Team Preview: Nishinomiya Tigers

Man, I'm on a roll! Thanks to all who have visited so far. Eventually I'll get back to schedule creation, and, before you know it, I'll be able to start playing games. Still, doing preliminary research on these players is almost more fun than actually playing the games. It reminds me of the days I'd spend organizing APBA tournaments as a kid. Sometimes it was more fun to get the teams out and look through them than to actually play through the games.

The Nishinomiya Tigers are based directly off the current NPB team, the Hanshin Tigers. In keeping with the American tradition of naming a team after the city they play in, I christened them the Nishinomiya Tigers. They, along with the Tokyo Giants, are the only two teams stationed in Japan in my organization.

Stadium

It should come as no surprise that I put the Tigers in famous Koshien Stadium. Putting them anywhere else would be a tragedy. Koshien Stadium has been around since 1924 and is only a year younger than Yankee Stadium. It's easily the most famous baseball stadium in all of Asia, with the all-dirt infield, extensive bleachers and so on. Also, as most of you know, it is the host of Japan's National High School Baseball Championship every year.

For those unfamiliar with this historic baseball site, I'd recommend at least searching for Koshien Stadium on Google. If you search for "Koshien" on YouTube or Google Video, you'll come across clips from the annual High School championship. I'd provide video links myself, but I'm writing this from BYU campus, where YouTube is blocked.

Now, you can't play in a stadium like Koshien with a generic ballpark image, so I tried to create my own. I used a free automatic ballpark image creator from KJOK's Yahoo group. I don't have any photo editing skills, so it's not pretty, but I figure it gets the job done.

Starting Pitchers
1. Randy Johnson
2. Hideo Fujimoto
3. Rube Waddell
4. Ramon Bragana
5. Frank Sullivan
SS. Jose DeLeon
SS. Shosei Go [also here]

Hideo Fujimoto had a 1943 season that American Deadball-era pitchers would die for. He went 34-11 over 432.2 innings, compiling an 0.73 ERA, .144 BAA and 0.88 WHIP, along with 253 walks to only 168 balls. I guess you have to wonder what sort of competition he was up against, what with the draft and all, but that's impressive in any league. Put this guy in a rotation with the Big Unit, Rube Waddell and Cuban legend Ramon Bragana and you have a heck of a rotation.

Shosei Go also counts as a bench player, as he was never a full-time pitcher (to my understanding). He would be right at home at Koshien, having played in 5 High School tournaments there.

Relievers
BJ Ryan
Roy Face
Darren Holmes
Duane Ward

Starting Lineup
1. Tim Raines LF
2. Sam Jethroe CF
3. Rocky Colavito RF / Hideki Matsui RF
4. Sadaharu Oh 1B
5. Bobby Grich 2B
6. Ghost Marcelle 3B / Mickey Tettleton C
7. Mickey Tettleton C / Ghost Marcelle 3B
8. Joe Tinker SS

With a lineup like this, the Tigers are easily one of the favorites in this division. You've got speed in Raines, power in Colavito, Matsui and Oh, plus some good for-average hitters in-between. Plenty of Negro and Japanese Leaguers as well.

Bench
Shigeya Iijima 1B / 2B / 3B / RF
Hurley McNair LF / CF / RF
George Hendrick 1B / LF / CF / RF
Kirk Gibson LF / CF / RF
Herman Long SS
Akitoshi Kodama 1B / 2B / 3B / SS
Bill Sweeney 2B / 3B / SS
Jeff Blauser 2B / 3B / SS
Chico Barbon 2B / 3B / SS
Tim McCarver C / 1B

All I can say is that I'm glad McCarver is on the bench, and not in the broadcast booth.

Anyway, that's about it for today. Sorry for being so short. It's bedtime.

Team Preview: Harbin Icecaps

Blogging was made for days like today. After a day of working on my research paper on Chinese - Japanese relations (written in Chinese), I'm ready for a few minutes of pure baseball.

First and foremost, allow me to engage in some blatant advertising. For those who don't know, you can order a new copy of Strat-O-Matic baseball, complete with the 2005 season cards, from Toys R' Us online for $10. Just click here and see for yourself. I've been an APBA player all my life, but I'm willing to give Strat a try -- after all, it's only $10. Seems like Strat is staying relevant and current, long after the days of full-page comic book ads.

Second, for the few of you who haven't seen it yet, this New York Times article about baseball in China caught my eye. I'm guessing our kids will have similar baseball experiences, especially if I spend a lot of time living abroad. I think I'll buy Mr. Forney's book when it comes out.

Without much further ado, here's today's team: the Harbin Icecaps.

Stadium

Harbin is easily the coldest city in China. According to my Chinese tutor (just met with her today), its winter temperatures approach -40C, and it sure doesn't get all that warm in the summer. Hence, the Harbin team has to play in a dome stadium, particularly one designed for a cold weather city. And what better dome than the Metrodome?

As usual, I've taken the liberty of renaming the stadium with respect to the city. In Harbin it is known as the Zhongyanglu Dome, named for Harbin's famous Center Street. Sure, it won't match up well with the Russian architecture, but has any dome ever looked good?
Starting Pitchers
1. Tim Hudson
2. Jim Palmer
3. Ben McDonald
4. Camilo Pascual
5. Eppa Rixey

Pretty interesting rotation. McDonald, Pascual and Rixey never played on very good teams and Hudson's accomplishments were always overshadowed by Barry Zito. Six-foot-five must have been pretty big in the 1930s.

Relief Pitchers
Gregg Olson
Justin Speier
Jim Brewer
Mark Eichhorn
Todd Worrell
Rich Gossage

Again, mostly a bunch of good players from otherwise mediocre teams. Worrell and Gossage are the first names that jump out, though both had their embarrassing World Series moments (Worrell's blown save in the 1985 Series game 6, and the Goose giving up that monster home run to Kirk Gibson in the 1984 Series game 5).

Starting Lineup
1. Pelayo Chacon SS / Streak Milton LF
2. Eddie Stanky 2B
3. Minnie Minoso LF / Tris Speaker CF
4. Tris Speaker CF / Jim Thome 3B
5. Rap Dixon RF / Minnie Minoso RF
6. Buck O'Neill 1B / John Olerud 1B
7. Bill Freehan C
8. Buddy Bell 3B / Pelayo Chacon SS

I wasn't able to find good links for Pelayo Chacon or Streak Milton, both Negro League stars from around the 1910s. It's interesting to see so many Negro League players on the same team. Other than that, there's not much to say -- another fairly strong lineup, but without many great standouts.

Bench
Harvey Kuenn 3B / SS / LF / CF / RF
Chuck Hinton 1B / 2B / 3B / LF / CF / RF
Johnny Briggs 1B / LF / CF / RF
Kid Elberfeld 2B / 3B / SS
Hiroki Kokubo 1B / 2B / 3B
Rick Burleson 2B / SS
Davey Johnson 1B / 2B
Dixie Walker LF / CF / RF

Well, that does it for me tonight. Enjoy!

Team Preview: Beijing Red Dragons

Well, well, well, looks like I finally got a blog post in during the week! That's not to say that my homework has somehow diminished. Rather, I've just managed my time a little bit better today. Hope I can keep it up!

Team number two is the Beijing Red Dragons.


Stadium

You're not seeing things, sports fans. Yes, I'm using ugly, cookie-cutter type dome stadiums in my replay. I figure that gives things a bit of variety. This isn't one of those all-steel era stadium leagues, no sir. The Beijing Red Dragons play in the good old Skydome, renamed Xinhua Dome. Of course, back when I was a kid (which wasn't that long ago), the Skydome was the biggest up-and-coming stadium, but people have forgotten about those days. Well, everybody except those who collected 1992 Topps Stadium Club cards.

Players

Starting Pitchers
1. David Cone
2. Steve Rogers
3. Carl Hubbell
4. Hisashi Yamada
5. Whitey Ford
SS Yutaka Enatsu
SS Danny Darwin

I never thought I'd see Whitey Ford in the #5 slot, especially behind David Cone. That just goes to show you what things are like when you adjust for eras, parks and so on.

Hisashi Yamada should be interesting to watch, since he holds the Japanese record for most home runs given up in a season (42 in 1985).

By the way, this must be Yutaka Enatsu before his closer days. Oh, and it seems to me that going from Hubbell and Ford to Danny Darwin is a pretty big drop. We'll see how these Red Dragons perform.

Relief Pitchers
Steve Hamilton
Gary Lavelle
Eddie Watt
Tug McGraw

Ya gotta believe! Other than that, not much to say here, as I'm not familiar with the careers of any of the other three. Naturally, both above spot starters also count as relief pitchers.

Okay, on to the lineups. I'm going faster on purpose tonight.

Starting Lineup
1. Ben Chapman RF / Roger Bresnahan C
2. Roger Bresnahan C / Enos Slaughter RF
3. Willie Mays CF
4. Orlando Cepeda 1B / Willie Stargell 1B
5. Joe Medwick LF / Frank Baker 3B
6. Perucho Cepeda SS / Joe Medwick LF
7. Toby Harrah 3B / SS
8. Frankie Frisch 2B

Interesting to see Orlando Cepeda get drafed on the same thing as his father Perucho. I didn't know anything about the "Babe Ruth of Puerto Rico" before I did a bit of internet research tonight. Couldn't have worked out better if I planned it!

I'm curious as to how often Bresnahan hit first or second for the old New York Giants. Sounds like a good research project -- maybe if I have more time after the semester is done. He sure had a killer OBP, but that was back in an era when OBP didn't matter all that much.

Anyway, the Red Dragons have a pretty beefy looking lineup, especially with the two Cepedas and Willie Mays in the middle. Now, the Skydome isn't exactly the most hitter friendly park in the world, but it can't hurt to have a big lineup like that. Should be a fun team to watch this season.

Now for the bench:

Bench
Ken Griffey Sr. 1B / LF / CF / RF
Possum Whitted 1B / 2B / 3B / LF / CF / RF
Shigeru Takada 3B / LF / CF / RF
Mark Loretta 1B / 2B / 3B / SS
Germany Schaefer 1B / 2B / 3B / SS
Tadahito Iguchi 2B / SS
Bobby Murcer CF / RF
Harry Danning C

You might notice that most Japanese hitters are stuck on the bench. I'm guessing that's the era / league factor adjustment showing.

Anyway, not much else to say. I'm tired. Hopefully BYU will get through the first round of March Madness on Thursday night. I'm not making any promises, though.

Team Preview: Beijing Mets

This is the first of what ought to be a series of 30 entries, each dealing with a single team in my upcoming replay. I'm doing this for two reasons: first, because I still have to buy myself some time to input the schedule, and second, because this offers a pretty good idea of what to expect. Hopefully this is easy to read -- I don't know much about HTML, unfortunately.

The first team is the unaptly named Beijing Mets. Coming up with creative team names is difficult, even when you're dealing with a foreign country like China. There are only so many variations on dragon themes and red colors that you can deal with. In fact, the names of teams in leagues like the Chinese Basketball League really aren't all that different from American team names, so I don't feel too bad about giving a team from Beijing the name "Mets."

Stadium

The Beijing Mets play in old, pre-renovation Yankee Stadium (I can't remember the exact year for each stadium). I've renamed their stadium Forbidden Stadium, which, again, is not the most creative thing I've ever done. I figured that a big, imposing ballpark like the classic Yankee Stadium works best in a big, western-style city like Beijing. I guess Diamond Mind can't really recreate the smog of Beijing, but I'll leave that part up to your imagination.

Players

Most of these teams were drafted by the Diamond Mind computer draft system, with a few exceptions I'll note later. I'm a bigger fan of APBA's draft system, where you can edit draft preferences for each team, but Diamond Mind's really isn't all that bad. Let's look at the Mets' 30 man roster, starting with the pitchers, following with the lineups and bench:

Starting Pitchers

1. Lefty Grove

2. Mordecai "Three-Fingered" Brown

3. Deacon Phillippe
4. Dizzy Dean
5. Chuck Finley
SS Milt Pappas

That's a pretty foreboding rotation, the sort you'd expect from a team located in a big city like Beijing. Seriously, it's not every day you run up against a one-two punch like Grove and Brown. In his New Historical Baseball Abstract, Bill James has Grove as the number 2 pitcher of all time, and Brown at number 20. I'm not sure how the computer drafted so well; I suppose we'll see when we get to the lineups.

Remember, of course, that Dizzy Dean has certainly been downgraded due to his short career. Unfortunately, having two great seasons doesn't help as much when the rest of your career was relatively average. That's one of the things I love about this Diamond Mind setup, actually. It adds a sense of uncertainty to the league, since you can't just rely on each player's best statistical seasons to make your predictions.

I was slightly surprised to see that Chuck Finley made it this far, until I took a look at his ERA+. That ought to make him a good #5 pitcher, even in this league.

Okay, now on to the relievers.

Relief Pitchers

Mark Wholers

Milt Pappas

Norm Charlton

Ron Reed

Curt Leskanic

Kazuhiro Sasaki

Sasaki is sure to be the closer. He's based on his Japanese statistics, though those have been weighted, as mentioned earlier. Oh, by the way, you may need to scroll down to view his statistics on the link I provided.

The Mets don't look all that hot coming out of the bullpen -- probably what they get for drafting both Grove and Brown. Then again, there's no telling how often they'll actually need to go to the pen. That's the beauty of leagues like this one.

Okay, now for the starting lineups. I'm going to combine both lineups against lefties and righties. I'll split the platoons with a slash (/), with the lineup against lefthanders on the left (makes sense, doesn't it?)

Starting Lineup

1. George Davis SS / Kazuhiro Wada C

2. Chet Lemon CF / Carl Yastrzemski LF

3. Rogers Hornsby 2B

4. Harry Heilmann 1B

5. Wally Berger LF / CF

6. Kazuhiro Wada C / Fred Lynn RF

7. Andy Pafko RF / George Davis SS

8. Brooks Robinson 3B

Not a bad lineup. Rogers Hornsby probably won't hit over .400 in this league, due to the era adjustments. George Davis is the first 19th century player we've seen so far -- but don't worry, we'll see a lot more before we're through.

Kazuhiro Wada ought to be a fun player to follow, especially with his .317 / .389 / .549 lifetime. According to Japanese Baseball Daily, Kazuhiro "has a real funky sweeping swing and will kill anything down and in." I tried, but couldn't find a good baseball card image of him.

Brooks Robinson, of course, is easily the best defensive third baseman in this league. I was watching a DVD of the 1970 World Series a few weeks ago (original broadcast, from MASN rebroadcasts), and I must say that I've never seen anybody play third base quite like he did. There was one play, in either game 3 or 4 (don't quote me on that) where he threw a man out at first on a slow ground ball that barely even got to him on time. What's even more impressive is the fact that there was a man on second base at the time: just a little bit off center, and it would have been a run-costing error. He's definately worth the hype.

Okay, on to the bench.

Bench

Koichi Tabuchi C / 1B / LF / RF

Yasuya Hondo C / 1B / 2B / 3B / SS / LF / CF / RF

Shoichi Busujima 2B / 3B / SS / RF

Pepper Martin 3B / LF / CF / RF

Crush Holloway LF / CF / RF

Travis Jackson 3B / SS

George Grantham 1B / 2B

Dan McGann 1B / 2B

Gene Alley 2B / SS

The first exciting name here to me is Yasuya Hondo, who hails from an era in Japanese baseball when it wasn't uncommon to see players who actually played all 9 positions. Apparently, he once stole three bases in a single inning, which must have been quite a feat. Pretty nice to have a utility player who can play any position waiting on the bench!

Crush Holloway is the first Negro Leaguer we've seen so far. I have no idea what the source on his statistics was, so this should be exciting.

Anyway, that's all for today. I'm pretty beat.

Quick note, more to come

Just a quick note to let you know I'm still alive. My schoolwork is going pretty well -- I should have some time to make a bigger, more detailed post tomorrow.

If you've been following the hype about the recent MLB exhibition game in Beijing, well, don't believe too much of it. Sure, the fact that the stadium sold out is a plus, but there were only about 12,000 fans there. From the videos I've seen, it looks like around half of them were American. And, to top it off, the Xinhua news agency did not have a single article about the game posted on their website today -- not even a note. I'm afraid that we'll have to wait quite a while before baseball becomes anything big in mainland China.

On that note, I think MLB should try an exhibition game or two in Taiwan.

Anyway, more to come.

My Org Setup

It's not late enough to go to bed yet, but too late to do any homework. Thus, here's my second blog entry for the evening.

The best part about any simulation (or role playing game) is using your imagination to set things up. I've heard that it's more fun to set up a Dungeons & Dragons dungeon than actually play through one; likewise, it's sometimes more fun to set up a fantasy league than actually go to the trouble of playing through it. In that spirit, here's how my DMB org is set up, including both team cities and team names. If I can find more time during the week, I'll try posting about each team one by one. Oh, and sorry for the lack of creativity on some names. Any suggestions are welcome.

NORTHERN LEAGUE

Eastern Division
Beijing Mets
Beijing Red Dragons
Harbin Icecaps
Nishinomiya Tigers In Japan -- I used the name of the city where the Hanshin Tigers play
Seoul Blue Dragons
Shenyang Defenders
Tianjin Lions
Tokyo Giants

Western Division
Jinan Leopards
Lanzhou Refiners
Luoyang White Horse
Taiyuan Kylin
Urumqi Flying Tigers
Wuhan Turtles
Xi'an Wild Geese
Zhengzhou Dragons

SOUTHERN LEAGUE

Eastern Division
Hangzhou Eagles
Hefei Hope Stars
Nanjing Monarchs
Ningbo Stallions
Shanghai Red Sox
Shanghai White Sox
Suzhou Artisans
Wenzhou Merchants

Western Division
Chengdu Spice
Chongqing Fog
Fuzhou Whales
Guangzhou Fire
Lhasa Monks
Taibei Brother Elephants
Xianggang Reds
Yunnan Bulls

Anyway, there you go. I need to spend some more time inputting the schedule by hand. If we ever see a DMB Version 10, I hope somebody goes in and changes the way leagues are created. Seriously, I'd rather study for my Econ 432 test than create a schedule entirely from scratch.

Eras

I'm back, after a week and a half of homework. Let's get down to business.

What Era to use?

Due to the way this disk is constructed, the era setting can change a season dramatically. Use a big hitting era, such as 1930 or 1994, and the batting averages will be off the roof. Use a pitching era, such as 1966 or 1968, and see a lot of 1-0 and 2-1 complete games. Indeed, due to the nature of Diamond Mind Baseball's engine, a lot of variation in replays comes from whatever era is used.

I haven't talked much about how my league is structured (that's what happens when you're a college student). As I briefly mentioned before, the teams I am using will be based in China (with a few exceptions, but all in Asia). I've divided the organization up into northern and southern leagues, and have worked hard at choosing ballparks that best reflect the character of each city (i.e. a cold northern city like Harbin gets a dome stadium, there's a lot of rainfall in the southern cities, etc). I've also tried to give each league its own personality, giving cities in the north better hitting parks on average, and, likewise, giving southern cities better pitching parks. Among other things, this adds a large degree of unpredictibility to an already unpredictable league, and should make postseason play interesting.

In keeping with this theme, I've decided to give the northern league the 2001 AL era, and the southern the 1966 AL. We're talking about a difference of 27 points in batting average between the two eras, and nearly 60 points in slugging percentage. That ought to make things interesting!

I'll post more about the individual leagues soon.

So what have I been up to lately?

Every time I think I'm out of the woods, another assignment comes up and drags me back. I'm working on a 6 page essay in Chinese on Chinese-Japanese Relations, a 10 page English essay on Japanese colonial policies in Taiwan from 1895 to 1945, another 10 page essay on Chinese economic development, and a few odds and ends, including a German independent study class. My biggest paper, however, is already done. I finished a 20 page paper on the development of Meiji-era Japanese nationalism for my Japanese Political Science class. I'm guessing most of you find such topics rather dry, but I enjoy that sort of thing.

A few days ago I purchased a book on Japanese baseball cards Sayonara Home Run, which I strongly recommend to anybody even remotely interested in baseball cards. The book is essentailly a gallery of the best looking Japanese baseball cards, from the pre-war era to around the mid-1970s. It should come in handy as my DMB project progresses, too, since I'll be able to put faces and names together.

One more thing

If you haven't seen it yet, check out some of the anti Sam Zell videos on Youtube. My favorite is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JI2KQmrsvI0. Seriously, why anybody would want to sell the naming rights to Wrigley Field is beyond me.