The Around the Horn League (AtHoL)

[luckymann]

The Norfolk Tars, who only win 78 regular season games (of 140), find form when it counts to take out their maiden 3BLAAA Championship.

[luckymann]

The Palestine Pals made it all the way from the WC Round, surviving an elimination game in the Group Series with Helena before turning on the afterburners to win eight of their next nine and claim their first ever 2BLAA title.

[luckymann]

Yet another hot hand first-time winner, this time in the 1BLA, as the Medford Rogues only just make it to the WC via a tiebreaker then storm home to win it all.

[luckymann]

[luckymann]

Portland ends Montgomery's hopes of a repeat in a 12-inning thriller, while the Whales see off the Buckeyes to proceed to the main draw.

[luckymann]

Different year, same result as Ruth goes missing yet again when it counts and, despite 4 HR from Campanella, we lose in five and come away bitterly disappointed and empty-handed once more. To not win it all is one thing, but to not even make it past this first hurdle three straight years is another and I fear I have done all I can do at this club. Some deep thought on this matter beckons.

Dayton handles Sandy Koufax twice and sees off the Whales in five, while the Stogies survive a huge scare from a determined Mobile outfit. Only the Houston-Salt Lake City series finishes early, with the Colt .45s recovering from a Game 1 loss to win it in four.

[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]

Dayton triumphs in a seven-gamer that has just about everything including scorelines of 21-6, 14-4 and 11-2, while the Stogies are never really in doubt as they see off the Beavers in six.

[luckymann]

A horrendous performance by their BP, which gives up late leads in three of four eventual losses, destroys Pittsburgh's hopes of a cherished and long-awaited Championship and instead it is Dayton who wins their maiden AtHoL title in five enthralling games.

Game 1





Game 2





Game 3





Game 4





Game 5

[luckymann]

Not gonna lie to you, that one left a mark and it is only sheer bloody-mindedness at seeing this through that has led me back to Sick's for another go-around.

Here are our final 1966 stats and metrics.

BATS




BALLS




GLOVES




WINGS






POCKETS




THE WORD FROM ON HIGH

Fair to say both the Boss and I realise this is the last roll of the dice for me. His frustration at our coming up short again is, to say the least, palpable. 1967 was the year he originally set for us to win it all and that's where we now are.

He wants more fans, more farm, more finds. Somewhat mixed signals there given all of these things are of a longer-term mindset. Still, we'll throw some $$ at the IAFA market, which should take care of two of those.

The third won't be quite so easily fixed. Warrior O'Neill, one of our club's most popular guys, is headed elsewhere unless he accepts the QO. We really don't have much wiggle-room to move the pieces on the board around and my only inclination is to get the best group of guys to give us the greatest chance of a Championship. Outside of that, for me at least and my future at the club, matters not.

Lloyd, Lemon and Held go to arb. Chamberlain, Schmitz and Gray walk.

A 5% budget bump to $3.16m leaves us with a nice war chest. I intend to use it. No point in going to the grave with your pockets full of coins, as they say.

[luckymann]

Plenty of off-field activity at the organisational level.

Rivers of blood spilt in the managerial ranks:

• Manager Johnny Rizzo (Montreal, 3 seasons)
• Manager Juan Salas (Tucson / Phoenix, 6 seasons)
• Manager Eddie Mayo (Brooklyn, 6 seasons)
• GM Ian Tanner (New York, 7 seasons)
• Manager Pat Crawford (Vancouver, 4 seasons)
• GM Al Carrillo (Vancouver, 5 seasons)

The New Orleans franchise is headed north to Memphis to become the Blues, Hollywood has been sold and moved to Santa Barbara to henceforth be called the Rancheros, while the Tucson Toros will be moving to Phoenix and become the Stars.

The massive realignment and shuffling among minor league clubs continues, including all four of ours.

The Commissioner feels that, after a four-year trial run, the On-Deck League will now operate on a somewhat larger scale with playoffs and a longer schedule.

[luckymann]

Three absolute locks for the HoF leaving the game this year, along with some others who had stellar AtHoL careers.

Odd for it to happen so, although not as much given the relative youth of the league, but that is numbers 1, 2 and 4 on the Wins leaderboard gone in one flush. A bit surprised Zack didn't hang around to get #300.

[luckymann]

AtHoL Champions: Dayton [1]

League slash line: 246/313/372 (v 250/318/376 in 1965)

League ERA: 3.52 (3.71)

League BABIP: 277 (280)

3BL Champions: Norfolk [1]

2BL Champions: Palestine [1]

1BL Champions: Medford [1]

ODR Champions: N/A

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: Cesar Devarez, Dayton
KA: Daniel Wildman, Pittsburgh


SWING FOR THE FENCES AWARD (SILVER SLUGGER)

Lincoln Association
C: Mitchell Murray (Fresno Raisin Eaters) 3.8 WAR
1B: Jason Giambi (San Francisco Seals) 6.6 WAR
2B: Marcus Semien (Dallas Submarines) 5.5 WAR
3B: Harmon Killebrew (St. Louis Terriers) 4.8 WAR
SS: Willie Wells (Oakland Oaks) 9.5 WAR
LF: Ted Williams (San Francisco Seals) 9.3 WAR
CF: Larry Doby (Indianapolis Hoosiers) 6.4 WAR
RF: Sam Thompson (Montreal Royals) 5.7 WAR
DH: Bobby Murcer (Tucson Toros) 2.0 WAR


King Association
C: Mickey Cochrane (Montgomery Bombers) 5.3 WAR
1B: Hank Greenberg (Baltimore Terrapins) 9.1 WAR
2B: King Kelly (Pensacola Flyers) 5.5 WAR
3B: Anthony Rendon (New York Knickerbockers) 4.6 WAR
SS: Cal Ripken Jr. (Seattle Pilots) 6.4 WAR
LF: Yordan Alvarez (Boston Reds) 8.7 WAR
CF: Bill Holt (Vancouver Mounties) 9.4 WAR
RF: Larry Walker (Pittsburgh Stogies) 9.4 WAR
DH: Alex Rodriguez (Boston Reds) 6.5 WAR


LET'S PLAY TWO AWARD (GOLD GLOVE)

Lincoln Association
P: Don Sutton (Montreal Royals)
C: Yasuyoshi Ibe (Tucson Toros)
1B: Will Clark (Detroit Wolverines)
2B: Bill Hunnefield (Fresno Raisin Eaters)
3B: Buddy Bell (Dayton Ducks)
SS: Bobby Valentine (Dallas Submarines)
LF: Happy Felsch (Dayton Ducks)
CF: Max West (Dayton Ducks)
RF: Valter Ruah (Indianapolis Hoosiers)


King Association
P: Randy Johnson (Pittsburgh Stogies)
C: Johnny Bench (Baltimore Terrapins)
1B: Derrek Lee (Seattle Pilots)
2B: Jose Vidro (Sacramento Solons)
3B: Mike Cubbage (Pensacola Flyers)
SS: Corey Lovich (Raleigh Capitals)
LF: Fred Carroll (Vancouver Mounties)
CF: Jim Wynn (Portland Beavers)
RF: Von Hayes (Montgomery Bombers)

[luckymann]

Fair to say the kid gloves are off, we have thrown caution to the wind, and feel free to insert here any and all metaphors or turns of phrase regarding reckless behaviour being undertaken in the quest of a white whale or holy grail.

Two massive signings - the first brings Gary Sheffield, my talisman from those successful San Fran days, to Sicks for 5 years. He's a threefer - a mighty talent, incredibly popular and hugely influential in the clubhouse - and is priced accordingly at a little over half a mil per.

The second costs about half as much but the guy involved is not quite the known and proven commodity Sheff is. Still, if Cuban lefty Francisco Damian is as good as the scouts say he is then it'll be money very well spent indeed.

To balance the books as much as we can, we make the following trades:

To summarise these moves as briefly as possible:

• Jake Hardy will be our roving UT man at Seattle and is a fantastic upgrade on Lloyd, whose D has become limited to playing SS only.
• Barney Brown, Yasi Puig and Starlin had all become superfluous to our needs and were gotten rid of in pretty straightforward sally dump deals, although in Bob Stanley and George Hinshaw we also got some return.
• The Jurrjens deal - instigated by the other party - was a nice way of getting some cash back into the coffers after our spending spree.
• Rob Dibble is a strategic get to give us some power RH middle relief.

Warrior unsurprisingly turns down the QO, earning us a supplementary Round 1 pick. Little of note from the Lottery, although Fresno and San Jose profit handsomely:

We take the following guys:

All due respect to Ruben, who projects to be an absolute gun, finding Sori languishing in the nether regions is the real score of this Draft. We've actually done really well deep into our picks - Jim Kern may be of use in '67, while Dobie Moore is a great lower-round add for a few years' hence.

Some big names coming through again including Satchel Paige, Stephen Strasburg and Muggsy McGraw. Here are Rounds 1 and 2 in their entirety.

S.O.P. as we lose a few strays in the R5:

At the end of the year, our finances look pretty strong given the players we have added. The brutal work look to have been worth it.

[luckymann]

Two newly-minted HoFers join Mr Scherzer this year.

Full disclosure, I voted for neither and feel others were more deserving, but that's democracy in action for you.

[luckymann]

Here are the cream of the IAFA crop for 1967:

SIGNED BY
Phoenix ($30k)




SIGNED BY
Seattle ($58k)




SIGNED BY
Baltimore ($27k)




SIGNED BY
Philadelphia ($17k)




SIGNED BY
Dallas ($61k)

Ademar looks fantastic and hopefully that is money well spent.

[luckymann]

Well at least we'll know if we don't get the job done that we didn't go down quietly. This has been the busiest offseason I can recall.

Here's what's been happening at our rival AtHoL franchises over the same period.

WAR GAINS & LOSSES

MAJOR MOVES BY FRANCHISE

PRESEASON PREDICTIONS

While they favour us, the BNN crew don't expect our rivals to go down without a fight in what they see should be another tight set of races this season.

PROSPECT PIPELINE

No love on here yet for the IAFAs - hopefully it gives our 24th-ranked system a boost when there is.

THE POINTY END

We have both #1s in our group this year and only Smoltzy absent from our rotation. We top the salary list as well and, just a reminder, we're only on the hook for $194k of Campy's pay.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Every last chip is in the pile. No pressure whatsoever.

[luckymann]

One further trade in the early new year:



With the Brooks Robinson era set to commence at 3B, Ray was blocked and others offer our preferred levels of flexibility. We'll set Roger up as our OF5 but keep the finger on the Hendu trigger at all times. Ruben Gallardo is also looking great and you just never know...




Here's your Seattle Pilots squad as at OD 1967:




BATS




We'll once again be running a CF platoon, this time featuring Gibson and Wild Bill Wright. Gibby gets the strong side to begin with to allow us the option of using WBW more from the BP. Cal stays at leadoff v RHP, Sheff to cleanup.

IN SUMMARY: Murderers Row, redux.


BALLS



Pettite to the BP with the Damian add, and we're going to give him a run in the LH Setup slot for now. Given his added DH workload, we feel Shohei is better-positioned at SP5 and hopefully this keeps his workload a bit more manageable.

IN SUMMARY: Gotta keep it tight.


GLOVES



Great flexibility but the overall quality is a bit under what we'd like it to be. Hopefully the power profile of our pitching staff neutralises that a smidge.

IN SUMMARY: BABIP, SCHMABIP.


WINGS



Hoping that our new-look farm system delivers the goods.


POCKETS

We get an extra $240k to move our budget to $3.4m, 23rd of 36. Our payroll on OD is around $2.8m and 11th. Ruth is the big re-signing to be done, while this is almost guaranteed to be Campy's final year with us.

Such a huge build-up it is great to final be at Opening Day with actual baseball here to show us the difference between potential and reality.

[luckymann]

As is invariably the case the plot thickens with our finances upon closer inspection. The Babe will be looking for 400k at the very least, which as it currently stands we do not have on hand to give him. Given the minimal post-season impact he's had the thought of just letting him walk isn't as daunting as you might think. Winning 100+ then losing in the first round of the playoffs ain't all it's cracked up to be... But, in all likelihood it will be Walker Buehler, Jason Gonzalez and a few second-stringers who make way for the big guy's retention.

We have to do it all again in a year's time - if I am still skippering this ship, that is - with Petey, who for mine is a much more clear-cut keep. Fun, fun, fun!

[luckymann]