Updates on Numerous Projects

Horner, one of many stories from 78'.

From 1987 to 1978, switching the 7 & 8 [APBA]

I mentioned that my brother Chris Baier and myself would be replaying the 1987 MLB Season via APBA Baseball, but than we realized we didn't have access to every player from that year... So we switched things up and purchased the 1978 APBA Baseball Season instead.

I will be replaying the American League, while he would replay the National League. The A.L. East that season had four teams with 90+ wins.

We are looking forward to the project, Chris pointed out that Bob Horner of the Braves, would be drafted that year, debut for the Braves in 78' while winning N.L. Rookie of the Year. Horner would hit 23 HR & 66 RBI while playing only 89 games for Atlanta.


1996 Atlanta Braves Season Update (No Expansion) [Out of the Park 19]

The Atlanta Braves (106-56) finished off the Montreal Expos (106-56), who won the 1993 & 1994 World Series. The Braves are still seeking their first World Championship in the city of Atlanta. They have won World Series in Boston (1914) and in Milwaukee (1957).

They will be facing the Toronto Blue Jays (97-65), who have reached their 2nd World Series in franchise history, their first series appearance happened in the All-Canada 1994 World Series against the Expos. The Jays' lineup is what got them here, loaded with studs such as Roberto Alomar, Jeff Kent, Tony Gwynn, Matt Williams, Carlos Delgado and Mickey Tettleton. The Jays' pitching is not so great, while their bullpen is horrible.

This is Atlanta's 3rd World Series appearance this decade, while they lost back-to-back seasons (1991-1992) to the Minnesota Twins.

The Braves traded away David Justice prior to the season to Kansas City in exchange for outfielders Johnny Damon and Brian McRae. During the season they lost their young star Chipper Jones for 5 months due to a broken elbow, while Ryan Klesko carried them with his huge bat, as he led the National League in home runs (55) and RBI (145). The Braves also made room for their prospect Jason Giambi by trading away Fred McGriff; Giambi had 33 HR & 97 RBI in his first full season as a starter.

The Braves' signature mark is their pitching of course, both Tom Glavine (21-6, 3.14 ERA) and John Smoltz (23-6, 2.38 ERA) won 20 games, while Greg Maddux (19-9, 2.99 ERA) just missed out with 19 wins. The team acquired former Cy Young Winner Doug Drabek from the Pittsburgh Pirates in exchange for Steve Avery.

1957 Braves Swept by 1971 Pirates with Mazeroski Series Walk-off [APBA]

Hebner: One of the 71' Bucs role players.

Both teams suffered key injuries to Roberto Clemente (Pirates) and Eddie Mathews (Braves) in Game 1, giving both teams different identities the remainder of its series.

Willie Stargell (2 HR), Al Oliver (HR, 3B, 3 RBI) & Richie Hebner (HR, 2B, 3 RBI & 2 BB) were major factors for the Pirates' first two victories of the series -- giving them a 2-0 advantage in the best-of-five series.

Milwaukee led most of Game 3, 1-0, thanks to Wes Covington's 2nd inning solo home run, but the Pirates would eventually tie the game up in the bottom of the 7th with Milt May's pinch-hit sac fly.

Bill Mazeroski (no stranger to series walk-offs) came in with a runner on second, pinch-hitting for Gene Alley, as he would roll a 66-0, 64-6 for the series walk-off off of Braves' starting pitcher Bob Buhl. For Mazeroski, it was his only at-bat all series.

The 71' Pirates live another day as they await the winners of the Aaron bracket series between the 1906 Chicago Cubs and 1915 Philadelphia Phillies, which is currently tied at 1-1, while switching to Philadelphia's home turf at the Baker Bowl.

UAL's Traverse City Fighting Tigers Awaits Playoffs in April

My Traverse City Fighting Tigers, who are awaiting their road results against the Crooked River Carp & Durham Bulls, eagerly await to see who they will be playing in the upcoming postseason, coming this April.

With 150 games of results in my hand, the Tigers are currently 98-52 (.653), with 10 games on the road still to be recorded.

It's been truly an amazing season. I will be doing a season statistics recap, while I will also do a blog piece on the bizarre, final home series of the regular season against the Durham Bulls. In that series, I done something that I never have done in probably my 5,000+ solitaire lifetime games... oh, who am I kidding?! 10,000+ solitaire lifetime games...

For now, I will keep you in suspense.

A One-Sided Battle of Ohio Goes Down (ATOC Update)

A update on my APBA Tournament of Champions...

The 1920 Cleveland Indians (#5) and 1940 Cincinnati Reds (#12) went face-to-face in a best-of-five opening round series, dubbed "The Battle of Ohio". The Battle overall was anything but, and was a one-sided series sweep victory for the Indians in the Aaron Bracket.

Both teams weren't exactly lighting up the scoreboard at the plate, a total of 33 hits & 12 runs between the two teams during the short (3-game) series.

All 3 games were relatively close, with the Indians winning by scores of 4-3, 4-0 & 1-0.

The Reds could only manage 12 hits all series, with their third baseman Bill Werber (pictured right), making up half of those hits, by batting 6-for-9, with a solo HR, 2 doubles & 2 runs, to go along with 4 walks.

Tris Speaker of the Indians, produced most of the tribe's offense (what a surprise!), going 6-for-12, with 4 doubles, 1 RBI & 2 runs.

All three of the Indians' starting pitchers went the distance in their games, highlighted by Stan Coveleski's two-hit shutout in Game 2.

Game 3 went 10 innings, with Speaker scoring from third on a sac fly from Bill Wambsganss, to give Cleveland the go-ahead 1-0 lead & eventual win.

12 Series remains for the opening round, they are...

• 1927 Pittsburgh Pirates (#11) vs 1942 St. Louis Cardinals (#6) - Ruth
• 1983 Baltimore Orioles (#13) vs 1953 Brooklyn Dodgers (#4) - Aaron
• 2002 Oakland Athletics (#14) vs 1902 Pittsburgh Pirates (#3) - Aaron
• 1971 Pittsburgh Pirates (#10) vs 1957 Milwaukee Braves (#7) - Aaron
• 1915 Philadelphia Phillies (#15) vs 1906 Chicago Cubs (#2) - Aaron
• 1969 New York Mets (#16) vs 1998 New York Yankees (#1) - Cobb
• 1993 Philadelphia Phillies (#14) vs 2001 Seattle Mariners (#3) - Cobb
• 1909 Detroit Tigers (#11) vs 1912 Boston Red Sox (#6) - Cobb
• 1998 San Diego Padres (#15) vs 1998 Atlanta Braves (#2) - Cobb
• 1914 Boston Braves (#16) vs 1937 New York Yankees (#1) - Wagner
• 1934 St. Louis Cardinals (#12) vs 1954 Cleveland Indians (#5) - Wagner
• 1960 Pittsburgh Pirates (#14) vs 1931 Philadelphia Athletics (#3) - Wagner

All series in opening round are a best-of-five, with the better seeded team having home field for Games 1, 2 & 5.

2019 BoS - 1st Round

The 2019 Boys of Summer Annual Draft is among us, and there was a strong possibility of any one of three (or even four guys) going #1 overall between Shohei Ohtani, Ronald Acuna Jr & Juan Soto.

The South Side Spartans decided on outfielder Ronald Acuna Jr, who will be joining Mookie Betts in the Spartans' outfield. The Portland Microbrewers would select outfielder Juan Soto for 2nd overall, while the Urbana Locomotives decided on Yankees phenom shortstop Gleyber Torres for the 3rd selection. Shohei Ohtani would go 4th overall to the Vancouver Storm, a team that was recently taken over by new owner Jimmy Stanton.

The Traverse City Panthers took a risk and traded one of the best pitchers in all of baseball, Corey Kluber (back) to Portland in exchange for two 1st round picks.

Kluber was traded in 2013 to the Panthers in the early-part of its inaugural season, in fact it was the league's 2nd transaction up to that point. Kluber was traded along with pitcher Nathan Eovaldi & OF-Ryan Raburn in exchange for starters Brandon Morrow, Matt Harrison, OF-Austin Jackson & a 3rd round T.C. draft pick (Scooter Gennett).

Years later, Kluber returns to Portland, while the Panthers with their two 1st round draft picks selected 2B/SS-Willy Adames and SP-Shane Bieber.

Portland had four 1st round picks going into draft, but ended up drafting for two of those selections, along with Soto, Portland drafted the Braves' Kyle Wright.

This is how our first round went...

A Trio of Yankees

Andy Pettitte / 1996 - Historical All-Star (Rating 77)

In my last Out of the Park 19 post, I mentioned 'Perfect Team'. My team, the Traverse City Fighting Tigers (same name as my APBA UAL League team) started off slowly out of the gates at 7-20, since then we had gone 39-29 (.573), which means of late we are playing like a 93-win team. We were within a win from reaching .500 at 46-47, but finished the 1st half of the season at 46-49, while we are no longer in last place.

By the way, by the time you read this post, I will be in the middle of my 3rd season of the same or a new league.

Entering July, we climbed up to #13 on the league's power rankings, this shows how much we have improved from our lousy start,

This has a lot to do with finding ways to make the lineup work.

At the beginning my lineup looked something like this...

At the end of June, it evolved to this...

Torii Hunter and Don Mattingly were named All-Stars, while Jeff McNeil cooled off, and fell out of his All-Star picture, he was 4th in the league in batting at one point with a .341 batting average, but is now batting about .303 the last I checked.

While the rotation started out as Stephen Strasburg, Hunter Greene, Carl Mays, Alec Mills, and Harry Kelley. It later had Lance McCullers Jr taking Greene's spot after an auction. I recently purchased Andy Pettitte for the rotation in my last post. Since then I added Charlie Morton & David Cone.

Charlie Morton / Live - 2018 MLB (Rating 79)

The rotation now is Stephen Strasburg (Diamond 90), Lance McCullers Jr (Gold 83), Andy Pettitte (Silver 77), Charlie Morton (Silver 79) & David Cone (Bronze 68) -- To put the improvement in perspective, my bottom 3 starters used to be in the low Bronze 60's. Cone, I got for only 40 perfect points, while I purchased Morton for 310 perfect points.

David Cone / 1999 - Historical All-Star (Rating 68)

Now the lineup gets yet another strong addition in Paul O'Neill (500 perfect points), I was getting close to a 1,000 perfect points (830), but felt I will get there quickly with the addition of these 3 New York Yankees...

Paul O'Neill / 1998 - Historical All-Star (Rating 77)

To be a champion, you should at least pluck some champions.

The Perfect Team

Out of the Park Baseball 19 introduced the hugely anticipated 'The Perfect Team' to go along with its game. In the game, you start with 6 start-up standard packs of cards, which have 6 cards each. Apparently, its similar to MLB The Show's Diamond Dynasty.

With these cards you can plug them into your lineups and rotations as you see fit. The cards have overall ratings and attributes that play into the simulations. Through the game, you can earn "perfect points" which can help you buy more packs. You can also auction off cards for perfect points in the same manner as you would auction off something on eBay, or sell cards to the game immediately for its sell price, or in the auction do a "Buy Now" price for an card, or by setting a minimum on a card.

Like big league rosters my initial team has evolved over the first two months of the season. A season is done in only a week, with the first 6 days of the week being a day for each month. The 7th day, you play head-to-head with teams in the postseason, if you even get that far.

At the end of the week, after the playoffs, your team is suddenly thrusted into another league, which will be according to your competition level. There are 4 tiers of leagues, with many leagues in each tier. You can also check out your progress from season-to-season, with season records and season
results.

Standard & Gold packs with their odds of certain card pulls.

I am currently in the Bronze .330 League. My team, the Traverse City Fighting Tigers (same name as my APBA UAL League team name) started off pretty bad, but we are inching closer and closer, slowly to the .500 mark... In fact, I will be thrilled beyond belief if my team finishes the season with a .500 record in its first season, but not counting fully on it.

We currently sit in last place in the N.C. Central Division at 37-43 (.463), 13.5 games out of first.

Your team is like a player trying to get to "The Show". I am on the bottom in B330. 

The tiers are also reminiscent of the big leagues, the Bronze Level (which I am in) is Rookie-Ball, while Silver Level is Single-A, Gold Level is Double-A, Diamond Level is Triple-A & the Perfect Leagues are Major League Baseball, "The Show", and that's the ultimate goal. However your team progresses, they get moved up or fall down a level. I don't plan to jump to another level anytime soon, there are some talented teams in the Bronze Level with multiple Gold & many Silver cards on each roster, and they are still in Rookie Ball... that gives you an idea of the competition, but I am always game for some competition & a good challenge.

By the way, there is more leagues than pictured above, you can scroll from left to right, I am in B-330. There are currently 413 leagues with 12,342 teams!

The Leagues: Teams are promoted & demoted.

At one time, I auctioned my 2018 Future Legends Card of Hunter Greene, earning almost 3,000 perfect points, in which I used to purchase 3 standard packs. If I happened to get to the 5,000 perfect points pack, I would have purchased one gold pack, which you are guaranteed a Gold Card. I still got a Gold card (which Hunter was) in Lance McCullers, Jr though, via the 3 standard packs.

I actually pulled a somewhat rare diamond card in Stephen Strasburg (90 rating) out of my 6 start-up packs, I could sell it to the game for an automatic 4,000 or try to auction off the card. I decided to check its auction stats, and this is what it came up with...

• Average Winning Bid All-Time: 4,555 perfect points
• Average Winning Bid (Last 5 Auctions): 4,700 perfect points
• Highest Winning Bid All-Time: 11,999 perfect points (3 times the actual price of the card).

The chances of pulling a diamond card is 1:150 packs, once again I pulled it in one of my 6 start-up packs. The chances of pulling a 'perfect card' is 1:1000 picks, I heard the Roger Clemens 'perfect card' is a hot commodity.

I really love the historic cards, as you can see above, my Don Mattingly - 1985 All-Star card, his card was done in the 1987 Topps style (one of my absolute favorite Topps Baseball Cards).

Here is a look at some of the interesting cards from my team or reserves section, cards that you don't want on your 25-man roster, stay in the reserves section...

Vern Stephens / 1943 - Historical All-Star (Rating 65)

Vern Stephens has been a huge contributor once I called him up, I stalled for awhile to bring him up, due to his poor defense. I had a better fielder in Maury Wills, plus it's his record breaking steals season from 1962, plus making for a great lead-off man.

Eventually I got sick of Wills' weak bat, put him up for auction, hoping to maybe double his weak 25 perfect points value, and no one picked him up. Stephens, meanwhile has batted .327 with 5 HR & 10 RBI in only 13 games & 55 at-bats, with a 1.111 OPS! Stephens bats 5th in the lineup now, while Wills currently sits on the reserve roster with a .250 batting average & .570 OPS.

Maury Wills / 1962 - Record Breaker (Rating 65)

Carl Mays / 1920 - Unsung Heroes (Rating 61)

Carl Mays is on my big league roster in the 4th slot of the rotation, he is currently 4-6 with a 5.08 ERA, 27 K & 11 BB in 39 innings & 6 starts. Although I am not a fan of his stats, it's understandable facing tougher competition, while I don't mind his off-the-charts 109 for stamina.

Otis Nixon / 1991 - Unsung Heroes (Rating 61)

I was hoping that Otis Nixon would become the lead-off man once I tried to auction off Wills, he was batting good early on, but must have had a bad month, as he is now batting only .211 for the season through 33 games & 114 at-bats, while he only had 9 steals (on pace for 67 games & 18 steals)... well-below his pace that helped him swipe 72 bases for the Braves in 1991 at age 32. I reached back into the minors & called up Scott Podsednik's 2005 Unsung Heroes (Rating 57) in hope that he can do better.

The game also has One Hit Wonder cards, like Harry Kelley's card below. He was part of my rotation until I landed McCullers Jr.

Harry Kelley / 1936 - One Hit Wonder (Rating 60)

Doug Ault / 1977 - Unsung Heroes (Rating 49)

The Doug Ault card won't see the light of day on my big league roster, especially with Don Mattingly at first & Joe Mauer (below) at DH/1B for me. I will keep this card though until I get a better 70's stud, then I will likely sell it for its measily 5 perfect points. 

Joe Mauer / Live (Rating 63)

The 'Live' cards are the current MLB players' cards, as you can see I own a bronze rating 63 for Joe Mauer, sure I would love to have an early version of Mauer for sure... but he has done a really good job for me so far. Mauer is batting .289 with 7 HR & 33 RBI, while posting a .382 on-base percentage & .805 OPS. 

Plus he looks really cool in the Fighting Tigers' uniforms, don't you agree Eric Berg?!

Eddie Yost / 1952 - Historical All-Star (Rating 62)

At the moment, I have plenty at third base in Yulieski Gurriel, while David Bote can play there, as well as my starting second baseman Jeff McNeil from time to time. I plan to keep this Eddie Yost card in my reserves for now, as good depth to have in my back pocket.

Now onto my team MVP at the moment in Torii Hunter, who by the way is leading the league in All-Star voting for center field. 

Hunter's current league rankings (both conferences combined):

• Runs Batted In - 61 (8th)
• Slugging Pct - .571 (8th)
• Doubles - 28 (tied/3rd)
• Triples - 6 (tied/2nd)
• Total Bases - 177 (6th)
• Extra-Base Hits - 47 (tied for 2nd with Barry Bonds)

The Bonds' card by the way, is a Peak / Diamond - Historical Legends (Rating 96), Hunter's card is only a Bronze (68). 

Hunter was not the only Traverse City player among the statistical leaders, Jeff McNeil (Rating 68) is currently winning the Second Base job for the All-Star Game, while ranking 4th in batting average (.341) and on-base percentage (.415). Don Mattingly is 7th in runs with 55.

We just purchased Andy Pettitte / 1996 - Historical All-Star (Silver / Rating 77) for 600 perfect points on the auction board, slated to be our 3rd starter behind Strasburg (Diamond 90) & McCullers (Gold 83). Carl Mays and Matt Harvey will pitch from the 4th & 5th slots of the rotation.

By the way, it may come as  no surprise, you can also buy perfect points with actual money as well.