1916 Season Recap — Northern League
Payson stays at the top, Jerome breaks through
The Payson Longhorns must like the view from above. The 'Horns won their fourth regular season championship in the past seven years and advanced to the AZL post-season for the fifth-straight year.
Actually, if you look at the team's Pyt. Record, Payson underachieved pretty mightily. But the Longhorns still had the best record in baseball this season, winning 97 games and taking the Northern League title rather comfortably.
Pitching ruled in Payson. The team was first pitching ERA (2.82), runs allowed (553), home runs allowed (just 26) and opponents' average (.220). The ace of the staff,
Charley Hall, went 25-13 with a 2.19 ERA. He finished strong, going 6-0 in September with an ERA around 1.80. Sounds like a Top Hurler candidate to me. The past three year, Hall is 74-41 with season ERAs of 2.39, 2.06 and 2.19. Nice...
But the Horns had other aces as well. The No. 2 man,
Bill Burns, went 25-15 with a 2.51 ERA.
Tex Pruiett, the No. 3 guy, was 21-13 with a 2.83 ERA. There's the magic formula to put yourself in the championship picture — three 20-game winners. For good measure
Ed Reulbach added 18 wins (though he lost 18).
All-star centerfielder
Tris Speaker carried the most consistent bat of the season, batting .344 (tops in the Northern League) with 73 RBIs. His OPS was .956 (also best in the NL). The reigning Big Stick Award winner may hold on to his title for another year.
LF
Guy Zinn was the top run-producer, driving home 101 with a .310 average. 1B
Jake Daubert batted .285 with 94 RBIs. The beat goes on in Payson...
The Jerome Copper Miners are a different story. The Miners advanced to the playoffs just twice in their first 15 years, and this year will be their third trip. The team finished fourth in the division five times in the past seven years (taking second one other year and seventh in the other). So, this is big news that the team, which rose out of a middling group of teams, is back in the playoffs.
First-round draft pick
Art Nehf did his part, going 16-16 as the No. 2 man in the rotation. Top-flight starter
Bert Humphries was 23-15.
Bill Doak also won 16 games.
Interestingly, Jerome had only the 12th best batting average in the AZL this season. Like Payson, they used the formula of good defense + good pitching = great record, earning 30 victories in one-run games. Or maybe players were inspired by the new logo the team unveiled for 1916
The top hitter for Jerome this season among the regulars was
Butch "Butcher Boy" Smith, who batted .294 and drove home 84 runs. He had a six-RBI game against Cottonwood in September and made it to the All-Star Game. Catcher
Tommy Clark was one of the NL leaders in on-base percentage. This was basically a team that just gutted out wins time and again without superstars.
Conventional wisdom says Payson should role through the Divisional Series and whip up on the Miners. But crazier things have happened in recent years...
Sedona actually challenged this season, while Flagstaff dropped way back after appearing in last year's Cactus Champions Cup series. As usual Kayenta didn't challenge at all. Prescott fans are discouraged by missing out on the post-season again. Guess they weren't inspired by their new logo...
Here are the final NL standings for 1916:
Code:
Team W L PCT GB Pyt.Rec Diff Home Away XInn 1Run M# Streak Last10
Payson 97 65 .599 - 106-56 -9 47-34 50-31 7-9 24-25 * W1 6-4
Jerome 85 77 .525 12.0 85-77 0 44-37 41-40 8-6 30-24 - L1 6-4
Cottonwood 82 80 .506 15.0 74-88 8 39-42 43-38 6-5 26-16 - L1 6-4
Sedona 81 81 .500 16.0 82-80 -1 38-43 43-38 7-8 24-28 - W6 7-3
Prescott 80 82 .494 17.0 79-83 1 36-45 44-37 11-8 27-29 - L6 1-9
Grand Canyon 77 85 .475 20.0 76-86 1 40-41 37-44 8-4 22-23 - W1 6-4
Flagstaff 76 86 .469 21.0 80-82 -4 37-44 39-42 6-5 19-21 - W2 5-5
Kayenta 70 92 .432 27.0 69-93 1 36-45 34-47 5-13 22-28 - L2 3-7