Neat Stuff, Post-Sim Thread: 2028, Season 22

[Borealis]

As we near the end of the season, please do not slow walk the playoffs.

Fear Not!!! We will go as fast as GMs allow!!

[Zephyrs]

As we near the end of the season, please do not slow walk the playoffs.

Fear Not!!! We will go as fast as GMs allow!!

Much appreciated!

[Dinosaurs]

Really sweating up here in Fargo..... In the matter of a few sims the Dinosuars' division lead over the Sandgnats has dwindled from 10 games down to 1 game, with 12 games remaining for both teams.

[Borealis]

Really sweating up here in Fargo..... In the matter of a few sims the Dinosuars' division lead over the Sandgnats has dwindled from 10 games down to 1 game, with 12 games remaining for both teams.

Not to mention Aurora's 7-game bulge over Bakersfield shrinking to 2...

[Ghosts]

I'm very pleasantly surprised by a ten game win streak, but it really speaks to the quality of the competition when it barely improves your playoff chances. The Sandgnats, the Aurora, and the Akira are making my road to the playoffs an all-out brawl.

[Borealis]

Shortly after announcing his retirement, the 'Mayor' sees his career come to a disappointing end after blowing away his elbow. The fans at Watt Powell no doubt gave him a prolonged standing O as he walked off the field...

[KenH]

The F-Heads have not been playing their best ball as of late. I am heartened by a winning week last week but the fact that we got shut out twice by San Antonio is not a good sign for our playoff performance.

Fans (and more importantly, Drew Streets) are excited about the Andy Sharp extension. While it was a fair amount of money to sign him, it doesn't seem like an overpay. Due to my team's sputtering here at the end of the season, I figure I can at least fulfill one of the two goals Streets has given me this year which should help my budget going into 2029.

[Ghosts]

Fans (and more importantly, Drew Streets) are excited about the Andy Sharp extension. While it was a fair amount of money to sign him, it doesn't seem like an overpay.

That's a good extension. I was hoping Sharp might find his way to free agency, but I can't be mad that he got locked up. It doesn't appear I'll be able to do the same with Alex Bothwell, though. He's looking to set financial records.

[Lions]

Since the end of June, we haven't won more than 2 games in a row, until this past week. We're staving off our 100th loss, although it'll almost certainly come against Duluth this week. Jaime Espinoza, who we signed at the start of July, is having a hot streak. With 4 home runs over the last 4 games, he's up to 16 on the year. He's hitting just .181, but the power surge means he's now 2nd on the team in home runs for the entire season. He also has 102 K's now, which puts him 3rd on that list list despite his half season of work!

On the Enrique Vazquez front, he's been caught up in wins by Iwao Maruyama and Soichiro Ogawa

[Lions]

Fans (and more importantly, Drew Streets) are excited about the Andy Sharp extension. While it was a fair amount of money to sign him, it doesn't seem like an overpay. Due to my team's sputtering here at the end of the season, I figure I can at least fulfill one of the two goals Streets has given me this year which should help my budget going into 2029.

Sharp has 15 triples this year, which matches his career best of 15 in 2023. In 2023, those 15 triples represented a new PEBA record, tied with Kelvin McDonald who also had 15 that year. Last year, Aurora's Teddy Loetzsch broke the record with 16. So Sharp has a chance to get back into another tie, or even set a new record. Loetzsch has never had more than 8 in any other year and isn't particularly speedy even at that. He's only attempted 17 stolen bases in his PEBA career. Sharp has over 470 stolen base attempts at a 78% success rate, so he is fast.

He now has 69 career triples, which puts him just 4 shy of the PEBA career record, which is 73 by Steve McDonald.

[Borealis]

Loetzsch had that one season where everything seemed headed for Triples Alley...

[Evas]

Shortly after announcing his retirement, the 'Mayor' sees his career come to a disappointing end after blowing away his elbow. The fans at Watt Powell no doubt gave him a prolonged standing O as he walked off the field...

That's a sad way to see him go out. Still, he was a good pitcher until the end.

[DrewV]

Well, we're officially out! We lasted a while. I've learned a lot in the last month--makes me wish I could go back!

I am really pleased with our rookie pitchers, who still have some starts to prove themselves. Eric Jacobs has come alive this year as well, and I'm excited for Gary Charron's future.

I look forward to getting out of the red and re-developing the mighty warriors--hopefully we can continue our .500 ball post-july to the end of the season!

[Vic]

The future looks bright for the Warriors, Drew. Good things are ahead for 2029 and beyond!

[Lions]

Enrique Vazquez's bid to win the pitching triple crown in the IL this year was always going to be a question of whether or not he would win enough games. His final ERA and strikeout numbers easily led the league, with a 1.81 ERA being 0.40 better than his nearest challenger, Richard Neely. On the K front, he had 223 compared with 191 for London's Martin Ramirez.

Vazquez only had 4 losses on the year, but one of those losses came on September 16th at Hartford. That allowed Scotland's Soichiro Ogawa to catch up to him with 16 wins. Ogawa was also on pace for one more start before the end of the year. San Antonio's Iwao Maruyama also recorded his 16th win the day that Vazquez had that loss in Hartford. So now the three of them were tied.

Ogawa and Iwamura would both win #17 before Vazquez got his next start. They won on the 19th and 21st, respectively. Vazquez would start on the 22nd in New Orleans, facing off against José Martínez, who had been a reliever most of the year. He was pressed into starting duties at the end of August, and this particular start wound up being his best of the year. He went 7 innings and held Havana to just 1 run on 3 hits and 4 K's. He didn't walk anyone. Vazquez was perfect through the first 5 innings, but things started to get squirrely in the 6th. An error and a walk put two men on, but he induced a fly out to get out of the jam. In the 7th, a walk, a single, and a fielder's choice left runners on the corners with two away. Vazquez then committed his only error of the season by throwing wild on a pickoff attempt, allowing the tying run to score. He then went on to strike out Félix Zavala to end it, so the pickoff didn't seem necessary. The Havana offense then backed him up by scoring two runs in the top of the 8th. He'd get one batter in the bottom half before being pulled. The bullpen gave up a run, but Vazquez got his 17th win to keep pace with the others.

In their bids for 18 wins, once again, both Ogawa and Iwamura would get there before Vazquez had another shot at it, and both would deliver. Ogawa's start came on the 24th lining him up for one more start if the team decided to put him out there, while Vazquez's last start came on the 29th. With Iwamura done for the year, Vazquez shut out San Juan over 7 innings as the Leones won 2-0 for his 18th win. Now with all three tied at 18 wins, it all came down to Ogawa's efforts against San Antonio. It hardly mattered that he would give up 4 runs in 6 innings of work, the Scottish offense managed just 2 hits. Despite 7 walks, that meant a shutout and a loss for Ogawa.

So Vazquez managed to pull of the triple crown after tying for the league wins lead with 18!


On the other 18 game winners in the IL, it's worth pointing out that Iwamura is just 22 years old and in his second season. He was an international signing and looks like he's got a long, successful career ahead of him. I don't think anyone would've predicted this amount of success this quickly, and he may regress a bit next year, but the tools are there for a lot of wins in the future.

Ogawa on the other hand... well he's come from completely out of nowhere. He's 28 this year and never won more than 3 games in any PEBA season prior to this one. He was 1-9 last year, getting just 10 starts. His 18 wins this year came with a 4.10 ERA, so not exactly dominant... that was good for a 89 ERA+. But to see how wild the win total is this year, well, at the end of April he was 1-3 with a 6.83 ERA and was pulled from the rotation. Incidentally, that 6.83 ERA came after his 5th start in which he shut out the Thoroughbreds for 7 innings and the Claymores would lose 1-0 in the 10th. Despite that start, he was pulled from the rotation for three weeks. His next start on May 23rd was good, but he had another clunker on May 30th. Then he went 16-3 since the start of June. Crazy!