[BirdWatcher]

Awards Season, 1979:

It should be no surprise that San Antonio's Bud Lindsay captured his 4th straight Shoeless Joe League MVP award after having had the best season of his illustrious career. Lindsay captured all 24 first place votes and got 336 total points with his nearest competitors for the honor being teammates John Mussaw (215 points) and John Freeman (187). Philadelphia's slugging first baseman Mike Lovett (former Brewer) came in 4th with 163 points.

The SJL also saw a repeat Pitcher of the Year as Columbus left-hander Luis Ramirez captured his second statue for this distinction. Ramirez also got all the first place votes and finished with 168 points with teammate Jim Norris, himself also a 2-time Pitcher of the Year award winner, coming in second with 96 points. Then another Whalers pitcher, Kevin DeRouen with 57 points followed by the unheralded 25-year old Jacksonville right-hander Jose Becerra (13-9, 3.00) with 39 points.

Speaking of repeats, Sadahige Kawasaki took his 2nd straight MGL Pitcher of the Year award, and also with unanimous first place votes. His 168 points gave him a pretty sizeable advantage over Brooklyn's Aaron McNally (18-12, 2.39) who netted 96 points in the voting. Young Joe Shetler (16-9, 2.91) of Oklahoma City came in 3rd at 63 points and Denver's Jim Atwell placed 4th with 29 points.

There was no repeat in the MGL MVP voting however. Last year's winner, the Brewers Brett Taranto, had a fine season but finished tied with 2 other players at the bottom of the list of players receiving votes for this one with 2 total points. On the other hand, his teammate Antonio Acuna went from being the Brewers 4th outfielder at the beginning of the 1979 season to being the latest member of the team to walk away with the league MVP hardware. Acuna got 13 first place votes and 281 points while Detroit's excellent young center fielder John Hemmah was right behind him with 11 first place tallies and 269 points. Denver's Val Guzman finished third, with 190 points and Brooklyn's Danny Salvador was 4th with 163 points. Joe McPhillips was also in the running, garnering 109 points to finish in 6th place, Jake DiCesare was 10th with 31 points, and Bobby Erbakan finished just behind him with 17 points.

Pittsburgh third baseman Bobby Glaus was the unanimous winner of the SJL Rookie of the Year voting, having hit .318 with 18 homers and 113 RBI for a 4.2 WAR season. John Miller of Chicago and Rick Downey also got some votes but finished far behind Glaus.

In the MGL, Brooklyn catcher Jim Hilll was a bit of surprise pick, narrowly edging out Charlotte outfielder David Freeman. Each received 12 first place points but Hill had 96 total points to Freeman's 94.

One would think that setting a new saves record- in fact demolishing the old one- would have been enough to get Jamar Clay his second straight SJL Reliever of the Year award, and the fact that he is also one of the most well loved and respected players in the game on top of that makes it a bit of shocker that the honor went instead to Jeff Ault of Chicago, who captured all but 4 of the first place votes. (The others went to Clay, of course.) The fact that Ault threw 151 innings, going 10-6 with 13 saves and a 2.86 ERA must have influenced voters who saw that Clay threw only 78 1/3rd innings this season. (It should be noted that Clay threw just over 172 innings last season, all in relief, and 122 1/3rd the season before.) Ault got 112 points in the voting to Clay's 65.

In the MGL, 25-year old Joey Johnson of Portland, who had a breakout season, getting 26 saves with a 1.84 ERA over 107 innings pitched, was the unanimous winner with 120 points overall. Another young reliever on the rise, Vinny Arreola of Charlotte, came in second with 70 points. Tim Shore of Denver, who was the 1974 SJL Reliever of the Year, came in third with 19 points.

I won't go into any great depth about the somewhat less glamorous awards but suffice it to say that no Denver players earned Gold Gloves this season but four did walk away with Silver Slugger awards at their position in the MGL, including starting pitcher Jim Atwell (.305/.294/.354), third baseman Jake DiCesare (.329/.371/.528), left fielder Val Guzman (.325/.412/.522) and of course right fielder Antonio Acuna (.368/.420/.581).


Fond Farewells:

Before the WPK regular season had ended a pair of WPK greats who had been languishing in the minors this season decided to call it quits and upon announcing their retirements it was also announced that the teams they played for the longest were also retiring their uniform numbers. Jason Wilson who finished his career with 209 wins and 147 losses and a career ERA of 3.26 pitched 11 of his 13 seasons with the Los Angeles Spinners and during that time had four 20-win seasons and won the 1969 MGL Pitcher of the Year award. The Spinners honored his years of sterling service by retiring his uniform number 47, making him the first player to be so honored by the club.
Jesus Casiano played the entirety of his 14 year big league career in a Jacksonville Wolf Pack uniform, a career that will almost surely make him a first ballot Hall of Famer. His uniform number 3 becomes the first to be retired by the Wolf Pack.

Other well-known WPK players who retired at the end of the season include starting pitcher Bobby Cruz, who pitched his entire career with the Washington Night Train, finishing with 180 career wins and 134 career losses, with a 3.22 ERA and 45.1 WAR.
Another famous starting pitcher, Reece Vaughan, who pitched for Oklahoma City from 1965-1973 before being traded mid-season to Jacksonville, where he pitched until early in the 1978 season when he suffered a torn rotator cuff injury which in the end doomed his career (he pitched 6 games at AAA this season upon return, but put up a 6.06 ERA), also steps away from the game but has already been hired by the Denver Brewers organization as their pitching coach at AA Nashville.
And Rigby Muckenfuss, one of the early stars of the league as a member of the Charlotte Sting, having not played a single inning of big league ball in 1978, got to say his goodbyes to the WPK in a brief 5-game, 5 plate appearance stint with El Paso at the end of this season. Muckenfuss walks away from the game he loves with a respectable 35-war, 12+ year career to show for it.

Realignment, Expansion, and the Expansion Draft:

As the WPK enters a new decade, the 1980's, it also embarks on a new adventure, with the SJL and MGL splitting into two divisions each with six teams in each division. This will lead to one round of playoffs prior to the Kinsella Classic Series, with the division winners facing off for a best of seven game contest to claim their league title.
Of course, the only way that each division can have six teams each is for the MGL to add two new teams to their mix. And thus they have. The Montreal Royals will now be the first team in the WPK representing Canada and will play in the new MGL East while the St. Louis Redbirds take up residence in the new MGL West (where, of course, our Brewers also play.) (Yes, the names are not very clever or original I admit. This is just not the sort of thing I tend to labor over very long.)
Having come off a season where there was little drama surrounding who would represent each league in the KCS, and also with the Columbus Whalers finishing with a 107-win record just going home at the end of the regular season it seemed like a good time to shake things up a bit. Granted, as it turned out, three of the four divisions would have also not seen any pennant race, with Denver, San Antonio, and Columbus all easily having the best record of the teams in their new divisional alignments. However, it would have been a tremendous race in the MGL East, as the Detroit Falcons and Brooklyn Aces finished with identical 88-74 records.

The Expansion Draft rules were a bit different this year than those prior to the 1975 season, when Chicago and Houston joined the SJL. Teams were allowed to protect only 18 players (though those with less than 3 years on a 40-man roster were exempt) with the hopes being that the new teams might have a fighting chance of not being completely awful from the start.
And indeed, there were some real steals in the draft. Perhaps the biggest was when the Boston Berserkers inexplicably failed to protect their 26-year old slugging first baseman Chase Moeller, who had just put together a 4.6 WAR All-Star season, hitting .315 with 24 homers and 124 RBI. He is slated to hit 3rd in the Royals lineup this upcoming season. Montreal will also feature second baseman Nick Ward, grabbed from the Brewers with the 3rd overall pick in the Expansion Draft. The first overall pick, also now with Montreal, was starting pitcher Bobby Martinez, formerly of Philadelphia. With their third pick the Royals took Denver reliever Nick Schroeder and with their 4th pick they got speedy veteran outfielder Jeremy Brigatti from Brooklyn. Not a bad start to the draft for Montreal. The Royals also got an excellent young closer in Edgar Cruz from the Brooklyn Aces, a fine first baseman from Baltimore in David Vinson, and right fielder Danny Martinez, who was the 1974 SJL Rookie of the Year, from Philadelphia. In addition to Ward the Royals also got the Brewers other utility middle infielders- Joe Willemse (this one hurts) and Geoff Bartholomew. The other player they took off the Brewers hands was catcher Erik Bettencourt, who along with Ed Brown from Jacksonville gives the Royals a solid catching duo. In terms of 1979 WAR totals, the Royals walked away from the Expansion Draft having mined 30.1 WAR, not a bad haul at all.

St. Louis was a bit less successful in terms of immediate impact, having picked players who accumulated 21 WAR in 1979. They did get a pretty decent prospect in second baseman Alvin Yeckley from the Columbus organization. One of their most interesting picks was young left fielder Eddie Evans from Baltimore. Evans isn't a great contact hitter but he did come in 2nd in the MGL in home runs this past season with 31, is a fine defensive outfielder and a great base stealer, and is hard working, durable, and 26-years old. They also took a chance and picked 25-year old two-way player Jean Auge from Columbus. Auge is the 94th top prospect in the game, a good hitting first or second baseman and a decent relief pitcher who could still develop into the starting rotation. But he also profiles as fragile. So one questions whether his days as a 2-way player are numbered. The Redbirds top starting pitcher will be veteran left-hander Erik Sloan, no longer a Brewer, having been selected with their 3rd pick. Their second pick could end up being a great one- as they nabbed 26-year old third baseman Steve Whitehead from Houston (how on earth did they leave this guy unprotected?). Whitehead is a smart player with a hit tool trending towards excellence and good enough defense. Their first pick was a bit of a puzzling one though, as they took 40-year old future Hall of Famer Travis Johnson. I mean, he will get fans in the seats, so that makes sense. And he's still a pretty good hitter, in theory at least, but the man cannot play any defensive position whatsoever without costing his team dearly. Other players (in addition to Sloan, that is) the the Redbirds took off the Brewers hands: minor league pitcher Jimmy Bottello (eh), and, well, I just realized that's it. They did get former Brewer Rodrigo "RodRod" Rodriguez, for what that's worth (not that much these days.) Right fielder Jose Melecio, from the San Antonio Keys, has a great arm and is a decent hitter with some power. First baseman Sean Brunson from Houston is, well, not the worst player for an expansion club to have on the roster. And 31-year old Doug Helmick, nabbed from Milwaukee, has experience playing on an expansion club in their first season, having been chosen by Houston in the previous WPK expansion draft and he has some power, plays left field quite creditably, and is a good teammate. Honestly, there isn't much to say about the St. Louis Redbirds, other than that they will probably suck for awhile. (Oh, and they have a tiny market size with pathetic team loyalty and no money. But their home field, Ballpark of the Gateway, is pretty.)


Coming up, tomorrow at the latest, is the final part of this wrap-up, where free agent signings will be discussed as well as a bit of a look forward to 1980 and beyond for our Denver Brewers and the W.P. Kinsella League.