The Career of Julien Henri - A look back in time

[stevem810]

Le Diamant goes 4-2 for the week. Their +78 Run Differential leads the league. Only the Expedition with +52 have more than a +4 differential. Essentially, two very strong teams and not much else this season. With 4 teams making the post-season it's possible that a team without much clout will walk away with the championship, if they can get hot or lucky or both.

Guedon, of St. Michel, as depicted in the graphic, has the highest batting average while Harmon of Marseille leads in round tripppers.

[stevem810]

Vial appears to be either snake bit, injury prone, or both. He is having a difficult time staying on the field. Without much depth at SS the idea of trying Julien Henri at short has garnered some discussion around the front office.

Assistant GM Billy Cyrille was dead set against it, but, Benoit Mahe has known Henri for quite some time. He's observed Julien's natural ability at either keystone position and thinks he could handle it. At least, in a pinch.

To complicate things even further, Bruno Furcade, known for 'meddling in team on the field decisions' more than once before, has made it known that the final decision will be his. More on this later.

[stevem810]

Julien Henri Journal

My first coach in high school drilled into me the need to always be prepared. I'm thankful for that advice, and I think it has served me well. Tonight I'm going to do some reading. Just in case.

[stevem810]

The Diamonds go 5-2. Henri stays red hot with the bat as Meyers and Mahe stick with Julien in the playing field. On the mound, 6-2 with a 3.66 ERA.

[stevem810]

The month of May ends with Le Diamant playing the best baseball in the FBL (tied). But, they did lose the last two series in May. No word on the SS experiment as oft-injured Habib Vial is back in the line-up.

[stevem810]

Le Diamant appears to be on cruise control. They lead the FBL in every statistical category except home runs. They have the #3 Minor League System. And, they have a red hot two-way player in the person of Julien Henri.

[stevem810]

Le Diamant continues to play championship caliber baseball. Cap Chevalier has upped their game winning 7 in a row and are now single digits back at 9 games. They hold the WC by 3 games.

Julien Henri having an excellent season on the mound. Just 22 years old.

[BirdWatcher]

Julien Henri- 22 years old AND durable.
Nice combo.

[stevem810]

The Diamonds continue to roll as we move into July. Both Henri and DeLage playing good baseball. Cosman and Bour on the mound are as formidable as any 1-2 punch in the history of the league, a combined 23-3.

[stevem810]

Here are the guys who want to ride the new success wave of the Le Diamant Diamonds. Neither are far off from the big leagues as long as they continue to advance their skills. However, in the case of Gracia, Herve DeLage is likely to own 3b for quite some time.

[stevem810]

Journal of Julien Henri

It's the first of August and our magic number is 6. We're going to win the pennant in Martinique. Now, it's a question of how we handle the post-season. We have a lot of young players who are not accustomed to playoff games. But, those same young players got some experience last year. With guys like 33 year old Steve Green, who I swear gets better and better, we are equipped to handle this, according to Johan Guerin our Pitching Coach.

Johan has made the playoffs 5/6 years and won it all with Montreal. The players respect his leadership. I know I do.

The papers like to cover my pitching and batting stats....and I'm fine with that, but often my position defense is over looked. I've had a pretty good season in the OF. A +2.4 RF in CF and a +1.1 RF in RF. Throw in just one error and 5 OF assists and it's obvious why I'm feeling good about it. I'll continue to work on it, just like everything else.

Some in the organization think I should decide to be a CF or a P. Fortunately, I have a PC and a BC that support my way of thinking. As long as I produce in both areas there is no reason to back off.

Happy with my base running, too. I've been cut down 3 times, and successful 16 times.

How about Vic Cosman? 16-2. We feel like we can't lose with him on the mound. Usually we don't.

We are on our way to Paris to play the 52-59 Artists. We are 8-1 against them this season.

[stevem810]

Le Diamant sweeps Paris as Vic Cosman racks up yet another W as he is now demonstrating a complete mastery of the art of pitching. The series ends with another shutout by the Le Diamant staff and when the team heads home to Martinique it's Julien Henri who delights the home fans with his wizardry on the mound as he shuts out the Anse d'Arlet Sting Rays in front of 23,149 fans.

[stevem810]

The FBL has released its report that contains the Team Statistics as well as the often guarded Financial Page. Speculation is that they want to demonstrate how a small market team can be successful in spite of a tight budget.
Case in point, Le Diamant has the second smallest budget yet is far and away the dominant team in the league this season.

[BirdWatcher]

Just out of curiosity, will you be transferring this save and/or thread over to OOTP20 at some point?

(I ask mostly because I tend to forget to check to see if there is anything new in the OOTP19 folders here these days. Sorry, I know this question lives outside of the reality of this thread- if you prefer to answer me in a pm or even in my current Denver Brewers thread, that's cool with me.)

[stevem810]

The streaking red hot Le Diamant franchise is shattering the record books as they have recorded their 93 win total with still two weeks to go in the season.

The team is playing at a .721 win percentage with the next best team playing .566 baseball. Cap Chevalier trails Le Diamant by 24 games yet is on course for the post-season.

The Diamonds are 3rd in HR's, 2nd in SB's, and lead all other major categories.

MVP candidate....for all these reasons and more comes in the person of Julien Henri.
His batting stats: .323/.347/.481. He is 15/18 in stolen bases
His pitching stats: 16-5 with a 2.61 ERA and 1.05 WHIP
His Defense: +ZR at 4 positions

It will be all about managing the challenges of the post-season for the Diamonds.

[stevem810]

Le Diamant loses the last two games of the season to finish with 99 wins. Clearly, the best team in the FBL for 1966. But, in order for it to be official they will need to win two more series. Martinique, the tiniest geographical area of the FBL, will be represented by two franchises, including the Cap Chevalier Waves who edged out perennial playoff participant, the Montreal Royals.
It's just the second time Montreal has come up short. For the Waves, this is their 4th post-season and they are 3/3 in winning championships when they qualify.

[stevem810]

The Diamonds and Expedition will have home field advantage in the first round. Here are the first round pairings as well as the head to head during the regular season.
Le Diamant holds a slim 7-5 advantage over the Waves while the Expedition and Soleis have split the 12 games.

[stevem810]

Le Diamant gets a strong outing from Cosman and 3 solid innings of no run/no hit relief from Picot, as he allowed just one base runner. Henri, went 1 for 4 in RF. Steve Green had 3 hits for Le Diamant.

[stevem810]

Discussion focused on the managing of the ball game as opposed to the 4-2 win by Le Diamant. Scoring 2 in the 7th and 2 in the 8th provided the margin in the comeback win.

Burke's 6 IP and 2 runs allowed, while fanning 9, kept the Diamonds in the ball game until late in the game. What was taking them out of the ball game was the management of the base running.

Bench Coach Benoit Mahe, in charge of the game for Le Diamant, appeared to be stuck in the steal a base mode, even after catcher Sebastian Martin demonstrated his proficiency for throwing out runners. Le Diamant stole 2 bases but was gunned down 5 times. Adding insult to injury, Henri was waved home on a SF attempt and he was thrown out at the plate.

Le Diamant will heat east to Cap Chevalier for games 3-5. The team has announced that they will rely more on working pitch counts, driving the ball, and less on the stolen base for game 3.

[stevem810]

It was the Julien Henri show as he allowed 0 earned runs and pitched deep into the game before some 9th inning runs made the score (8-4) closer than the actual outcome of the game. Herve DeLage's bases clearing triple in the 4th inning broke the contest open.

The Diamonds stole 1 base in as many attempts and had one player thrown out at the plate. A big improvement over the game 2 fiasco.