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1868 NATIONAL BASE BALL ORGANIZATION REVIEW

WRITERS POOL OBSERVATIONS

This was a strange season. Offense was down slightly in both leagues, but at the same time individual records for Slugging, OPS, Runs, Doubles, Triples, Home Runs, Extra-Base Hits, and RBI were tied or broken. Record amounts of players drove in 75+ runs, the most players hit 5+ Home Runs in five years, and a number of team offensive records were broken as well.

There were a number of regions in which there was a clear break in quality between the top half of the standings and the bottom half. In Brooklyn, 3rd-place Continental was six games back of Kings County while 4th-place Empire was 15 GB. In New York City, 4th-place Metropolitan was eight GB while 5th-place Harlem was 17 GB. In Coastal, 3rd-place Mass. Bay was seven GB and 4th-place Quaker St. was 14 GB. Of course, Inland was a two-team race and New England was a one-team race. Only in Upstate NY, where the top six teams finished within seven games of each other, was the competition wide open.

Orange is a team that clearly rises to the occasion. They have only made the playoffs three times over a dozen years but have taken home the cup twice. The first time (1859) they took out Kings County & Shamrock in the last two rounds of the playoffs to win the title, and this year they took the cup with wins at K.C. & St. John’s over the last two days of the TWC.

St. John’s finished runner-up in the Tucker Wheaton Cup, but their NBBO-best 50-20 record brought their cumulative record over twelve seasons of NBBO play to 572-268, a .681 winning percentage. That means that St. Johns’ AVERAGE finish to a season has been 48-22, by far the best of any of the organization’s 48 teams.

Alleghany had a very unique season. They finished second in the Inland Championship even though their Run Differential was more than 100 runs better than winners Susquehanna (+188 to +84). That was an NBBO first.

Jim Creighton is now at the peak of his powers. He broke a number of pitching records in 1868, and yet he remained one of the most dangerous batsmen in the New York League. He’s still only 27 so he could conceivably perform like this for another decade.

Konrad Jensen may finally be able to stake a claim as the best batsman in the sport. Counting his accolades from this year, Jensen is now a 2x BotY, 2x MVP, 2x Golden Glove winner, 8x All-Star, and 8x Team of the Year member. He has hit .400, and he has the single-season records for OPS, Runs, Bases on Balls, and Stolen Bases after having a historically-great 1868.

As it turned out, Kings Co. was right to let Cormack Alexander leave for Quaker St., fresh off a BotY award, and then give first base to the unproven Garfield Koonce. Koonce hit .372 with a .930 OPS (157 OPS+), 56 RBI, and 2.9 WAR in his first season as a member of the K.C. senior team, while Alexander set career lows for average (.357), OPS (.873, 139 OPS+), and RBI (47) during his first season in Philadelphia.

This year’s most underappreciated player: Excelsior 3B Gil Cappelletti (.358, 44 XBH, 78 RBI, 2.7 WAR). The newcomer led NYL third basemen in numerous offensive categories but lost out on a Team of the Year nod because Will Chaffin had a fine season for the champions. Then he was overlooked for Newcomer awards because of great hitting by Koonce and great pitching by Will Johannessen. He’s only 24, so more seasons like this one should see Cappelletti receive his due credit.

Sons of the Ocean may need to see St. John’s move to the Coastal or leave the NBBO altogether in order to take the throne in New England. Their N.E. finishes since shocking everyone by taking the pennant in 1865: 2nd, 2nd, & 2nd. They have been 2nd or 3rd in New England no less than TEN TIMES while being within ten games of St. John’s eight out of the ten.

What has happened to Mutual? The one-time NYC champs (1860) spent the first nine years of the competition mostly in the top half of the standings, but their records over the past three seasons have been 20-50 (8th), 28-42 (7th), & 21-49 (8th). This happened AFTER they signed one of the game’s premier talents: Anderson MacGyver from St. John's. Is there any hope going forward?

Sportsman’s had a bizarre season in one area: baserunning. They were the worst baserunning team in the NBBO by all metrics, and they easily broke an NBBO record by stealing only 20 bases all season, with only three players on the entire team pilfering bases in 1868. Nearly six dozen individual players stole more bases than the entire Sportsman’s team did.

Flour City has been the runner-up in Upstate NY each of the past two seasons thanks to excellent play in July. The team has no shortage of talent and is anchored by the excellent CF Obelix Tsiaris. The main question is: will they be able to put together a consistent season in 1869 and return to cup play for the first time in five years?