SPB-60: 1964 Season              Status: Season Starts in July

1964 Team Name Change

Rich Applegate’s Mound City Saints have moved on to greener pastures and have relocated to become the Asheville Tourists

1964 Stadium Change

The Gem City Bombers have vacated Connie Mack stadium and move into Milwaukee's County Stadium

1964 Uncarded transfers

Linked HERE is the list uncarded players added to the 1964 disk.

1964 Position Removals

Removed positions for players over 400 PA and 4 or less games at a position. Players and positions that were assigned on the master database have now been removed from the following players:

John Romano 1B and OF
Hal Lanier SS
Jimmy Stewart CF
Deron Johnson 3b
John Kennedy 2b
Bill Freehan 1b
Bob Bailey SS
Carl Yaztrzemski 3b

1963 Use or Lose

Only listing players who have any “significant” (meaning not complete garbage) usage left in future seasons……with our new usage rules, we did quite well….only a few:

Name Team P AVG PA PA Usage
Frank Kostro Frankfort Frigates 3b .290 168 64 38
George Alusik Raleigh Tarheels rf .200 252 29 12
Leo Burke Raleigh Tarheels 2b .000 108 2 2
Joey Amalfitano Raleigh Tarheels 2b .500 153 2 1
Jim Piersall New York Mets cf .000 304 1 0

Name Team P ERA BF-RL BF-DMB Usage
Jack Spring* Houston Colt 45's mr 3.05 160 22 14

The players above will now be included in the 1965 Rookie Draft.

Well done,

1964 Lottery results

The results of the (4) team lottery was: 5--2--7

The Luck of the Irish was certainly with Ron Peterson tonight! With only 2 in 10 chances of getting the top pick, and he got it! Congrats Ron! Toledo and Asbury remained in slot 2 and 4 respectively and the luck ran out for the Bullies, who fall from 1 to 3 (Still will be a great player there for you Chris!)

1. Fairfax Grays (Ron Peterson)
2. Toledo Rockets (Mike Murphy)
3. Boulder Run Bullies (Chris Longo)
4. Asbury Argonauts (Steve Brunner)-

1963 Post-Season prognosis

Thanks to John Ungashick who made quick work on his 1963 Post-season lookback at his predictions. Thanks John!

1963 Pre-Season prognosis

Thanks to John Ungachick for penning this year's 1963 Pre-Season Prognosis. Always a great read!

Universal DH coming in 1964

As it seems that an overwhelming majority of the league supports this change, we will officially adopt it beginning with the 1964 season (Next year). With this, all post expansion era SPB leagues after 1961 will now use the universal DH beginning next season (1964). By waiting until next season to start this, all teams will have a full offseason and draft to prepare for this change.

It’s interesting hearing from many of who, who, I’ve known over the years really haven’t liked the DH, that now support it (at least in SPB). When you think about it, when we moved from playing 2 teams down to 4 teams down in 1961, we basically went from leaving 16 Full time hitters unemployed, to 32 Full-time hitters unemployed. That not even including the additional 5% we give, so that number is actually likely higher than 32.

This greatly reduced the value of these extra PA’s and a teams ability to move the lesser players like this for draft choices. It also reduced the chance to play favorites potentially (unless you are Dave Lauer), or you saw players only playing for 50% of the time so teams wouldn’t lose them to use or lose. This should help to correct that.

As some of you also discussed with me, having the DH will also ease the pain of players who might undergo positional changes (ex. Pete Rose, Rico Petrocelli, etc) and give owner a change to keep players they like, instead of possibly needs to trade them because they have 2 players in one spot.

One or two of you discussed the reduction of strategy (along with bunting and such) and I get that a little, but as weak as some of these players hitting gets in the mid to late 60’s, especially at SS and 2b, there should be no shortage of opportunities to play small ball still should you wish to do so. And….if you have pitchers that can hit, you can still use them to DH and pinch hot as well if you like.

Lastly, as said before, the mid to late 60’s was basically a modern dead ball era for many (maybe not quite that bad, but it was pretty bad). Adding the DH should help balance this out a little, although I still think we’ll see pitching dominate, as even though the extra hitter will be better than pitchers hitting, the quality of the pitching, especially playing down 4 teams, will likely still dominate. Again, this should just help to bring a little more balance to that.

Above all else, just like we did with adding the Wild Card, so many of us have played through this era multiple times now, so while all of the above is important, we also want to keep things new and fun. This should add a little excitement to the Golden Era of baseball.

Everything else for now will remain the same, protected rosters will remain at 27 and usage at 105%. I’ll try to put together the rest of the draft order with all of the trades prior and in the past few day tomorrow and get that out to everyone.

1963 Draft Lottery results

The number was : 2-7-2

Congratulations to Ron Peterson and the Fairfax Grays on landing the top pick in a VERY GOOD top of the first round of the 1963 Rookie Draft

Fairfax Grays (Ron Peterson)- 69 Wins - (3 Chances)***
Boulder Ron Bullies (Chris Lingo) - 56 Wins (4 Chances)
Frankfort Frigates (Gary Plunkitt)- 72 Wins - (1 Chance)
Toledo Rockets (Mike Murphy) - 69 Wins (2 Chances)

Fairfax jumps Boulder Run, who only drops one slot, and Frankfort jumps Toledo by 1. All 4 of these picks are going to be amazing…..will be interesting to see who goes where. I’ll try to put together the rest of the draft order with all of the trades prior and in the past few day tomorrow and get that out to everyone.

1962 Pre-Season Prognosis Comparison

Each season John Ungashick compares his pre season predictions to what actually happened. You can see his comparisons HERE.

1962 Pre-Season Prognosis

A must-read each season, the SPB60-1962 Pre-Season prognosis is the primer to read before the 62 campaign begins. Congrat John on another great article!

Wild Card teams coming to SPB-60!

Now that expansion is completed, and we are a full 16 team league, it is time be make the announcement about an important change to our post season.

Since SPB-60 begun 14 years ago, we have only had pennant winners, 1 in the AL and one in the NL. That changes beginning in 1962.

Starting this year, each 8 team league will also have (2) Wild Card Teams in addition to a League Winner. The winner of the league will get a 1st Round Bye, going straight to the LCS, while the (2) wild card teams will play for the right to play that League Winner.

So instead of only 2 teams making the post season (World Series), now 6 will make it.

Once again, this will allow for more teams to have a chance at a SPB Title, with more teams making move to try to win, and hopefully generate much more excitement to our seasons and weekly play.

Tweak in drafting procedures

I was not happy at all at how the Phase 2 draft went. It was long, clunky, and completely botched by me from the beginning, from only doing a 5 round live draft, to the Google Spread Sheet issues and then the pivot to timed emails. Just a mess. I am sorry.

So…..moving forward, IN BOTH SPB-60 and SPB-2, I am making a minor adjustment to the way we do the Phase 2.

Phase 2 is a lot different now then the old phase 2. Instead of roster cuts down to 19-20-21, each team is protecting 27 then we go through a full 6 round draft and the quality of the Phase 2 as it exists now is nowhere near what it once was. Taking 3 days via email to draft such low quality players, really just meant to fill out rosters……in my opinion is not a good use of my time, or yours…..so……

From here forward, it will work like this:
Each team will cut to 27 players as usual prior to the rookie draft
We will go with our normal 6 Round Draft Live. No google spread sheets. (I’m sure they work great in other leagues, they just aren’t for me just yet)

Here is where the change comes in:
We are going back to the old way we used to do Phase 2, where each team, from worst to best, drafts 3 players each, just once. No 3 separate rounds, but supplementary round. One Round, 3 picks each, worst to first. And it will be done via email with NO timed picks. IF anyone ends up over or under 36 players after this, they will just release players or pick up player to get to 36 on a first come first served basis. So once you pick the 3 players you want, you are done. This gets us back a little closer to the old way we used to do Phase 2, where the lesser teams get first crack at filling holes. Now, since you’ll have 6 rounds of picks prior to it to take guys, I doubt this will be much of an issue, but it will make this Phase 2 much smoother for you, and more importantly, much smoother for me. Thanks for your understanding.

New Statistician

I am excited to announce that we have had a volunteer that has stepped to the plate to assist me in the running of SPB-60. My long-time friend Dave Lauer will be assuming the role of league statistician and League President, effective immediately, which also means that he will now be the 11th member of our rules committee! Welcome Dave!

I am so very grateful for him to step into this roll and can not thank him enough for volunteering for this job.

So what does this mean?

Basically, once the season begins, ALL MP changes and Results Files will be sent to Dave Lauer for SPB-60, in which he will take over compiling and sending out results and playball files each week. He will also be processing trades (you will still need to copy me though) and free agent claims (once the season begins). He will have the honor of choosing players and pitchers of the week, and doing any league write-ups. He will also simulate games when needed. We’ll be doing some training with him when he has some breaks from Taxes. The good news is that this league happens mostly while tax season is quiet, so Trader Dave will have some free time for us all!

I am confident that Dave is going to do a great job at this, and put his own unique spin on it as well. I will remain as league commissioner, and continue to handle all other league functions (databases, off season trades, drafting, etc etc), but once the season begins, Dave will take the wheel for me, so that I can enjoy just being a manager again just a little.

Thank you my old friend and Pops! I hope that you stepping into this role will help to keep me in and enjoying SPB once again.

1962 Draft date and notes

Pretty obvious based on almost all the of the responses I have gotten that Saturday March 12 is a very clear date that we need to have the 1962 Rookie Draft. Many could not make the 5th at all, and a few of you couldn’t make the two late days in the month, so the 12th it will be (Clocks don’t jump forward until that evening, so you wont be too tired).

Since we are just over 5 weeks away from this date, I will now issue the call for your 27 player protected rosters (only carded players count towards this number). The two expansion teams may protect 32 (just for this season).

The Cutdown/Trade Deadline will be Friday February 25th at 8pm est, 5pm PST, so please send me your MP with unprotected players farmed, and go ahead and leave your uncarded players farmed as well. Only Protected carded players should be active and also please provide me with the list of your protected players in your email to me as backup. You won’t get the players you cut back, as they will move into the Rookie and Phase 2 Drafts. This gives you 3 more weeks to make roster moves and draft pick trading. Trading will re-open once the draft kicks off, and is encouraged!

As for the Rookie Draft, I need to hash it out with John, but since this will be our first time using Zoom for a full draft, we may only do 4 or 5 rounds live, then switch to an all email draft for the rookies and phase 2 using Google Docs. More on this over the next few weeks.

1962 Important change

Now that expansion is completed, and we are a full 16 team league, it is time be make the announcement about an important change to our post season.

Since SPB-60 begun 14 years ago, we have only had pennant winners, 1 in the AL and one in the NL. That changes beginning in 1962.

Starting this year, each 8 team league will also have (2) Wild Card Teams in addition to a League Winner. The winner of the league will get a 1st Round Bye, going straight to the LCS, while the (2) wild card teams will play for the right to play that League Winner.

So instead of only 2 teams making the post season (World Series), now 6 will make it.

Once again, this will allow for more teams to have a chance at a SPB Title, with more teams making move to try to win, and hopefully generate much more excitement to our seasons and weekly play.

1962 Expansion Draft results

Guys: In the DRAFT CENTRAL area you will see a link for the expansion results. Thanks to everyone who participated. A great time was had by all!

1962 Expansion Draft rules

In a few short weeks our two expansion teams will have players! In preparation for that the expansion draft list has been given to the two managers. Also, click HERE for the full set of rules on how draft day will go.