Out of the Shadows: The Eclipse League

[luckymann]

The talk around the league is mainly centred on the strong start by the Giants. Led by Aaron Judge on offence and the surprisingly dominant pitching of Jose de Jesus, both of whom claim the monthly award, the St. Louis outfit has the best record in all of the EL at 21-7, and already leads the FC National by a healthy 7.5 games. Despite their low pick - the lowest, in fact - they have drafted really well to compile a squad full of solid if unspectacular ballplayers such as George Scott, Michael Taylor and Jeffrey Hammonds, with Judge really their only out-and-out gun, along with a pitching staff led by Hideki Irabu that should more often than not keep them in games. They look set to give it an almighty shake over these first few seasons before FA kicks in and, as a smaller-market team in this league, these are the types of affordable and reliable players they'll need to source continually if they want to keep up with some of the bigger clubs and remain competitive.

Besides Judge and de Jesus, Ruppert Jones of the Cuban Stars East has shone the brightest so far, slashing 363/463/699 with 8 homers, 25 ribbies and a healthy 2.9 WAR in this opening stanza. Khris Davis of Memphis and the Buckeyes' Joe Nunnally have both shown plenty of early pop, with their 10 round-trippers the highest in the EL, but it is Homestead hurler and 3rd pick overall Masahiro Tanaka who leads all players with 3.2 WAR to this point.

April award-winners as follows:

• FC BATTER OF THE MONTH: Aaron Judge (Giants) 407 / 4 HR / 25 RBI.
• FC PITCHER OF THE MONTH: Jose de Jesus (Giants) 6-0 / 1.12 / 50 K / 48 IP.
• WC BATTER OF THE MONTH: Ruppert Jones (East) 392 / 7 HR / 23 RBI.
• WC PITCHER OF THE MONTH: Earl Francis (Motown Stars) 4-1 / 2.28 / 42 K / 51.1 IP

[luckymann]

... as Senor Dihigo finally gets in the win column with a fine outing against the Red Sox. In a nice touch of serendipity, a big hit by his old mate Alejandro Oms in the 6th helps him get there. Sweet Lou Whitaker also cracks his first EL homer to lead off the 1st.

[luckymann]

Carlos Zambrano has begun his EL career in fine fashion, as has his Cuban Stars East club. They sit at 22-13 after this win, atop the WC National by a game from the American Giants.

[luckymann]

The EL has seen its first 20+-game hit streak come and go, as Rod Allen takes it to 24 before being stopped by the BGs.

[luckymann]

I won’t solely be zoning in on NeL players in this exercise, but they will take the large part of my focus and this matchup was simply too good to let pass.


Friday 10th May, 1968 – Pittsburgh Crawfords @ Newark Eagles
7.05pm, Ruppert Stadium, Newark NJ

Martin Dihigo (2-6, 4.43) v Hilton Smith (3-5, 3.84)

Neither of these HOFers will be happy with how their EL careers have kicked off, a fact that I am sure will only intensify their desire to do well here. Neither are overpowering pitchers and the result will undoubtedly be greatly affected by who can spot their pitches better in the key moments.





The Eagles started slowly but have found form of late with 6 straight wins and closed the gap to the top of the FC American Association to just 3 games, currently sitting at 16-20. The Crawfords have run hot-and-cold to this point and sit just two games better off than their opponents tonight at 18-18.

Here's how the two sides line up tonight. Plenty of top-notch talent on show, should be a ripper.



Both pitchers start confidently with scoreless 1st innings, but the Crawfords get a break in the next when, after Dihigo singles with one out, Eagles 2B Richie Weeks muffs one and a single by Humberto Cota puts Pittsburgh ahead.

Dihigo handles the dangerous Newark middle without issue the first time through the order and in fact doesn't give up a hit until Guerrero jr singles in the 4th.

Smith, too, has found his groove, but the Crawfords double their lead in the 6th with a two-out rally and a run driven in with a single by Jose Oliva. The pressure gets to all of the Eagles as Smith walks the bags full then gives up an RBI single to Joel Guzman, with a second coming in on a needless throwing error by RF Chuck Carr. 4-0 Pittsburgh.

Newark threatens in the home half but Dihigo wriggles his way out of it and Pittsburgh pad their lead with another run in the 8th when Oms triples and comes home on an Oliva groundout.



Dihigo is left in to try and finish off the shutout and he does so with a 1-2-3 9th. A commanding three-hitter for El Inmortal and more disappointment for Mr Smith.

[luckymann]

[luckymann]

... as AC's Adolfo Phillips is the first player to hit for the cycle, in a 7-6 home win over the Eagles.

[luckymann]

... behind a sterling pitching effort by Shairon Martis and James Loney's 2 HR / 6 RBI performance.

[luckymann]

... this win moves him to a tidy 8-3. Not sure how one "scatters" one hit, but anyway...

[luckymann]

... as his tidy 2.74 ERA (117 ERA+) and 81 FIP- will attest, young Carsten Charles can consider himself unlucky to be sitting at 4-7, mainly due to his Black Yankees side not being overly generous with run support (3.0 per 9).

This is what he is capable of and what I am sure we will see much more of from him over the course of his career.

[luckymann]

... this makes it 4 dingers in 3 games for the big guy, who seems to be finding his feet in the bigs.

He's now slashing 360/407/680 with 7 HR and 22 RBI, good for an OPS+ of 221 and 1.4 WAR.

[luckymann]

The Giants continue to dominate, but both the Cuban Stars West and Monarchs have crept a bit closer in the latter stages of the month. Still, the St. Louis boys retain a healthy 10-game advantage in the FC National.

The FC American looks like it is going to be the one to watch, with the Royal Giants, Crawfords and Black Yankees already embroiled in a dogfight for the lead, and just 5 games separating top and bottom.

The WC American is also super tight, with the Elite Giants, Grays and Athletics within a game of each other and the others in close pursuit.

In the WC National, the Cuban Stars East have pinched a little break, 6.5 games clear of their nearest rival the American Giants. They look a dangerous unit, leading the WC in both runs scored and Starter ERA.

No doubt the cream is rising at the individual level. Ruppert Jones continues to be the WC offensive standout, already having amassed nearly 5 WAR, and Red Sox star Billy Sample has been on a tear of late. Among the pitchers, Juan Marichal is the dominant FC pitcher, while Tanaka-san is still giving hitters fits across in the WC.

The May awards went to the following players:

• FC BATTER OF THE MONTH: David Ortiz (West) 447 / 6 HR / 19 RBI.
• FC PITCHER OF THE MONTH: Odell Jones (West) 5-1 / 1.66 / 49 K / 54.1 IP.
• WC BATTER OF THE MONTH: Eric Chavez (Athletics) 309 / 7 HR / 22 RBI.
• WC PITCHER OF THE MONTH: Carlos Zambrano (East) 5-1 / 1.24 / 45 K / 58 IP

These are the overall Top 10 lists:




And these are just for the NeL players (I'll do these every few months):

[luckymann]

As anyone who has tried to incorporate them into a save would well know, the cursory treatment of NeL players is a real black spot (pun intended) on OOTP, one they will hopefully rectify sooner rather than later. Some NeL players import OK, but the vast majority do not.

To overcome this, I have spent many enjoyable (and occasionally frustrating) hours formulating my own methodology for making these players viable in the game.

My process revolves around a loose hierarchy of player quality.

The amazing (but sadly, it seems, now defunct) Hall of Miller and Eric (HOME) website earlier this year released Major League Equivalencies for 99 of the top NeL players. These players make up what I call my "A-List". The validity of MLEs is something myself and the other lads working with me on this project disagree upon to some degree, with my opinion of them being slightly more favourable. Still, all of us realise they are (at best) only an interpretation of the uninterpretable. The NeLs were NOT the MLB. Nor were they AAA equivalent. They were what they were. The biggest difference between them in all of their various guises over the years and the MLB was depth, with the bigs stocked with a far higher average quality player and many more of them throughout the league. Statistical coverage was another big difference, although thankfully a lot of research has been and continues to be done in this regard to narrow the gap. This is completely ignoring the existential differences tolerated by black ballplayers over this period, as well as things like equipment and playing conditions.

Anyway, those 99 players are my A-List, each of which receives a full profile from me that covers all aspects of their gameplay and biographical details. I use a mix of the MLEs and undoctored data and create a career path by giving them CUR and POT stats from which the ratings are generated. There is, in all of this, a lot of both subjectivity (occasionally, objectivity...) and trial and error to get the desired finished products.

10 of these players joined the league at its outset: Buck Leonard, Alejandro Oms, Hilton Smith, Martin Dihigo, Leroy Matlock, Sam Jethroe, Cool Papa Bell, Spot Poles, Luke Easter, Pat Scantlebury and Charles "Chino" Smith. In each subsequent Draft, 2 more will be added.

(I should note here that any player who began in the NeL but eventually made it to the MLB post-"integration" (I use that term as loosely as I can) is deemed an NeL player for this exercise.

I should also note that the only NeL players excluded from the EL are those given the "Ballplayer" designation or for whom the full given name is unknown. That has left me with an initial NeL pool of 2740 players to go with the MLB pool of 3538.)

All other NeL players, classed "B" here, are simply taken on their merits as to how they are curated. Some receive full profiles as per the "A-Listers". Others receive a skeleton version thereof. Some merely get touched up in the editor to ensure an acceptable level of similarity to their IRL selves, culling outlier ratings and generally tidying them up, but nothing more.

So far I have done roughly 150 full profiles. I would anticipate this number will end up being somewhere between 700 and 1000.

Seamheads is my go-to for information. It is a simply unbelievable resource. BBRef has upped its game but still needs to do plenty more, especially with biographical data in its Bullpen section. Same goes with SABRBio. My treasured copy of James Riley's Biographical Encyclopedia of the Negro Baseball Leagues gets heavy usage, believe me, as does the NLBeMuseum site that uses this book as its main reference point. The pieces in both the "Forgotten Heroes" and "Pioneers of Black Baseball" series on the Center for Negro League Baseball are also incredibly useful. But I'll go anywhere on the hunt for info. I am an industrious type and will search madly for stuff if needs be until I am sure I either have what I want or have convinced myself that I can't have it because it doesn't exist.

Anyway, I thought some of you might be interested in all of this. It is a labor of love with the scales heavily tipped toward the "love" side of the equation. Happy to answer any questions / help out with those of you interested in doing something similar.

G

EDIT: This post updates how I rate NeL players for use in OOTP.

[luckymann]

In light of my previous post, I have mixed emotions about how well Eddie "Buck" Miller has begun his EL career.

I'm not stupid or precious enough to believe I'm going to get all of these players absolutely spot-on when I curate them. There are so many unknowns, to have this as the goal would be a fool's errand. I'm a lot of things, but I ain't no fool.

Buck gets a couple paragraphs in Mr Riley's tome, most of which is a rundown of his career without much anecdotal info other than to say that he was "a right-handed control pitcher with a good memory for batters' weaknesses". How James knows this second bit is beyond me.

Anyway, with this in mind and 7 seasons' worth of stats at my disposal, this is the how Buck has come into the EL. I'm OK with it; despite making the executive decision not to do a full profile for him (the source of the negative part of my "mixed emotions"), I think it is fairly accurate. Needs a better FG (paging LSt!!!), but apart from that I think it's (sorry) in the ballpark.




Whatever the case, he is certainly looking right at home in this league, going 12-1 with a 2.70 ERA over his first 14 starts and helping the East to a healthy lead in the WC National Association. His game log to this point makes for some pleasant reading.



Let's see if he can keep it going.

[luckymann]

It seems that Señor Garcia and his AG teammates are going to need to continue putting up performances like this simply to keep pace with the red-hot Cuban Stars East in the WC National.

[luckymann]

Nice seeing some of these lesser-rated guys getting their moment in the sun.



Here are some other lower-tier guys doing well in the EL so far.

HITTERS




PITCHERS

[luckymann]

... or his Cuban Stars East - with this win they have joined the Giants with the best record in the EL.



Carlos's stat line is looking mighty impressive right now.

[luckymann]

... not what the Buckeyes would have expected when they sent a usually-reliable closer like Felix Heredia to the mound to close out the win. It wasted an excellent outing by Roger Moret, who allowed one run on just three hits over 8.

[luckymann]

Tony continues to fight above his weight.

[Makonnen]

Subscribed! Basically just to let you know, yes, someone is reading this ... :>