1993 Divergent League Update Week 10 is now available!
Welcome to flavor country, folks, it’s time for the Division Series. Tonight at 5:45pm PDT (one hour early) we’ll be watching Games 1 of Expos .vs. Braves and Giants .vs. Cardinals.
Tag: 1993
Congratulations to the Toronto Blue Jays for defeating the Detroit Tigers 1-0 in the AL Wild Card, thanks in part of a stellar complete game by Dwight Gooden who the acquired as part of a blockbuster trade earlier in the season.
They Blue Jays will go on to face the Braves in one of our NLDS matchups.
Congratulations to the Montreal Expos for winning the NL Wild Card against the once seemingly-invulnerable Philadelphia Phillies. Moises Alou drove in the lone RBI in the 1-0 victory, with Montral’s Ken Hill pitching a complete game shutout on the strength of 10 strikeouts.
The AL Wild Card game of Tigers .vs. Blue Jays will broadcast tomorrow, March 17th, at 7:15pm PDT following AEW Dynamite on https://twitch.tv/extrafuture
Welcome to our 5th Divergent League Baseball Postseason, folks! This season we’ll be doing things a bit differently, with 2 games being broadcast each Tuesday and Friday night starting at 6:45pm PDT.
Tuesday’s games will be our Wild Card matches: Expos .vs. Phillies and Tigers .vs. Blue Jays.
Update: We ended up doing just one game and pushing the other to Wednesday. Weds at 7:15pm we’ll broadcast Jays .vs. Tigers!
The Commish will be holding office hours in Discord during the games, we hope you’ll drop in to root root root for the home team.
The official calendar has been updated with the new days and times.
You can find the 1993 Postseason Bracket in the previous post. Gold Glove and Silver Slugger awards coming to this post soon.
Transcript:
Howdy folks it’s Friday, March 12th 2021 but in Divergent League we are all the way back on September 30th, that’s right, it’s postseason time and today the Commish has your inside scoop on our playoff matchups.
But first let’s start this episode off right- with The Dingers!
This season’s home run king is Frank Thomas followed by Mark McGwire for the Mets. The Big Hurt led the bigs with 52 home runs, and Big Mac came in second with 47.
That is far from the last time you’re going to hear Frank Thomas’ name in this episode.
On the mound, the 1993 Cy Young Award winners are in- The American League winner is Randy Johnson for the Mariners, and in the NL Atlanta’s John Smoltz took the crown. Smoltz finished the season with a record of 17-7, 215 strike outs, and an ERA of 1.92. The Big Unit went 17-10 for the Ms with an ERA of 3.91 and his 268 strike outs led the majors.
Relievers of the year were Boston’s Jeff Russell and Philadelphia’s David West. West had an absurd 54 saves and a 1.60 ERA for the Phils.
Wade Boggs edged out Yankees Teammate Kirby Puckett for the AL Batting Title, finishing with a .365. In the National League the honors go to John Kruk, who batted .328 for the Phillies.
And now for the Most Valuable Players in each league. Congratulations to the White Sox Frank Thomas, and the Mets Mark McGwire on being the MVPs of their respective leagues. Thomas had 136 RBIs for the southsiders, with a .329 batting average. McGwire batted .312 with 121 RBIs for the last-place Mets.
You can find the Gold Glove and Silver Slugger winners on divergentleague.com
Taking a look at the playoff bracket, the Orioles and Astros will face off in one half of the ALDS, both CPU-controlled teams. In the AL Wild Card we’ll see the Blue Jays and Tigers face off with the winner going on to face the White Sox in the other Division Series.
On the National League side, the SF Giants and St. Lous Cardinals will face off in one NLDS matchup, with the Expos and Phillies facing off in the Wild Card. The winner will go on to face the Braves in the other NL Divisional Series.
You can catch the first games of each series, and the elimination games for all human-controlled teams streamed live on Twitch.
That’s all we have time for this week, folks! Join us this Sunday for our first Playoff games. I’m the Commish, and we’ll see you next time.
After the Blue Jays dramatic win over the Royals, we’ve got our Postseason picture. Congratulations to the Jays, Tigers, White Sox, Giants, Expos and Braves.
Matchups are as follows:
- Orioles .vs. Astros
- Blue Jays .vs. Tigers
- Winner goes on to face the White Sox
- Giants .vs. Cardinals
- Expos .vs. Phillies
- Winner goes on to face the Braves
This season has 3 non-player-teams: The Orioles, Astros, and Cardinals.
Divergent League Postseason coverage starts this Sunday at 4pm PST.
You can find the transcript on the episode page. Big Doings in the Al East, plus the Postseason teams are (mostly) announced.
Transcript:
Howdy folks, it’s Divergent League Update for March 5th 2021, but in Divergent League we’re all the way back on September 28th, 1993.
Well, with regards to the regular season it’s all over the but the crying… for everyone except the Orioles and Blue Jays, who are all tied up at the end of regulation. We’ll need a tiebreaker to see who wins the AL East. More on that in a moment.
But first, as is tradition, here come the dingers!
We’ve got our Home Run King for 1993, and he is the Big Hurt. Frank Thomas finished the regular season with 52 home runs, 5 more than runner-up Mark McGwire’s 47. Also in the running were Fred McGriff with 43, Barry Bonds with 38 and Mo Vaughn with 36.
Thomas also led the bigs on Ribbies this season, with a total of 136. White Sox teammate Tim Raines is in second place with 124.
Both guys are top of the chart for MVP honors in the AL, with McGwire and Bonds leading in the NL.
Sticking with the stats, Wade Boggs will end this season with our highest batting average at a strong .365, with teammate Kirby Puckett coming in on his heels at .343. Pucket also led the league hits with 224.
Over in the NL, the Phillies John Kruk took the crown with a .328 average, edging out rookie Mike Piazza’s .323. Cal Rip’s 184 hits leads that league, with Butler and Piazza coming in at 182.
Puckett’s 49 doubles was enough to lead everyone in the majors this season, with the Angels Chad Curtis coming in 2nd at 46. Tim Raines lead the AL in Triples with 15.
The Expos Marquis Grissom lead the NL in both Doubles with 44 and Triples with 16.
Continuing with the White Sox dominance, The Bug Hurt and Rock Raines led the league in runs, too, with 119 for Thomas and 106 for Raines. The Lenny Dykstra and Barry Bonds led the NL with 115 and 109.
Those Angels Curtis and Polonia won out in the Stolen Base category, with the Blue Jays Rickey Henderson coming in third with 44. Nails took the NL crown for the Phillies, and Grissom came in third over there with 37.
Bonds and Thomas were both walked over 100 times this year and lead their leagues.
Taking a look at the pitchers, we continue our theme of White Sox dominance with Jack McDowall leading the AL and Orel Hershiser leading the NL both with 18 wins.
Atlanta’s Greg McMichael has 56 saves with Philadelphia’s David West and the Expos John Wetteland also passing there 50 save mark. Gregg Olson led the AL with 51 for the Orioles, Roberto Hernandez came in second with 47.
In the National League Earned Run Average category, Andy Benes finished with a 1.90 ERA, John Smoltz with 1.92, and Bret Sberhgen with 1.93.
The Texas Rangers Kevin Brown finished the season with a 1.97 ERA to lead the AL, just a few points ahead of Jack McDowall and Mike Mussina.
Chuck Finley threw 9 shutouts for the Angels, 3 more than the White Sox Alex Fernandez in 2nd place. Saberhagen and Smoltz led the NL with 6 and 5.
Unsurprisingly Randy Johnson ends the season 268 strikeouts, leading the AL and the Bigs, ahead of McDowell with 221. John Smoltz and Jose Rijo battled in the NL, with Smoltz taking the crown at 215.
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And now the standings! We start out there with a mystery: Who will win the AL East?
The Blue Jays an Orioles ended the regular season with identical 88-74 records. They’ll face-off in a 1-game playoff tonight for all the marbles. The Yankees ended the season at 79-83, and did not quality for the postseason despite a strong finish.
In the AL Central the White Sox and Tigers are both heading to the postseason, with the Sox winning the division at 98 and 64. The Royals came in third.
In the West, the CPU-controlled Astros took the division beating out the 2nd place Rangers by 8 games. The Mariners finished 4th.
As for the AL Wild Card, the Tigers are in but we’ve got a three-way tie for the 2nd Wild Card spot! The Royals, Blue Jays , and Orioles are all set at 88-74. Tonight’s Orioles / Blue Jays game will settle the score there.
Onto the National League, the Braves went on a huge streak at the end of the season, unseating the Phillies from first place, but not depriving them of a Wild Card spot. Likewise, the Expos are in for the NL Wild Card too.
The Cardinals took the NL Central in a walk, after a 1-9 season-ending collapse by the Cubs. The Reds finished last.
A-way out west, the Giants beat out The Dodgers by 4 games.
—
It’s been a long season, and the easy part is almost over. From here on out, every game counts. We’ll se you this evening for the Jays / Orioles tiebreaker, and on our continued schedule for the most consequential playoff games.
I’m the Commish and I’ll see you next week.
Today’s games will be from early August and feature some combination of:
- Expos (8GB in NLE) @ Braves (2.5GB in NLE)
- Braves won 5-1
Royals (6GB in ALC) @ Giants (7 game lead in NLW)Cubs (7GB NLC) .vs. Reds (15.5GB NLC)- Tigers (4.5GB ALC) .vs. Blue Jays (8.5GB ALE)
- Jays won
Catch Phil’s curated 30-minute pre-roll of commercials and trailers from 1993 on https://twitch.tv/extrafuture