[Syd Thrift]

Major Transactions
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April 27: Tne Angels trade LF Alvin Romero (.273, 0, 1) and 1B Jon Skelton (.284, 2, 10) to the Senators for 3B Kristian Schneider (.222, 0, 3). I had a hard time figuring out this trade and TBH I kind of hate it, but it also makes some sense for both sides. On the Angels' side of things I hate hate hate sending out Jon Skelton, who has been a key member of this team since he was the first ever pick in the first ever expansion draft, but 3B Pete Jennings (.304, 1, 10) has been a butcher at the hot corner this year (5 errors in 16 games, a .902 FA) and needs to be moved over to first in the long-term anyway. So they receive Schneider, who along with Jennings represented the AL at the position in the ASG last year. On Washington's side, obviously losing Schneider is a huge blow but they're not good this year... and okay, in this situation, you don't generally trade for a 41 year old, but this allows them to replace 38 year old Nick DeBoer (.240, 2, 4) who made the ASG himself last year but is someone the Senators have not been super fond of for a while, and it also gives them a young potential superstar in Romero (who'd lost his starting gig when the Angels traded for Nelson Vargas in the offseason).

News
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April 27: It's not the biggest injury news in the world but Boston Red Sox LF Josh Teague (.250, 4, 8), who has been fighting little injuries all year, will miss the next three weeks with a strained back, just long enough to land him on the DL. CF Ryan Johnston was coming back from a longer term injury and I had him in rehab. This injury was enough for me to call him up and replace John Glynn (.149, 1, 8) in center. In Teague's vacated LF I'll platoon lefty Josh Pitt (.316, 0, 3) and righty Cody Miller (.200, 0, 2 in 5 1970 at-bats). Neither is a great option but, well, 3 weeks...

April 27: Speaking of those Bosox, they were dealt a huge, huge blow to their pennant chances when SP Michael Pesco (3-0, 0.87) tore his labrum while pitching against the Milwaukee Brewers this afternoon. He'll be out until the end of June at least. Pesco was absolutely on fire to open the year, having struck out 29 batters in 31 innings en route to the numbers I just posted. He was the early front-runner for a 3rd Cy Young Award.

April 27: Not a great day for AL starting pitchers! Minnesota's Mike Larsen (2-1, 2.51) will miss the next 4-5 weeks with an elbow strain. Larsen joins an ever-increasing Twins disabled list that already included Rich Whetzel (who hasn't pitched since 1968), Caleb Howard (out since May of last year with a torn flexor tendon in his elbow), and reliever Pete Eason (who slipped a disc in his back in spring training).

April 29: The US invades Cambodia to try to root out the Viet Cong. This kicks off a wave of antiwar protests in this country.

April 29: As if the little men inside of my computer wanted to show me that it's not all Wrigley Field, the Cubs blew out the Pirates 15-4 in Forbes Field today. Forbes is very much a pitchers' park (a 0.55 HR rate for RHBs for instance) in its final season in the MLB but it's like the Cubs don't even care. 3B John Maroney (.350, 1, 2), who is filling in for incumbent Sean Gabel (.414, 1, 11) as he recovers from an ouchie on his hand, went 4 for 6 with the rare right-handed homerun in this bad boy.

May 1: Lots and lots of demonstrations in the USA today, kicked off by both the US invasion of Cambodia and the New Haven Black Panther trials. The spring of 1970 = the summer of 2020?

May 1: Cincinnati Reds' LF Willie Ortega won NL Rookie of the Month with a nice .294/.333/.500 slash for the Reds. The game says he "hit 'em where they ain't". Um. I guess they, by which it means the defense, "ain't" in the stands. Ortega was only filling in until Junior Cannon came back, and even with that nice month it's hard to see him breaking into the Reds' lineup (he is a prime candidate for DH if that position existed and is blocked by Cannon and Stephen Clark at the DH-ey positions in the field) but he's there in case of injury and hey, you never know...

May 1: It's no surprise that the AL Rookie of the Month is the Milwaukee Brewers'... Jake Kratky? What? He went 1-2 with a 2.67 ERA as a surprise starter for the former Pilots squad but, like, his teammate Richard Berman is hitting .400 so far as a full-time starter. Kratky is one of those "finesse" pitchers that people used to think were a thing, so there is that (and tbf "finesse" guys tend to throw an economy of pitches and putting the ball into play a lot makes for some exciting baseball. It's almost too bad that we figured FIPS out).

May 1: Steve Waiters of the Cincinnati Reds went 5-0 in April with a 2.25 ERA and that was enough to win him his very first NL Pitcher of the Month. He held opponents to a .201 average, which is off of 7.4 K/9, which is well above the league average of 5.8, and he's got the 2nd best BB/9 and K/BB rates in the senior Circuit. He goode

May 1: Twins ace Angelo Ramos's bullpen blew up against the hapless Senators yesterday, which I thought might cost him the AL Pitcher of the Month Award, but happily it did not (also the Senators blew up right back at Minnesota, allowing the Twins to pull out a victory in extra innings so there is that, too). He still went 4-0 in 6 April starts with a 2.47 ERA. He's got the best control in the AL, with 1.0 BB/9. As I've posted about all the time, he missed a third of the year last year and, in spite of the fact that the man is an 8 time All-Star, really only began to look like the Twins ace in September and into October. He's clearly extending his clutch pitching into the 1970 season. You love to see it.

May 1: Rounding out a Reds Player of the Month trifecta, 2B Pedro Ortiz carried that monster first week he had (see my prior weekly report) into NL Player of the Month honors. He hit .434 with 3 ding-dongs, 14 runs scored and, amazingly, 17 RBIs while hitting leadoff. This is 26 year old Ortiz' first Player of the Month and, I suspect, not his last.

May 1: In the AL, the Player of the Month was also a second baseman, in this case keystoner Danny Villegas. All Villegas did was hit *9* homeruns last month with *20* RBIs, numbers that put him on pace for 81 and 180, respectively. We suspect that rate is not sustainable but if he stays healthy (always a real queston for Villegas, whose hasn't played more than 120 games in a season since 1966) he could hit 50 of them.

May 1: Houston Astros' 3rd baseman Nate Ringstad is demanding a trade. He's been completely displaced at the hot corner by 25 year old Pete Little and barring injury he's just not going to crack into the lineup. Still, you'd think he'd be a little more okay with playing for a winner than he has been. Your ire has been noted, sir!

May 1: The first of the month also comes with player development updates, which, since I have most ratings turned off, there aren't that many. The highlights I see are - the aforementioned Nate Ringstad's fielding and speed actually improved a little (dude is 34 so that's pure TCR at work), Oakland OF Matt Levario saw a little decrease in his speed (which might be a blessing in disguise, as it gives me the excuse to tell the base coaches to nail his foot to the bag - Levario has 417 career HRs but missed 32 games last year and I slightly cringe every time he tries to take an extra base out there), and 1969 Royals "starter" Jorge Mota, who is now sitting in the Mets' AA farm team, saw a small decrease in his ability to play the field. I generally allow the AI to handle the minors because there's only so much I can micromanage and if they want to use this man as a pinch-hitter in AA, fine, I guess?

May 1: Because I haven't written about enough today, how about some game news? I'm convinced that one reason you don't see long hitting streaks in OOTP, in addition to the fact that OOTP players are not as streaky as their real-life counterparts, is that the game will often rest a player on a streak and then bring them in as a pinch-hitter. In a "win as many games as you can" sense this makes total sense; at the same time, I think most managers, especially historically, would have kept a guy with a streak on the bench so he could get 4-5 chances to keep it going instead of just one. All of which is to say, I almost pulled an OOTP today, bringing in Danny Fager to pinch-hit for the O's in the 9th while he was carrying a 10-game hitting streak (he's currently sidelined with a minor injury). I say "almost" because Fager managed to hit a little looper just over A's second baseman Rich "Mister" Potter...

May 1: You want to see an absolute unmitigated disaster? Take the Cubs, put them in the Launching Pad, and allow them to face Atlanta Braves pitching. Chicago won today 17-5 and had back-to-back-to-back jacks with 2 outs in the 9th inning off of beleaguered long reliever Sean Cokely (now 0-1, 7.36), who, to be fair, I was trying to force through 3 innings of work to end the game (he did not get there; I had to bring in Roger Evans to pitch to the last batter). 1B Antonio Lopez (.273, 6, 17), SS Jeremy Taylor (.241, 4, 13), and Jason Workman (.467, 5, 19) hit the string of longballs, and RF Adam Groves (.195, 2, 5) almost made it 4 in a row with a triple (his hit is what finally chased Cokely). The Cubs are scoring 6.6 runs per game and are on pace to easily eclipse the NL record of 875 runs scored in a season. Atlanta now has a team ERA of 5.13, falling slightly behind Montreal's at 5.11 (note: I have yet to play Montreal's game today).

May 2: Red Sox set-up man Luis Flores (0-1, 6.00) got bombed last night and, since he was the last rested guy left in the 'pen, I left him in. Well, I tried to. What actually happened was, he left the game himself with injury. This morning we found out it was a strained oblique that will take him out until the 2nd half of the season. He'll have that fond memory of getting destroyed now until late July or early August.

May 2: 3B Kristian Schneider (.299, 0, 9) hasn't even been with the Angels for a week and he's already left a permanent mark with the team. Today he set a new California Angels record with 5 hits and tied the AL record with 4 doubles in a 17-4 shellacking of the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park. Schneider, a native German who does not yet have complete command of the language, said "Ich bin ein Angel" after the game in response to all questions. The only other AL player to hit that many doubles was David Salinas, who did it with the Yankees in 1963.

May 3: A couple of Yankees players expressed their discontent with their roles and I'm not really surprised. RF Frank Meneses (.286, 0, 3) wasn't really even bad last year, with a .222 average hiding middling power and a great eye. I might have to work him back in the lineup... yeah, with Ross Poynor (.230, 3, 11) struggling to open the season, that's exactly what I'm going to do. For now I'll leave Marc Ash (.250, 0, 2) as the platoon guy vs. LHPs at that position but hopefully this will make Meneses happier. As for Mike Arnaud (.167, 0, 1), he's the backup shortstop and won't see time unless / until Ty Stover (.224, 3, 10) gets hurt. I'm sure that what this is really about is that the Yankees, expected to contend in 1970, are scuffling around at 11-12.

May 3: I'm not announcing every single demotion of course but jeeez... Twins reliever Todd Thiesen (0-1, 4.50) just picked up his 3rd blown save already (he has 3 saves so he's batting .500 in that department) and I'm replacing him with Pete Lynn (0-0, 2.70, 1 save). Thiesen was acquired from Cleveland in the offseason after leading the AL in saves. I guess Cleveland saw something coming that the rest of us (read: me) did not.

May 3: The Senators break an 8 game losing streak in the best way possible. Chad Daugharty (2-2, 3.55) threw a no-hitter tonight against the Milwaukee Brewers. This is the second no-no already in this young season (which, offense is up, trust me!) and the third inflicted on this franchise since September of last year. Daugharty walked one and faced just two hitters above the limit (another man reached on an error by 3B Aaron Pope).

May 3: This feels like it's barely news but Twins 2B Daniel Gilmet (.323, 1, 5) strained his oblique today and will miss the next month of the season. 35 year old Danny Pellot (.300, 0, 2), who once upon a time went to 5 All-Star Games, will fill in for him just like last year.

May 4: Four students at Kent State University in Ohio, USA are killed and nine wounded by Ohio National Guardsmen, at a protest against the incursion into Cambodia.

May 4: The Chicago Cubs' LF Jason Workman (.467, 5, 19) went 14 for 21 last week with 2 HR and 8 RBIs and that was enough to win his 9th Player of the Week honor. Really, all of Chicago hit like gangbusters over the past seven days.

May 4: Yankees first baseman Alex Cardenas (.340, 5, 13) showed he has a little something left in the tank by going 15 for 31 with 3 HR and 5 RBI this past week. Cardenas, the 1st or 2nd man in A's history in nearly every major batting category, won his *22*nd such award in his career.

May 4: Power rankings!

1st New York (N) 16-7
2nd Cincinnati 17-8
3rd Los Angeles 15-8
4th Baltimore 14-8
5th Kansas City 13-9

Boston is right back there at 6th (13-8), while Minnesota is all the way back at 11th (14-10) after a tough week. Atlanta (7-16) did manage to pull past Montreal and Washington to get out of the cellar at 22nd, where they're now right behind last year's near-Cinderella team the Chicago White Sox (8-14), who are 21st. The other/main Windy City club the Cubs are 7th (12-8), mostly overcoming the 4th-worst NL ERA (4.50) with the best offense in baseball (6.3 R/G).

May 4: The author's father turned 22 today. I believe he was still in Vietnam, where he served on a destroyer in the US Navy (I guess technically that would put him off the coast of Vietnam), at this point in time.