The Pitcher of the Year award is named after Nelson Mares. While he may no longer be the all-time wins leader (that's now an honor that's bestowed upon David Bowman), this guy's career was insane.

Considering he spent most of his years playing on a below average Colorado City team, he has SIX seasons of ERAs under 2.00 during his career. He had thirteen 20+ win seasons.

The MVP is named after Lars-Erik Johansen, given his performance as both a starting pitcher AND...

12 teams from the Union League have split and created their own league called the Presidents League starting with the 1897 season.

As a result, the UL went and added two more teams for that season. The new schedule will include interleague play and for the first-time ever, an All-Star Game between the leagues.

The new playoff format is 3 division champions and 1 wild card from each league.

Union League
East
New York Gothams
Boston...

Mat Johansen's son and Lars-Erik Johansen's grandson Thom Johansen was drafted in the 1st round (9th overall pick) by the Los Angeles Seraphs in the 1892 draft. He's a pitcher like his grandfather was and I doubt he'll be as dominating, but..I thought it was neat that was good enough to go in the 1st round like his dad and that he fell to the 9th pick to the same team that both of those guys played for. Again, wish I could've orchestrated it, but I didn't...it was just the magic of the game....

For those of you scoring at home, at the end of the 1890 season, a few changes happened in the league.

The San Rafael Keepers folded and were replaced by the Santa Ana Oranges. The Keepers players went to Santa Ana.

The Boulder Profs merged with the Colorado City Gold Sox. But only some of their players went over. Basically their best prospects and major leaguers who weren't FA to be went to Colorado City, the minor leaguers who weren't stayed in the minors to be shifted...

I've retired my human manager, will sim into the 1900s and then start with a new guy. What's nice about fast-sim solo is you can go as fast as you want to.

Just so you know, there will be another expansion sometime in the 1900s too that will expand the league from 24 teams to 30 teams. We'll go from 3 divisions to 5 divisions and the playoffs will go from Top 2 teams in each division + 2 wild cards to division champs only and 3 wild cards.

That should be probably 50...