8-6 so far in September and we enter the last 16 games with a 1 game lead over the A's and 4 over the Royals. The winner will play the Red Sox who have a comfortable 11 game lead.

Over in the NL, Pittsburgh leads the Phillies by 1 and Cubs by 4. Out west, the Giants many trades have paid off as they have a 5 game lead over both the Braves and Padres.

It's weird being in 1976 and Reds have won nothing. This is year 7 of my replay and we have had 6 different World Series winners; Pirates/Cardinals/Twins/Orioles/Yankees/Angels

Ended up 6 back, we totally collapsed.

We were 100% healthy with 16 games left and then lost Fregosi, Dixon (#2 starter) and a bullpen arm within 4 games and we fell apart.

The A's went on to sweep the Giants in the World Series. George Hendrick was the MVP of both the ALCS and World Series. Hendrick is .472/.491/.792 with 4 home runs in 57 career playoff at bats.

Free agency begins as does the expansion drafts for Mariners and Blue Jays. I can protect 15 and am playing by the rules of each team losing 3 players maximum.

I was able to sign 31 year old Blue Moon Odom to a 2 year/$260,000 deal. He was a good starter for the A's, but had an arm injury and 2 more ineffective years as a starter, but he picked up his game 2 years ago out of the pen and had 18 saves last year. Fan interest went up significantly as well. Not a bad thing.

I then signed 31-year old Rick Wise to a 4 year/$1,100,000 deal. I may have overspent for someone who had an arm injury 3 years ago, but he was solid and healthy last season. This will also allow me to expose a few players I wouldn't mind losing to the expansion clubs who I would otherwise keep.

I need a leadoff man, and if I lose the right players in expansion, I will take a run at Rod Carew, who I can't afford without dropping some contract $$$.

I have the 14th pick in the upcoming draft, the top 10 prospects are:

RF Jesse Barfield
RF Mike Davis
SP Jim Gott
2B Tim Raines
CF Harold Baines
CF Dave Henderson
SS Paul Molitor
SP Dave Righetti
SP Scott Sanderson
SP Bob Welch

Our scouting team were quite surprised and thrilled to see that our #2 ranked prospect, Mike Davis, was there at #14 and we snapped him up. He was one of my favorite A's IRL before he went to the Dodgers, so I will enjoy following his development. I picked up pitchers Richard Dotson and Terry Leach in rounds 2 and 3 and the only other player with a RL big league career was pitcher Les Straker all the way in round 14.

1-Tim Raines-Reds
2-Paul Molitor-White Sox
3-Jim Gott-Mets
4-Harold Baines-Expos
5-Jesse Barfield-Rangers
6-Dave Righetti-Twins
7-Bob Welch-Tigers
8-Willie McGee-Brewers
9-Scott Sanderson-Orioles
10-Brian Harper-Cardinals

In the expansion draft, we lost our #4 starter William Olsen to the Mariners and 2nd baseman Dave Cash to the Blue Jays. I wasn't upset to lose Cash at all, I had wanted to upgrade the position in the offseason and having just signed a 3 year deal prior to a disappointing season, he was the perfect player to expose.

I then floated around dealing our 24 year old former ROY Gregory Foreman who has dropped to 5th in our depth chart. I knew he had value, but not enough to get an upgrade, so I added a half-decent prospect that I frankly wasn't fond of and the Dodgers offered up 23 year old Ivan DeJesus. Not only is he already an upgrade defensively at 2b to Cash, he has a .313 avg in 350 big league at bats already. He will start the season in the leadoff spot.

In the rule 5 draft, top 100 prospect Tony Armas was there. Despite getting just 30 AB above AA, the talent is there and he is perfect to be our 5th outfielder and see what happens.

The last deal I made was sending utility man Larry Milbourne to the Yankees for 1B/LF/RF Ron Blomberg and he will back up at all those spots as 22 year old Pat Rockett has eclipsed Milbourne as a middle infield backup.

I have enough money to try to make a huge free agent splash. Rod Carew is the best hitter available and while he would be an improvement to who we have now, it wouldn't make sense given that we need a starter. So I threw a 6-year $4.1 million offer to 31 year old Steve Carlton with an opt-out after 4 years and a team option for the 6th year.

He is a 2-time all-star and has 140 wins and a 3.06 career ERA with a 45.7 WAR, and his RL WAR was 50 at this point in his career so he's not far off stat-wise.

Lefty basically said, "nice try". So instead I went after 26 year old Bert Blyleven. He hasn't been as good as IRL, but we offered him 4 years and about $1.8 total and he signed up.

.....there are way too many names changing teams in free agency. The Giants let Willie Mac go to the Braves. The Red Sox let Yaz go to Houston and the Twins let 40 year old Harmon Killibrew go to the Cubs after playing his whole career there, just 39 HR's short of Babe Ruth and coming off a 26 HR season.

After adding Dick Drago to the rotation on a bargain deal, I moved on to my pending UFA's for next off-season. Only Gary Matthews is someone I need to keep and he wanted a 4 year deal with a player opt-out after year 2. I countered with a 5 year deal with a player opt-out after year 4 worth more guaranteed money per year and he agreed.

Carlton turned down over $4 million over 6 years from us and had to settle for $1,000,000 for 2 years from the Mets

heh

The season has begun and here are some players still without a job

Johnny Bench (5 time All-star-29 years old)
Cleon Jones
Rico Petrocelli
Sal Bando

Not thrilled with the "AI"

A month in and we are 11-12. We can't pitch, 12th of 14th in the AL. Our staff is considered "good", so I will show patience through May and into June.

On the other hand, we lead the AL in home runs. Darrell Evans is 2nd in the AL with 9, Reggie Smith has 6 and Wynn has 5. Lots of solo home runs is the issue, Evans only has 15 RBI's and Smith just 10.

Our addition of hot hitting prospect Ivan DeJesus has been a wet fart. He's hitting a robust .127/.162/.211. I don't have an advanced degree, but I don't think that's good. Once again, we will show patience, he's hit over .300 every season,

Team is 100% healthy. Eddie Murray is raking at AAA, at some point we will move Evans to 3b and move Roy Howell. Howell will be an OK player, but I think he can help get an upgrade either at C, 2b or SS.

Reggie Jackson had an all time April

11 HR/31 RBI- .382/.467/.868 and on pace for 18 WAR

Lost Evans for a month to a sore back. I wanted Eddie Murray to play the whole season at AAA, but I had to call him up. He's hit .416/.455/.614 with 5 HR the first month at AAA.

Jackson was put on the DL and will miss 3 weeks. At the time of his injury he was first in every single major offensive category, even though he is in our division, I was excited to see how the season played out for him.

A much better 15-10 May turned things around as we won 9 of our last 10. Along with losing Evans, Jim Wynn busted his ankle and will miss up to 7 weeks. We still lead the league in HR's despite the injuries as 7 players are on pace for 20 HR's.

The Royals look tough, they dealt top prospect 2b Julio Cruz for 2 pitchers who have combined to go 8-0 so far. Bill Singer just threw a no-hitter for Texas, he's off to a great start, I almost dealt for him.

Our off season additions have had their ups and downs. Closer Blue Moon Odom is on his way to an all-star season, Bert Blyleven has been 'meh' and Dick Drago along with Rick Wise have been pretty good as the new additions to the starting staff is concerned.

I picked up Cliff Johnson with the idea of being a utility man but he's not happy, so the injuries to Evans and Wynn have given him some playing time, but he won't be quiet in about a month. I signed Ed Kirkpatrick to a minorleague deal last week thinking I will have to deal Johnson because our clubhouse is happy and Bill Freehan is going nowhere, he has 7 HR's on pace for a career high

13-11 in June finds us 3 1/2 behind the A's and 2 back of the Royals. The Twins are in 4th, but 11 games back. This will be a 3 team race.

I was very concerned when we lost Wynn. I called up Ruppert Jones, our 1st round pick 4 years ago and hoped he could hold his own splitting time with Tony Armas filling in for Wynn. Jones was a top 60 prospect 2 years ago, but fell out of the top 100 last year and was down to a 2 1/2 star prospect. He was off to a .321/.413/.583 with 8 HR in 30 games in AAA before the call up.

Jones was named AL Rookie of the Month after going .388/.430/.713 with 7 HR, 18 RBI and 6 SB. So now I legit have 6 starters for 4 spots once Wynn is back. Armas is a Rule 5 guy, so he will be the #6 OF. Dan Briggs is 24 and is hitting .302 with great gap power and will probably be #5, Gary Matthews is a solid player and Reggie Smith will be starting in the All-Star game. Once Wynn is back, he will be DH and Jones will have to play LF until he comes back to earth. Wynn is 35 and has just 1 year left on his deal. I will be dealing him in the offseason to open up that spot for Briggs/Armas.

Elsewhere, Ivan DeJesus has bounced back from his anemic .127 April. He has raised his average to .252 after a .341 June. But his big contribution has been in the field. Our defensive efficiency is 9th, but that is up from last in 1976 and our zone rating is 10th, up from next to last. DeJesus has only committed 4 errors and is 2nd in zone efficiency. Darrell Evans will move from 1b to 3b next year when Eddie Murray comes up to take 1b and he will be an improvement on Roy Howell when I deal him in the offseason.

Rick Wise is 4th in ERA and Blue Moon Odom has been nails as a closer, 3-0, 13 saves, 1.50 ERA and a WHIP of 1 will see him going to the All Star game as well. 17 games in 17 days before the All-Star game will kick off with a 5 game series at home with the 1st place A's.

I decided to play the 17 games before the break and we went 12-5 and find ourselves 1/2 game ahead of the A's and in first place. Our pitching has improved such that we have now allowed the fewest runs in the AL, which is important, because although we are 2nd in the AL in HR's we are just 9th in runs.

We lost Bill Freehan for a month to a concussion after he was hit in the $#%@*@ head by Rick Rhoden. Lots of HPB's in that series, more than 1 intentional, but no dustups. The Rangers use Rhoden as a leadoff hitter (!!!!!) when he starts and he came up again after he beaned Freehan, but it was a 1-run game and I couldn't retaliate immediately. Next time.

Reggie Smith, Rick Wise and Blue Moon Odom are our 3 All-Stars.

In the system, our AAA Gulls are 3 games up, our AA Diablos are 7 games up, our A clubs are in 2nd, 11 games back and last, 20 games back and our rookie club is 2 games back. Our system rank has gone up from 20th to 10th thanks to our first round pick Mike Davis, who is hitting .307/.413/.398 with 4 HR and 35 steals in A ball and was the #31 prospect, and our 2nd round pick this year SP Richard Dotson is ranked #98 down in rookie ball.

I limped the rest of the way through June going 5-7 and finding ourselves 2 back of the Royals, who ripped off 10 wins in a row.

Trading deadline passed and the only deal I made was dealing a righty reliever for a lefty to balance out the pitching staff, former Angel Jim Merritt comes back to the club.

Freehan's concussion has gone from out for 4 weeks to "recovery unknown". He's 35 and going to be a UFA after the season. He wants to stay, but wants a 4 year deal and I don't trust his head injury. Only 1 catcher was available before the trade deadline and I couldn't afford Johnny Bench, so I will ride it out this year and see what happens in the offseason.

Along with the A's and Royals, we play the AL East the entire month of August and they only have 1 team under .500, so we will have to play great against good teams. We are done with the A's, which is odd with 2 months to go and only have 5 left with KC.

We went 16-12 against the AL East in August and we are tied with the Royals 1 game behind the A's. We are done with the A's and have 8 against the Royals, who also have 8 against Oakland. We have 17 games with the White Sox and Rangers, who are both 49-82. I like our chances despite losing our ace, Rick Wise, for 6 weeks to a shoulder. He is our only injury and the A's and Royals are healthy

The Red Sox lead the Indians by a game in the AL East. The Giants, Dodgers and Astros are all within 2 games of each other in the NL West while the Phillies have a 7 game cushion over the Mets

We are tied with the A's with 7 games to go. We just finished up 22 games in 19 games and our home schedule with a wild week of walk-offs.

On Monday, we trailed 8-5 in the bottom of the 10th and after Dan Briggs doubled in a run, Rupert Jones hit a 3-run home run to win it.

On Tuesday, we were behind 6-5 in the bottom of the 13th when Jim Fregosi hit a walk-off 3-run home run of his own to win that game.

On Saturday, behind 7-6 in the bottom of the 9th, Fregosi again walked it off with a 3-run home run for a 9-7 win.

Finally, on Fan Appreciation Day and tied at 4 in the bottom of the 11th, Darrell Evans hit his 37th HR for our 4th walk-off HR of the week.

.....all this to stay tied with the A's.