The Around the Horn League (AtHoL)

[luckymann]

The A-Level 1BL gets its second no-hitter of the year courtesy of Anaheim's Tom Knowlson against Bellingham.

[luckymann]

It's been a long road for the Hollywood Stars since they joined the AtHoL in 1956, but they are finally within reach of making the playoffs. Still lots of work to do, but performances such as this beauty from Jimmy O'Connell will do their cause no harm.

[luckymann]

Juan is also currently the all-time leader.

[luckymann]

The Lewiston Cupids, one of the AtHoL's foundation clubs and Champions in the league's second season in 1948, pick up their first 3BL title to go with it, sweeping Temple in the WS.

[luckymann]

Another first-time winner, the Selma Cloverleafs achieve the feat all the way from a Wild Card spot, taking down Duluth in a thrilling seven-gamer.

[luckymann]

Our San Leandro boys dominate with a 105-win season, only to bow out early to the eventual Champion Elizabeth Resolutes, another to do so from the WC round.

[luckymann]

A couple of close races but all is settled well ahead of time without much drama to speak of. We manage to finish with a winning record but don't figure in the running.

Ketel Marte and Cupid Childs each wins his first batting title, while Mark McGwire edges out Babe Ruth and Sammy Sosa by one in finishing with 51 home runs. Cy Williams leads both leagues with 142 RBI, with Arlie Latham's 123 SB leaving him just one short of the all-time SB record.

Jim Bunning and Hippo Vaughn tie for the most wins with 23, while Benny Frey sets a new mark with 47 Saves. Amos Rusie is the low-ERA marker with 2.37, Randy Johnson takes the King of K crown with 281.

Key extensions: 3B Eric Chavez (Baltimore, 3/228); P Jake Arrieta (Houston, 3/630); C John Meyers (Denver, 4/200); OF Ray Lankford (St. Louis, 3/742); 3B Yoan Moncada (Philadelphia, 3/570); P Erik Hanson (Mobile, 2/132); P Larry Corcoran (Dallas, 2/336); SS Luke Appling (New York, 2/420); P Hippo Vaughn (Houston, 3/552); 2B Stephen Drew (St. Louis, 2/179); 1B Herman Andrews (Cincinnati, 3/376); P Jim Nash (Indianapolis, 3/173); 3B Ron Cey (St. Louis, 3/474).

Key injuries: OF Ted Williams (San Francisco) finger, 5 weeks; SS George Davis (Montreal) back, 6 weeks; P Zack Wheeler (Louisville) rotator cuff, season; SS King Kelly (Raleigh) hand, season; P Bill Sweeney (Baltimore) elbow, season; P Sandy Koufax (San Francisco) biceps, season; OF Bill Lange (Houston) finger, season.

Top 20s - overall





Top 20s - rookies





Monthly Award Winners

July

Lincoln Association
Batter – Herman Andrews (Cincinnati): 340 / 9 HR / 21 RBI
Pitcher – Ray Sadecki (Cincinnati): 5-0 / 1.80 / 21 K / 45 IP
Rookie – Luis Tiant (St. Louis): 5-1 / 2.45 / 49 K / 51.1 IP

King Association
Batter – Mark McGwire (Winston-Salem): 268 / 9 HR / 25 RBI
Pitcher – Yoichibei Sonoda (Pittsburgh): 6-0 / 1.76 / 33 K / 46 IP
Rookie – Slim Jones (Pittsburgh): 3-2 / 2.16 / 49 K / 50 IP


August

Lincoln Association
Batter – Babe Ruth (Oakland): 397 / 12 HR / 31 RBI
Pitcher – Lee Richmond (Montreal): 4-1 / 1.98 / 16 K / 50 IP
Rookie – John Young (Salt Lake City): 4-1 / 4.35 / 43 K / 49.2 IP

King Association
Batter – Larry Walker (Philadelphia): 363 / 8 HR / 24 RBI
Pitcher – Mike Minor (San Jose): 4-1 / 2.20 / 47 K / 49 IP
Rookie – Mike Minor


September

Lincoln Association
Batter – Juan Soto (St. Louis): 360 / 5 HR / 23 RBI
Pitcher – Steve Carlton (Chicago): 6-0 / 0.86 / 34 K / 52.1 IP
Rookie – Ken Forsch (San Francisco): 3-2 / 3.20 / 38 K / 50.2 IP


King Association
Batter – Cy Williams (New York): 341 / 8 HR / 27 RBI
Pitcher – Max Manning (Raleigh): 4-1 / 1.85 / 27 K / 48.2 IP
Rookie – Max Manning

[luckymann]

The Knicks exact some revenge on Baltimore for last year's WC game, while Ray Lankford leads St. Louis to a cruisy home win - setting up tasty FBS matchups with dominant band rivals for each.

[luckymann]

Fairly straightforward wins to the highly-favoured Philly and Houston, while the other two series go the distance as Cincinnati and Mobile advance. For the Buckeyes, success comes at a high price as ace Ben Sheets is lost for the remainder as well as all of next season with elbow ligament damage.

[luckymann]

Third Base AAA League

MOST VALUABLE PLAYER




PITCHER OF THE YEAR




RELIEVER OF THE YEAR




Second Base AA League

MOST VALUABLE PLAYER




PITCHER OF THE YEAR




RELIEVER OF THE YEAR




First Base A League

MOST VALUABLE PLAYER




PITCHER OF THE YEAR




RELIEVER OF THE YEAR

[luckymann]

Cincinnati push the Colt .45s all the way but the faves get home in six, while Mobile get a well-deserved but unexpected win over Philly.

[luckymann]

In an upset of almost biblical proportions, the Shippers refuse to lay down, winning the last two games in Houston for a famous victory and the club's first AtHoL Championship. Over the seven games, these two great squads pretty much stand toe-to-toe and throw haymakers at each other, at least in the baseball sense. One for the ages indeed, and Mobile 2B Jose Reyes knocks in all of his side's runs in the decider, then walks off with the MVP award as well.

Game 1





Game 2





Game 3





Game 4





Game 5





Game 6





Game 7





MOBILE WINS SERIES 4-3

SERIES MVP: Jose Reyes (Mobile)

[luckymann]

Again, I'll keep my counsel for the most part. Obviously this season was a slight improvement on the previous, and yet I feel progress has been frustratingly slow in a couple key areas. These will be my entire focus over the break.

The boss is happy enough - he still wants attendance at 17k per game (it finished 1962 at 14500), has upgraded from play roughly 500 ball to finish with a winning record and wants an upgrade at LF. He has given us $1.66m to work with, so I'll need to get rid of a couple of expensive spare parts to beef up our float. Even then, I'll need to be careful with about $130k due next year in increased salary for guys like Rijo, Bell, Doby and Guerrero. If I can swing it, however, we will be looking for a high-profile quality OF signing.

Re our pitching, which has been the main cause of our sluggish progress, we have slated the upcoming Draft to be a pitching-heavy one for us.

BATS




BALLS




GLOVES




WINGS






POCKETS

Just Cone going to arb as we make the decision not to tender for Passeau. He was great for us this year, but will probably get around $40k and we just don't have the flab. Nova, Triplett, Warneke and Collins also walk.

We go into the lottery with the 22nd pick; any improvement on this will be welcomed but we're not holding our breath.

[luckymann]

Here's the list by JAWS of this year's retirees.

I suspect Reggie is the best HoF bet here by dint of his 542 homers, and I believe some of the other outgoing position players are better chances than any of the pitchers leaving the game.

[luckymann]

AtHoL Champions: Mobile [1]

League slash line: 255/325/392 (v 258/329/401 in 1961)

League ERA: 4.10 (4.18)

League BABIP: 278 (278)

3BL Champions: Lewiston [1]

2BL Champions: Selma [1]

1BL Champions: Elizabeth [1]

ELYSIAN MEDAL (MOST VALUABLE PLAYER)

ARCADIAN MEDAL (PITCHER OF THE YEAR)

THREE UP THREE DOWN AWARD (RELIEVER OF THE YEAR)




RISING STAR AWARD (ROOKIE OF THE YEAR)




CHADWICK PLATE (MANAGER OF THE YEAR)

LA: Dakota Bacus, Houston
KA: Frank Fontana, Philadelphia


SWING FOR THE FENCES AWARD (SILVER SLUGGER)

Lincoln Association
C: Jimmie Foxx, Salt Lake City
1B: Lou Gehrig, Hollywood
2B: Ketel Marte, Houston
3B: Darrell Evans, Detroit
SS: Tim Anderson, Chicago
LF: Babe Ruth, Oakland
CF: Hack Wilson, Dallas
RF: Honus Wagner, Hollywood
DH: Juan Soto, St. Louis


King Association
C: Earl Williams, Seattle
1B: Jeff Bagwell, Philadelphia
2B: Cupid Childs, Philadelphia
3B: Mike Schmidt, Boston
SS: Lennie Pearson, Brooklyn
LF: Bryce Harper, Philadelphia
CF: Jim Edmonds, Denver
RF: Sammy Sosa, New Orleans
DH: Cy Williams, New York


LET'S PLAY TWO AWARD (GOLD GLOVE)

Lincoln Association
P: Bob Shirley, Tucson
C: Sherm Lollar, Kansas City
1B: Jerry Lumpe, Indianapolis
2B: Alex Rodriguez, Chicago
3B: Jimmy Collins, Dallas
SS: Dave Concepcion, Tucson
LF: Wally Post, Dayton
CF: Curt Welch, Tucson
RF: Jesse Barfield, Dallas


King Association
P: Matt Cain, Denver
C: Bill Freehan, San Jose
1B: Elbie Fletcher, Portland
2B: Lou Boudreau, San Jose
3B: Kelly Gruber, Denver
SS: Ozzie Smith, Mobile
LF: David DeJesus, New York
CF: Jim Edmonds, Denver
RF: Sammy Sosa, New Orleans

[luckymann]

[luckymann]

Ahhh, what a difference a year makes - or, in this case, a day. Especially coming not long after a total bonehead move on my part where we lose Sam Crawford on the WW instead of trading him away, to have been able to swing all this on the eve of the Draft has really put the wind in not just my sails, but the entire franchise.

Firstly...

We kind of rolled the dice with this one, with it being the only FA offer we've made to this point. We actually tried to trade for him a number of times last year without luck and knew he was unsigned going into this year, but didn't think we'd be able to afford him. Even more so after awards season, with him winning the Elysian. In the end, perhaps because he is still only 25, the signing came to fruition at a really reasonable rate and without incident. The perfect transaction and obviously a potential game-changer for our franchise.

The lower-than-expected cost of that signing then allowed us to contemplate what had been our fallback option if we couldn't procure the Babe. And so, after said contemplation and the subsequent conclusion that you only live once, off we go and make this deal:

The key here for us is that we have barely increased our payroll. Yes, we've traded away a couple decent players in Cone and Wynn for a guy who has an opt-out for '64. But, in a strange way, that can be seen as a plus. It's from that point that we start having salary pressures elsewhere, so if Jim does opt out then that means we almost certainly wouldn't have been able to afford him anyway. Worst case, we've got a Ruth-Edmonds-Guerrero outfield for a year. With any luck, that'll result in such a surge in attendance that we'll have a bunch more cash at our disposal. We'll simply reassess at that time.

Montgomery and Louisville are both treated very kindly indeed in the lottery. We stay at #22, reinforcing our almost guaranteed strategy of using that first pick on a pitcher unless one of the position players we have our eye on remains available. Which isn't totally outside the realms of possibility as this is a really balanced pool of rookies coming in.

When the pitchers we are really hot for all disappear before we've had our pick, we call an audible and go completely off script.

Here's who we take.

Cal was simply too good to pass up. The thought here is that, with the options he brings to our infield, we should be able to swing a trade for whatever we need moving forward. We still have $200k FA room, so that should also afford us the Plan B of more signing(s) that fit within our budget. Falcone is a decent enough type for low-rotation duty, while Dandridge might well be the perfect replacement for the departed Mackey and then Earl Williams, who we see regressing fairly heavily from his stellar rookie season. The rest are organisational pieces of varying quality and utilitarian value. I overplayed my hand in those middle rounds, which caused me to miss both Aroldis Chapman and Craig Kimbrel. Boy's got skills, I tell ya. That said, I do partially redeem myself with the 11th-Round pickup of Doc Cramer.

Quality all through these early picks with Ross Barnes going 1st overall to Montgomery.

Vlad jr finally makes it up, taken 11th overall by Dayton.

[luckymann]

Opening Day 1963 has arrived! Here's all the key points of interest from the preseason:

WAR GAINS & LOSSES

MAJOR MOVES BY FRANCHISE

PRESEASON PREDICTIONS

For the first time in a while we look likely to have a few red-hot races this year. BNN has finally come around, tipping us to win 100+ and take out the Chandler Band.

PROSPECT PIPELINE

Ross Barnes of Montgomery heads the list and should be up at the parent club sometime this year.

THE POINTY END

Nice to have three of our guys in the former of these and none in the latter.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Keen to see if the boffins are right and the Seals bounce back from their horror 1962. I think Pittsburgh is the team to watch this year, although in the "AL East of the AtHoL" sets the bar inordinately high for them.

[luckymann]

After that frenetic and full-on finish to last year, we have been pretty quiet in the preseason with just the one trade of note:

I'd already spoken of the short leash we had Williams on and when his Catcher ratings were decimated in the Jan 1 rerate, he became prime trade fodder in our quest to solidify our BP.

Joba's rookie season with the Oaks was as a starter, and he went well in that role, but he's made the transition to reliever now and will take our Closer role - which will be more of a Stopper role, whereby he just comes in to douse trouble at the most opportune moment rather than just stupid save ops.

All of which leaves our OD 1963 squad looking like this:

BATS

As things stand, we have one - and perhaps two - IF too many, with Bobby Bo the clear choice to be offloaded given his cost and profile. But for now I'll play him and keep Cal at AAA. Jay Bell is the other guy who we might have to look at moving on, with his salary looking to be north of $100k from next season on - too expensive for where he probably ends up being on our depth chart. As at OD, however, he's our everyday SS with Frisch on the bench and DHing against lefties.

SHOPPING LIST: Keep all receipts for potential refunds and reinvestment into new-season models.

BALLS

A decision looms about Smoltz, who is in his walk year. His demands will decree his fate. We will do all we can to keep him as our ace. Rijo is another we're keen to lock down long-term if possible. Last chance saloon for Gubicza and a couple others. With our offence obviously sorted, my focus is to now try and get this staff humming along like it should be.

SHOPPING LIST: Keep an eye out for the Closing Down sale.

GLOVES

Edmonds makes our spine ramrod-straight and I'm looking for us to return to the upper echelon, metrics-wise.

SHOPPING LIST: The eagle has landed.

WINGS

Still a fairly threadbare pantry with only Ripken and Falcone ranked and our system down toward the bottom. If improvement happens then well and good, but I'm not losing sleep over it - we're looking at today, today.

POCKETS

The two big-name gets seem to have broken the back of the Puget Resistance Force and there is a buzz about the place, with season tix up and interest high. It earns us a slight budget bump to $1.8m.

After a couple years spent struggling for relevance, I do believe we have arrived. Expectations are appropriately high - no flying under the radar for us, I'm afraid.

[luckymann]

After a rainout delays our start to the new season, things begin almost perfectly in the resultant DH at home to Brooklyn, with the big names all firing and everyone doing their bit. One swallow does not a summer make, but still...