just an above average homerun power, he simply doesn't fit into my plans here in Boston, so I took the best offer I got for him:



Tom Fisher is an average LF which can be used as backup at most. It's not unlikely he'll end up in AAA sooner or later.

Lets have a look at the final opening day roster 1874:



The bullpen will once again be led by irish SP Hugh Campbell. His star ratings have declined quite a bit, but my guess is that is related to more and more 'real' SPs entering the league. With the Cy Young award under his belt, he's certainly deserved another season as regular started. I just hope he doesn't pick up a serious injury, otherwise I'm screwed.

On the catcher position, I decided to put my hopes on Jorge Guzman again. With a Glove award and a very good season in 1873, I think he deserves another shot, even though his star ratings are quite low and he only ranks 6th compared to the other teams. Vince Ice is a Draft-5-Rule pick from Cleveland. I thought one catcher in the lineup was not enough, even though Dick Higham can play Catcher as well. Vince's star rating is terrible, but his contact rating of 72 convinced me to try him as a backup this season.

On the 1B position, Santos Coro was sent down to AAA, because he just didn't perform at all last year. Both Robby Stoltenberg and Juan Gonzales will have the chance to convince me this season.

After the departure of Jose Leon, the 2B position is cleaned up this time. Dick Higham is obviously my starter, Nick Wehman is a guy who moved up through my minor league system quickly and made his first two appearences at the end of last season. He's developed really well since then and will get a full pro season as Dick's backup now.

The 3B position is pretty much settled as well. Levi Meyerle is the obvious starter here, Kody Lorenz is going to be his backup, simply because his development turned out the least terrible compared to that of Elias Uresti who has been sent back to AAA.

On the shortstop position, we've got our new signing Davy Force who, as I've mentioned before, has played a brilliant season 1873 in the AL. I'm really keen to see what he can do for us this year. Lou Say is a gamble - I found him in my single A roster and despite his star rating, he has a 67 contact rating which seemed to be more promising that that of the backup SS Bill Tanton who also joined us in the Force deal. Bill will have to prove himself in AAA, while Lou hopefully won't have to play too often. I know bad things can happen if a player jumps over AAA, but what happens if he jumps over AAA and AA?

The left field position is still a bit crowded. New signing Steve King will start as #1 on this position at the start of the season. If he fails to perform, the other guys will get their chances.

Like mentioned before, Tom York will take over the CF position this time. His predecessors Fred Treacey and Dan Catron will have to settle with some rare appearances this season.

Finally, the right field is pretty settled again. Especially Carlos Tamayo is a really nice talent, with >60 contact rating already. I'd love to give him more games, especially as he was the #1 NL pinch hitter last season, but there's just no way around George Bechtel. We'll have to see what happens, but if Carlos continues to develop well, we'll have a nice trade opportunity there in the future.

This concludes the opening day roster presentation, time to play some ball!

[TheEquinox]

First off, sorry for the delay, I've had some health issues lately and wasn't able to play much. But the series is not dead.

Here's the situation in mid-season 1874.

First off, the standings:



It's all been quite close so far. We weren't able to move ahead of the league like last season, mainly due to 3B Levi Meyerle not living up to what we are used to from him. He's had a terrible start into the season and only recently began to stabilize himself again, which gives me some hope for the second half of the season. He's our headliner and if he suddenly stops hitting the ball, we're facing the misery.

Batting stats so far:



As you can see, Levi's .28 batting avg. is nowhere near what he usually delivers. But he's not the only one. LF Tom York and LF Steve King have been playing a really disappointing season so far as well. I'm not sure why our people can't hit the ball anymore all of a sudden, though. Maybe I'll have to exchange a few words with our batting coach...

The pitching has been okay. Not as good as last year either, but quite okay and not that much worse:



SP Hugh Campbell is doing a solid job, no more no less. I doubt his ability to headline us in the long term, so still looking for alternatives here. But the influx of new and skilled pitchers is still abysmal. I guess that's a major problem in this era.

However, we're not far behind the Atlantics yet and this could still turn into a good season in the end. Will have to see how it goes and whether our star players will be able to stabilize their bad form in the second half of the season.

So stay tuned...