Can the Mets keep the Miracle going after 1969?

[italyprof]

By August 1 we had pulled to within 4 of the Pirates, at 63-42. The Phillies at 13 back had dropped out of the race. Meanwhile the Orioles and Twins led in the AL divisions, though Oakland was 3 back of the latter, and the NL West also was close with Houston a game ahead of the Dodgers. Houston's Bob Watson was now the NL batting leader at .329. Henry Aaron's league-leading 25 home runs had Atlanta in 3rd 8 games back.

Seaver was now 16-4, Koosman 10-8, Gentry 11-5, Ryan 8-10 and Sadecki 9-7. The bullpen, including young Doyle Alexander whom we got in a late draft round, were all improved, except Frisella whose ERA, at a full run higher than Taylor's meant we again switched the two of them.

[italyprof]

On August 13th, two pieces of good news! - Tug McGraw was finally off the DL, and the Mets had caught and passed the Pirates to find ourselves alone in first place!

I sent Frisella down to the minors, as his ERA had ballooned, and with Taylor's now at 2.18, I kept him as Stopper and made Tug setup 6th inning or later, and as the secondary Stopper. This might be enough to pull it off !

[italyprof]

By Sept. 7 were 5 games up on Pittsburgh, with our record standing at 88-53. Pittsburgh's Matty Alou now led the batting race at .342, with Clemente third at .319. It wasn't enough so far to keep up with us though.

[italyprof]

Meanwhile Catfish Hunter and Vida Blue combined for 36 wins by the first week of September to put the As out in front of the AL West.

[italyprof]

Cesar Cedeno, second in RBI, and Joe Morgan, second in stolen bases to Bobby Tolan, were keeping Houston ahead of the Dodgers.

[italyprof]

And so ended the 1971 season on October 1:

AL East: Baltimore Orioles 97-65, 13 games ahead of the Tigers and 19 ahead of the Yankees

AL West: Oakland Athletics 104-58 - Catfish went 22-6 and Blue 19-10. Minnesota ended up with 98 wins but not enough. KC came in a distant third.

NL East: The New York Mets went 98-64, to finish 5 games ahead of Pittsburgh and win the division. The Phillies went 81-81 to end up third, a game ahead of the Cards.

NL West: Houston Astros 91-71, 3 better than LA and 9 better than SF.

So, Mets, vs. Houston - two expansion teams, just 9 years after both entered the league, for the NL Pennant!

[italyprof]

I am going with a three-man rotation for the playoffs, with Tug back at stopper, Moore as the setup man (2.01 ERA), and Doyle Alexander as the secondary stopper and long man.

Game 1 will be Seaver (19-8) against Ken Forsch (13-10), then Koosman 14-11 against Billingham 12-13, then Gentry 15-9 against Don Wilson, then Seaver against Scipio Spinks 11-9 in game 4. We open in NY.

[italyprof]

Seaver only gave up 4 hits, but three runs over 8 innings. Forsch pitched a 3-hit complete game shutout. We are down 1-0.

HISTORY IS MADE! Jerry Koosman pitches only the second postseason no-hitter in baseball history to win game two for the Mets 3-0! Jerry walked three and struck out 8, going all the way. Koosman had an RBI single as well.

We are tied 1-1.

Home runs by Joe Pepitone (RIP !) and Jim Wynn propel Houston to a 5-1 game 3 win.

In game 4, Wynn and Joe Morgan who ends up as series MVP, break open a 2-2 tie in the sixth against Tom Seaver and the Astros win the NL pennant 3 games to one.

In the AL, the first four games ended up 4-3 going Baltimore, Oakland, Oakland, Baltimore and then in the deciding game 5 the Orioles won 1-0 as Woody Fryman outpitched Vida Blue and series MVP catcher Chuck Hinton got three hits including the winning RBI.

So: Orioles versus Astros in the 1971 World Series.

[italyprof]

The powerful Orioles easily defeated the Astros 4 games to 1, in a series of mostly high-scoring games. Boog Powell ended up Series MVP.

[italyprof]

Aaron 32 homers and Jim Hickman 29 homers led each league - low totals really. Matty Alou hit .342 and Tony Oliva .325 to win the batting titles. Lou Brock stole 60 bases.

For Oakland, Hunter and Blue had 32 complete games (REMEMER THOSE ANYONE?!) between them, and Seaver pitched 7 shutouts (remember those - credited to ONE pitcher? - I miss baseball) . Sutton, Jenkins and Carlton had 24,22 and 21 Complete games respectively in the NL.

[italyprof]

Priority for the draft is a first-baseman: Clendennon hit 10 homers and Kranepool 9. Okay but they are both slowing down. Second base looks to go to Foli in 1972. We would like to upgrade at third as well, and Grote is great defensively but can't catch forever. And no one ever has enough pitching.

[italyprof]

Tough choices faced us in the draft. We were tempted to go with Steve Yeager a catcher, or Ken Reitz who plays third, both available probably earlier than our eventual first pick, Enos Cabell. Enos (here I cheat and look at real life stats) plays longer and better than the others and he plays both first and third. In round 2 we saw that Goose Gossage was available so we grabbed him. I have some second thoughts since we forwent another batter, and we might have at least gotten Celerino Sanchez to platoon with Garrett at third, but it means we have a bullpen of Tug McGraw lefty and Gossage righty for the next who knows how many years.

Third pick was a catcher, Joe Goddard, not much value, and the other two rounds got us filler and not much more.

[italyprof]

Will post 1972 some time soon, Stay tuned: same bat (and ball) time, same bat (and ball) station! (If you are old enough, you get the joke and reference).

[Brad K]

Originally Posted by italyprof

Aaron 32 homers and Jim Hickman 29 homers led each league - low totals really. Matty Alou hit .342 and Tony Oliva .325 to win the batting titles. Lou Brock stole 60 bases.

If I recall an earlier post correctly Alou is still with the Pirates. What position is he playing? Surely by this point hitting .342 isn't enough to make up for his poor fielding in CF.

Are you doing to continue playing Kranepool?

[italyprof]

Originally Posted by Brad K

If I recall an earlier post correctly Alou is still with the Pirates. What position is he playing? Surely by this point hitting .342 isn't enough to make up for his poor fielding in CF.

Are you doing to continue playing Kranepool?

Alou is listed at 1B for the Pirates.

As for Kranepool - he and Clendennon both decline at this point, though Kranepool remains a good LH batter/backup at 1B/OF and pinch hitter. Maybe a platoon player if needed, which for the moment is the case. I need a 1B, ideally this year. Had a good draft, in that we got Cabell, but he won't be ready for a few years. Then we traded Danny Cater who I had from some previous transaction, for Jim Northrup and Elliott Maddux, the latter solves our immediate CF issue and the former will likely play 1B as often as anyone else. So it's 1B by committee for now.

I know that the real-life Mets traded Seaver, and Koosman, so technically anything goes, but I feel like it's not the Mets I am managing if I suddenly have a bunch of ex-Reds, Dodgers, Giants, etc. and no Kranepool, Cleon, Grote, Harrelson on the team. Kind of defeats the purpose if by "Mets" I mean the Big Red Machine and Oakland As. I know it's a fuzzy standard, as I allow myself to trade some but not others. But I think I have a sense at least up the mid-70s where the line is. After that,not sure.

I have already gotten one extra LCS appearance before '73. If I can get another up to or including '73, that means I did better than RL. If we don't at least make another LCS by then, since in real life the Mets came within one game of winning the World Series a second time, I won't have done as well. And really I should be aiming to at least get into the Series in the next two seasons.

After that I admit that as a Yankees fan I lost track of how the Mets were doing as my own favorite team had a very successful and interesting bunch, and then just when they started to get boring around 82 without Reggie, they got Mattingly in the second half of '83 and so on.

I will check the historical record but think that the late 70s and first years of the 80s were tough times for Mets fans, but by 1984 they were fun again, the most fun of any team maybe I can recall ever, you could see them coming already by '84. What will fate hold for my version? We shall see.

[Brad K]

Originally Posted by italyprof

Alou is listed at 1B for the Pirates.

As for Kranepool - he and Clendennon both decline at this point, though Kranepool remains a good LH batter/backup at 1B/OF and pinch hitter.

Thanks for the info on Alou. I couldn't imagine the Pirates keeping him in CF this late but AI does some strange stuff.

I realize it's hard to accumulate WAR playing 1B but at 18 years Kranepool might have the longest career of any 4.2 WAR player.

I agree with you wanting to have a team that feels like the Mets. I use actual photos and I like to see lots of Pirate caps when I look at the roster! If you haven't noticed, luckmann has enacted a program to increase the number of real life Pirates in his Pirates save.

[italyprof]

Hi all. I haven't left off on this, just been traveling for work. I will have some time home soon and get back to it and posting about it.