[FuzzyRussianHat]

Defending Taiwan-Philippine Association champ Manila made it four Philippine titles in the first four years of Austronesia Professional Baseball. The Manatees had a franchise worst record of 97-65, still good enough to take the title by a comfortable 12 games over Zamboanga. In the Taiwan League, Taichung was unseated for the first time atop the standings. Taipei took the top spot at 97-65 while the Toucans were 90-72.

Tigercats 1B Shen-Hsiung Hsue won back-to-back MVPs. The 34-year old lefty was the TPA leader in home runs (52), RBI (93), runs (96), slugging (.555), OPS (.874), and wRC+ (188) with 8.2 WAR. Pitcher of the Year went to Zamboanga’ s Xinbin Sun. The 23-year old from China in his first full season in the rotation was the leader in wins at 21-10, ERA at 1.49, WHIP at 0.71, and quality starts at 32. He added 253 strikeouts in 290 innings with 9.2 WAR.



Medan won a third straight Malacca League title at 98-64, beating Pekanbaru by four games. Jakarta won the Java League for the first time, also going 98-64 and taking the title by 13 games. Defending Austronesia Champion Bandung, winners of 107 games the prior year, fell to a lousy 75-87.

Pekanbaru’s Stanley Susilowati won his second Sundaland Association MVP award. The 29-year old third baseman was the leader in WAR (10.8), walks (100), OBP (.378), OPS (.873) and wRC+ (178), adding 35 home runs and 92 RBI. Jakarta’s Muljadi Suwandi was the Pitcher of the Year. The 31-year old lefty joined the Jaguars on a one-year deal after prior stints with Tainan and Medan. Suwandi had an 18 strikeout no-hitter on May 16 against Semarang, setting an APB record for Ks in a no-no and also tying the general strikeouts in a game record. He was the leader in ERA (1.71), strikeouts (357), quality starts (29), FIP- (38), and WAR (11.1),



In the Taiwan-Philippine Association final, Taipei became a first-time champion by defeating Manila in six games. The Sundaland Association final had its fourth different champ in APB’s first four years as Jakarta topped Medan in five. The 1968 Austronesia Championship was the first to go all seven games with the Tigercats topping the Jaguars. Winning finals MVP was Taipei’s Chang-Yung Cheng, who in 13 playoff games had 14 hits, 6 runs, 4 home runs, and 5 RBI.



Other notes: Singapore actually improved from 45 wins the prior season to 57 in 1968, but set a number of still standings records for pitching mediocrity. The Sharks allowed 665 runs, 593 earned runs with a 1.237 WHIP and 3.65 ERA. In the very low offense environment of APB, these are all-time worsts for the Sundaland Association.