Team Preview: Lanzhou Refiners

Thanks once again to all my loyal readers! Every time I post a new team profile, I get about 20 more hits. It's pretty neat to see that others are enjoying this season as much as I am. Opening day's only two days away!

Many of you receive the IS / DMB newsletters. There is a comment in yesterday's about unrealistic results with deadball era players. It was something about how unrealistic it is to expect a player like Greg Luzinski to compete in the deadball environment, where there are so few homeruns and slugging is a lot more speed-dependent. Honestly, though, I'm not entirely sure where the problem is. From what I understand, if you take the 1980 Luzinski and stick him in 1908, he's probably not going to hit 40-odd home runs, and I don't think DMB is going to let him hit 20 triples or anything like that. He'll probably hit his share of doubles, and may even lead the league in home runs. How can we say that's unrealistic, though?

I'd much rather see DMB worry about the fatigue system with the deadball era teams than the era adjustment system. But I'm guessing it will be a while before we see that.

Okay, on to another team preview. Today it's the Lanzhou Refiners

Stadium


Yep, time for another cookie cutter. I have the Lanzhou team playing in Veteran's Stadium, renamed Ballpark on the Yangtze. It's a pretty good park for triples, what with the big power alleys and all, so it ought to be fun.

Starting Pitchers
1. Bob Feller
2. Red Lucas
3. Urban Shocker
4. Spud Chandler
5. Brad Radke
SS. Orval Overall
SS. Ewell Blackwell
SS. Eiji Sawamura
SS. Alejandro Pena
SS. Jason Isringhausen

As is often the case, the entire bullpen consists of players who also fill the spot starter role.

I don't know much about Red Lucas, who was a star pitcher on the Reds and Pirates in the 20s and 30s. Sawamura is an interesting pitcher, since he only has professional statistics for a couple of seasons in the late 30s and early 40s. Apparently he pitched a great game against a team of American All-stars back in 1934, losing 1-0 on a home run by Lou Gehrig. That's the coolest thing about this league -- learning about players I wouldn't have even heard of otherwise.

Starting Lineup
1. Eddie Collins 2B / Chipper Jones 3B
2. Chipper Jones 3B / Alejandro Oms CF
3. Kaoru Betto RF / Eddie Collins 2B
4. Frank Howard 1B / Edgar Wesley 1B
5. Pancho Coimbre CF / Chuck Klein RF
6. Joe Torre C / Ken Williams LF
7. Bob Allison LF / Joe Torre C
8. Lou Boudreau SS
The link I posted for Coimbre leads to a great BBTF "Hall of Merit" discussion, where his career is statistically analyzed by some of the best in the business. That's clearly the best source for Pancho's statistics, and from what I've seen, it seems that he was one of the best for-average hitters in Negro League history. Sure, he's not as remembered or as universally revered as Josh Gibson, but he was certainly one heck of a player.

Bench
Julio Franco
Morimichi Takagi
Mule Suttles
Chuck Klein
Masahiro Kawai
Toshio Shinozuka
Tommy Holmes
Darrell Evans
Rico Petrocelli

Okay, I'm off to play around with Manager and Player Tendancies settings in preparation for opening day on Monday.