The Golden Age of Baseball (GABL) is a historical online league entering our 5th season (1981) We sim using the OOTP5 game engine. The Detroit Tigers have recently opened up as we head into the 81 season. The Tigers are the 2nd winningest franchise in league history, trailing the Red Sox by 1 win in 4 seasons. The Tigers are the defending American League Champions, having lost the WS to the Montreal Expos in 1980. They return nearly everyone from a dominant team that ran away with the AL East. They have likely the best pitching in all of GABL trotting out 4 starters that won at least 18 games last year:
Wayne Garland:27-8;2.58 ERA
Fernando Arroyo:20-12;3.36 ERA
Dave Rozema:19-6;3.43 ERA
Mark Fidrych:18-10;3.18 ERA
They have the most dominant closer in the game, Bruce Sutter, who only allowed 2ER's last year in 51 IP while netting 38 saves with a 0.33 ERA.
Their offense is stacked as well:
C-John Wockenfuss .302/31/95
1B-Jason Thompson 30 HRs
2B-Bill Madlock .322
3B-Darryl Evans 20HR's
SS-Alan Trammell .338/11/15
OF-Jose Cruz .328/16/30
OF-Ron Leflore .291/7/44
OF-Reggie Smith .282/17/76
DH-Don Baylor 25 HR's
they have some decent young prospects as well including 23 year old Lou Whitaker who has played as a reserve the last year or so at 2B. 1B-Greg Brock, C-Tony Pena, 1981 first round draft choice SP-Bob Tewksbury and SP-Rick Mahler highlight the bunch. It's not a REAL highly rated group, but DET hasn't had any high draft choices since we've started.
This is a team that should contend for the AL pennant again. Financially they don't have a lot of cash to take on any players, but they are on pace to be cash flow positive. In GABL we do a few things a little differently than other historical sims. We create the real life ammy's the year they were drafted rather than import them the year they appeared in the majors, thereby making some development necessary and more closely mimicking real life. We sim on a 7/8/7 schedule on M/W/F. You MUST own OOTP5. We are just finishing the 81 ammy draft and offseason FA. We will be simming Spring Training on Monday and hopefully starting the season on Wednesday assuming we fill the Tigers. This league has a great core of owners who are probably a little older than many leagues as a rule. Sims are never missed. We use CATO to track our league history.
You can view the league at
www.goldenageofbaseball.com
and you can contact me with interest at either
mandersen@gotucson.com or IM me at AndersenMat.
Thanks for looking!