The New York Flyers Thread

[One Great Matrix]

What else happened last season?

I had the most All-Stars I've ever had... I believe it was 8?

Vida Blue won pitcher of the year and 2 others (Seaver & Grove) finished up there in the voting.
Sandy Koufax won for reliever of the year. I couldn't or didn't want to use him as a closer but he was excellent as a set-up man to Lee Smith and actually started the final game of the season and won it. It's kinda nice when you can bring your best reliever in to start an important game.

I let up under 500 runs for the first time. The defense, you see, hasn't changed much over the past 5 seasons but like on offense the players' performance varies quite a bit in the field & with just 2 or 3 of the players having subpar seasons, the team would often finish like 15th in defense and that can add quite a bit of runs, sometimes 4+ in one game all because you didn't get that one out and the inning is extended...

But last season it all clicked and they finished in the top 3 in defense statistically.

Yelich had a very fine season offensively, but mostly offensively we just relied on scoring ENOUGH runs in any given game while relying mostly on defense & pitching keeping the runs off the board.

I played the Doors during the last 2 rounds of the playoffs and ...well, that's just a detail but it seemed to help, maybe in making decisions. Like something told me to start Gooden in game 1 of the finals, to the point I couldn't ignore this suggestion...he lost, & we were down 0-1 but it felt right...and then we cruised the rest of the way, with I guess Seaver, Grove, Blue & Koufax all keeping the Red Devils (who scored over 1000) runs on the season to next to nothing. In fact the most they scored I think was 4 (0, 0, 1, 4), and they scored those runs in garbage time after it was 9-0.
Need I mention that this included setting myself up with a few brewskies during the playoffs? This was the 1st time in quite awhile that I drank at all, nevermind during the playoffs...As The Dude said in The Big Lebowski, it helps "to keep the mind limber".

Obviously adding Lee Smith helped...really needed him in a lot of games to get through that 9th inning without giving some of these offensive powerhouses a chance to win it in extras.

And basically I added Speaker because I noticed Henderson wasn't hitting at all against right-handed pitching. That didn't seem to do much at first but eventually he was swatting right-handed pitching all over the park.

Good night.

[One Great Matrix]

The Flyers are 81-40 in 2057. We're holding on to a rather slim (3.5 game) lead in the NC West. We have what looks like some stiff competition around the league if we are to repeat.

Last season's playoff bracket and game summaries from finals follow:

[One Great Matrix]

I decided to start D. Gooden against Ed Walsh...We lost the game 5-1 but I couldn't have felt better about the decision considering we dropped game 1.

[One Great Matrix]

We put a lot of runs on the board early (Keeler, Hernandez, Campanella) & Vida Blue's Pitcher of the Year level pitching continued as he threw 8 innings without giving up a run & we tied up the series 1-1.

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1 run on 10 hits total between the two teams with Cy Young (BRD) & Lefty Grove (NYF) on the mound. If I remember correctly, the only run was after Hernandez tripled to lead off an inning and was able to walk home on a ball put in play, I don't quite remember whether it was a ground ball or a sac fly...But it was the only run in the game.

[One Great Matrix]

With a 2-1 lead in the series going into game 4, 'twas a pivotal game. Could go up 3-1 with 3 more chances to win it, or allow them to tie the series with one home game left & 2 on the road. Seaver ended up throwing 7 innings allowing just 1 run and we scored early and semi-often, starting with a 3-R HR by Roy Campanella in the bottom of the 1st. By the time Joe McGinnity relieved Seaver in the 8th inning we were up 9-1.

[One Great Matrix]

Having thrown our 3 aces in games 2, 3 & 4 I had to make a decision as to whether to start Johan Santana, Sandy Koufax (or someone else) in game 5. Hoping history would repeat itself in this case, I chose to start Sandy Koufax who defeated Cy Young and the Red Devils in a regular season game at Flyers Ballpark, 7-3. Koufax turned in another fine start, even better than in the regular season and we won game 5, 6-1. & the series.

[One Great Matrix]

The Flyers broke their previous best mark of 106 wins for the 2nd straight season in 2057, finishing 109-53 & winning their division. Ultimately we won the division by 5 games but we were about even with the Las Vegas KnightHawks with 12 or so games remaining when we pulled out a 20-inning 3-2 victory that seemed to give us momentum the rest of the way.

We won our 1st round series, 3-0 over the Carolina Sox & await the winner of the other DS. One of those teams could be the Night's Watch Crows, who won 130 games in the regular season.

In the other conference, should we win the LCS, the Kogarah Kings are still alive & well...and they won 131 in the regular season.

Attached is the 20-inning win and a game during the regular season that I noticed each player got exactly 1 hit. Just don't believe I'd seen that ever.

[One Great Matrix]

The Redondo Beach Rockets dropped 5 runs on me in the 8th & 9th innings of game 7 of the LCS to turn a 2-5 deficit into a 7-6 victory and advance to the World Series.

The series was set up when the Rockets snuck by the Night's Watch Crows in the best of 5 divisional series.

In the series, to start with, we dropped the first two games at home to dig a little 0-2 hole for ourselves...only to win all 3 of the next games on the road.

The Rockets owned game 6.

Game 7 was 5-2 in the top of the 8th with 1 out bases empty...Seaver got in a little trouble and Lee Smith relieved him. I would say Smith was awful but basically he gave up 2 big hits to Kirby Puckett and 2 big hits to Ted Williams and that was about 1 hit too many all in all. (A couple great hitters in his defense.)

So the Rockets tied it at 5 in the 8th, and took the lead in the 9th. We mustered a home run in the bottom of the 9th (Rickey) but that only cut what was now 7-5 to 7-6.

It was mostly a good year because I spent a lot of it relieved I had won my first perfects series last season. I also did a nice job of winning the division against a Las Vegas KnightHawks team that more than stuck around.

I might kind of do that for one more week...maybe (bask in 2056 championship glory)...it's good to win but it's not like I didn't do a lot of that this week as well. Then it's kind of back to winning it all or bust with a few exceptions.

[One Great Matrix]

Divisional Series Round vs. Carolina Sox

HOME
Game 1: 2-0 W - Vida Blue 7.1 IP, 0 ER
Game 2: 9-4 W - Mike Trout 3-R HR in Bot. 2nd

AWAY
Game 3: 7-3 W - Henderson, Olerud, Keeler (7-for-14, 4 R, 5 RBI)

League Championship Series vs. Redondo Beach Rockets

HOME
Game 1: 5-6 L (11 innings) - Flyers: 4-run 8th inning
Game 2: 2-4 L - V. Blue 7 IP, 4 ER

AWAY
Game 3: 4-3 W - Seaver 7 IP, 2 ER (Lee Smith allows run in both appearances so far) (C. Mathewson Save)
Game 4: 2-1 W - Koufax 9 IP, 0 ER
Game 5: 3-1 W - Grove 7 IP, 1 ER. Schmidt, Ripken Jr. Solo HRs.

HOME
Game 6: 2-8 L - V. Blue 6.2 IP, 7 ER
Game 7: 6-7 L - Seaver 7.1 IP, 7 H, 4 ER. Lee Smith 1.2 IP, 6 H, 3 ER. Flyers: Took 5-2 lead into 8th inning.

This was really quite the series with the wrong ending for me. The Rockets went on to beat the 131-31 Kogarah Kings 4-2 in the finals. Congratulations to them. They went only 86-76 during the regular season, did not play particularly good defense but their offense was built on high contact in every respect, & they were able to defeat all the aces they needed to en route to their 2nd PL title.

[One Great Matrix]

The New York Flyers decided to start 2058 with a New York Mets theme.

My active roster is made up so far of...

Current Mets

2B Jeff McNeil
P RHP Jacob deGrom, Noah Syndergaard

Former Mets as Mets

C Todd Hundley
1B John Olerud
RF Darryl Strawberry
3B David Wright
3B Robin Ventura
2B Edgardo Alfonzo
CF Mookie Wilson!
Howard Johnson
SS Rey Ordonez
SS Jose Reyes
CF Lance Johnson
Ps: LHP Tug McGraw, Sid Fernandez. RHP Ron Darling, Dwight Gooden, Tom Seaver, & David Cone.

Former Mets as Non-Mets

CF Rickey Henderson (Yankee)
LF George Foster (Red)
C Gary Carter (Expo)
OF Lenny Dykstra (Phillie)
Ps: LHP Johan Santana (Twin). RHP Pedro Martinez (Expo).

A little wrinkle: P Lefty Grove (Philly A's Legend)

Anyone care to guess what the Amazin's record is after 27 games?

[One Great Matrix]

Dante Bichette's son Bo, Bo Bichette has become the 2nd never-a-Met to play for the squad in 2058. Can't explain why him & Lefty slipped through... but right now you can't tell whether we're in 1st or 4th place...fun division. Really all the teams are just winning and losing.

[One Great Matrix]

Month two went not much different than month one but we were one the wrong side of .500 this time. We're going to spend today as the New York Mets/Flyers at least, then I'll decide whether I want to make some umm All-Star break blockbuster "trades" for non-Mets that can help us win the league. Cheers & Merrry Christmas, Jews...haha.

[One Great Matrix]

Our latest nail-biter brought our record to 39-35. It was a win, in which 6 out of the 7 runs in the game were scored in the 9th and 10th innings. We are still on the outside looking in concerning the playoffs but still right in the hunt, too...Hrmm.

It's kind of hard to consider abandoning the theme because I will have to in order to qualify for the playoffs...

But then again it was hard to switch to the theme after 2 very successful non-themed seasons.

[One Great Matrix]

In 2058, we won the first 2 games of the season against Barcelona Baseball as the New York Mets & lost the last 2 games of the season against Barcelona Baseball with only a few Mets left on the roster.

Our record in the 1st half all_mets was 43-38. Our record in the 2nd half with a mostly optimized roster was 59-22. I left McGraw & Sid Fernandez and a few position players out there because they were Mets. They did quite well, actually...John Olerud (Mets 96 1998 card) won MVP of the league! He did what I had hoped earlier incarnations (Mariners 01, Blue Jays '90s) would do ...hit .350+ and play solid 1B defense...I guess the moral of the story is wait for the right card, it just might be coming...

On to 2059...

[One Great Matrix]

Jim Gilliam gave credit to his whole squad after defeating the Flyers 3-2 in the Divisional series but once again he beat us single-handedly in reality.

So...Jim...would you like to play for us?

[One Great Matrix]

To start the season, we're probably going to roll out the following players, give or take 1 or 3 maximum:

Catchers: Mike Piazza & Gary Carter

Infielders: John Olerud, Jackie Robinson, Edgardo Alfonzo, Al Rosen, Arky Vaughan, Jose Reyes AND Rey Ordonez (hope that's not too Metsy for you) (or me).

Outfielders: Yelich, Speaker, Henderson, Cobb & Keeler. I'm not sure why they're last name only.


Pitchers: Tom Seaver, Lefty Grove, Vida Blue, David Cone, Sandy Koufax...the unfair starting staff. And in the pen: Lee Smith, Brian Wilson, Roy Halladay, Christy Mathewson, Johan Santana & Tug McGraw. I'm hoping they spend a good 85.5% of the innings behind the outfield walls …

Here's hoping this week agrees with me. Oh have a nice time with the game & everything else if you happen to be reading this, I guess. Or screw up. Screw everything up & make a sterling recovery... OR don't even bother with the recovery. See where that takes you, eh?

[One Great Matrix]

Current Team Record: 19-5

Team Leaders

Batting

AVG.
Mike Piazza .333
Jose Reyes .303
Christian Yelich .301
Willie Keeler .300
Edgardo Alfonzo .300
Tris Speaker .286

HR
Yelich 9
Speaker 4

XBH
Christian Yelich 14
Tris Speaker 7
Jackie Robinson 6

RBIs
Yelich 21
Alfonzo 14
Keeler 11

RUNS
Yelich 17
Keeler 11
Cobb 10

Pitching

WINS
Tom Seaver 4
Grove, Cone & Blue 3

ERA
Brian Wilson 0.00
Lefty Grove 1.37
Tom Seaver 1.42
Vida Blue 1.78
Roy Halladay 2.16

Ks
Grove 38
Seaver 36
Cone 33

SAVES
Lee Smith 10/11

*Adiuex for now*

[One Great Matrix]

Current Team Record: 36-17

Team Leaders

Batting

AVG.
Ty Cobb .340
J. Olerud .320
W. Keeler .292
Mike Piazza .287

HR
Yelich 10
Al Rosen 6
M. Piazza 6

XBH
Yelich 18
WKeeler 15
ARosen 14

RBIs
Willie Keeler 31
Christian Yelich 31
A smattering of 7 other players with 14-19

RUNS
Cobb 28
Rosen 23
Olerud 21
CYelich/JRobinson 20

Pitching

WINS
Blue 8
TSeaver 7
LGrove 5

ERA
VBlue 1.67
Halladay 1.88
LGrove 1.98
CMathewson 2.16
Tug McGraw 2.57

Ks
Lefty Grove 87
Koufax 72
David Cone 69

SAVES
Lee Smith 18/20
Johan Santana 2/4

[One Great Matrix]

The highlight of this one was a mammoth HR by Jackie Robinson to dead center. But he hit it for the New York Flyers, not his old team. The Dodgers' new ballpark looks amazing.